Social contruction of gender

Social construction of gender

The survival of the fittest

Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903

When waking up in the morning you find yourself being an opposite sex member like in one old good Hollywood comedy movie of the mid-ninetieth than what will be yours reaction ? Most of the things remain unchanged for you like listening to the same music , eating the same food , going to the same restaurants . But some of the other things will radically change , and here comes the question about social status of either men or women

It

is not a secret that you can find men and women in almost all class families yet , the average figures show that women have less income wealth and occupational prestige than the men do . Furthermore , the households headed by women are more likely to be up to three times poorer than those headed by the men

And that is where the issue of `gender ' appears . You might not get a top position because of the gender qualities , you may be oppressed or harassed and we may continue calculating such things for both genders for a while . In that essay we will discuss the gender role stratification that lead males and females to act accordingly the expectations of gender differences and elaborate on the division of labor by gender into job assignments and organization which can sometimes be far from neutral in its effect on women whether its money or prestige

So , what is `gender ? People increasingly use the word gender to refer to the physically related categories , sociologists define gender as the social system . Broader speaking , the gender system is a system of meaning and differentiation , linked to the sexes through social arrangements . Social construction of gender plays a great role as it refers to the social practice of perceiving and defining aspects of people and situations inconsistently , to force our observations to fit our social beliefs

Gender relations have existed since the time of appearance of the first prehistoric societies whether it was patriarchy or matriarchy Nonetheless , the situation with gender has rapidly changed in the past century or so . But the major changes appeared to be (as usual ) in changing of women opportunities that vary from gaining the right to vote in 1920 's and in 1960 's and also to enter a variety of occupations their outfit has also changed as they were allowed to wear suits , pants etc . When it comes to the men they were given greater responsibilities in childcare , as well as housework and they have been endangered to be accused of sexual harassment even when asking a woman for a date

Sociologists argue that opportunity structures , patterns of easier access to some positions than to others , exist before a person enters the labor market . When someone estimates his or her possibilities in one or another way that person usually ignores positions that as a rule were dominated mostly by one or another sex (such as secretaries or mechanics , thus some exceptions can be...