Social Construction Of Gender Analysis

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Life would be much easier if a road sign could tell us everything we needed to know about our future paths. Where are we going? How are we going to get there? Are we even on the right path? However, simplicity is truly the ultimate sophistication. Much in the same way as road signs, current definitions of gender when standing alone are wholly inadequate. Definitions in a static context only serve to hinder progress. Throughout history, society and culture have created gender roles and these roles have been prescribed as ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that specific gender. This social construction of an exclusive binary gender system that only includes males and females has created incorrect perceptions of the definition of gender …show more content…
All three commonly start their introductions with a few sentences about essentially an enlightening moment, where they all suddenly realized how society had confined the definition of gender into unsuitable dichotomization. Even after trying to redefine gender, all three still struggle to find a perfectly suitable definition. Lorber came across this with a father holding a baby on the subway, Ward after stumbling across the first personal ad she read on Casual Encounters on Craigslist, and Bornstein when she tried to establish comprehensive definitions for gender only to find out all of them lacked various necessary aspects. This is a very powerful opening that all three articles share, as it shows that society ingrains a false perception in our head at youth, and that we are in need of correction. We are born blindly following these signs, going further and further in the wrong direction. According to Lorber, gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes. (Lorber 1) It has become so much of a routine ground for everyday activities that society unfortunately glosses over its poorly framed …show more content…
She hits the nail on the head by asserting that we are uncomfortable until we have successfully placed the other person in a gender status; otherwise we feel socially dislocated. (Lorber 2) Gender has become a foundational pillar of how human beings organize their lives. We depend upon a predictable gender division, one that simplifies our understanding of others who are in reality much more complex than any binary system can articulate. By allowing these limiting definitions to become such a familiar part of daily life we have brought these misconceptions upon ourselves. Gender construction begins at birth with assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. I believe that definitions alone without continuous dialogues about gender will never be suitable, but it should be unanimously undebatable that this form of gender construction at birth is
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