WMNS 1103 Lecture 18: The Social Construction of Gender

• School: Northeastern University
• Department: Women's/Gender/Sexualty Stdies
• Course: WMNS 1103
• Professor: Moya Bailey

Document Summary

A sex category becomes a gender through naming, dress and the use of other gender markers. As a social institution, gender is one of the major ways humans organize themselves. Humans depend on a predictable division of labor, a designated allocation of scarce goods, assigned responsibility for children and others who can"t take care of themselves, common values, legitimate leadership, etc. One way of choosing people for these tasks is through attributes like gender, race, etc. Western society"s values legitimate gendering by attributing it all to physiology but gender as a social construction does not automatically flow from genitalia and reproductive organs. The building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses. The social institution of gender depends on the production and maintenance of a limited number of gender statuses and of making the members of these statuses similar to each other. Individuals are born sexed but not gendered, and they have to be taught to be masculine or feminine.