Social Construction and Gender

pinebark:

Sometime I’d really like to write a full piece on social construction, because the term gets thrown around a lot (both by opponents and proponents) in often very sloppy ways. For now, here’s a little about how I interpret the notion of social construction with regards to gender. I don’t claim to speak for anyone except myself — my interpretations of other authors are necessarily my own.

• It doesn’t imply voluntarism. This is a pretty common misconception. The argument runs, for example, that gender is a social construction, so anyone can adopt any gender at any time! This is something of an oversimplified interpretation that is not supported by many folks writing about social constructionist theory. For example, prominent theorist Judith Butler argues that gender is constructed, but that subjects are constructed within the framework of this construction itself. There is no subject prior to construction, so it doesn’t follow that construction is an individually-motivated act.
• It doesn’t mean that something isn’t “real,” meaningful, or important. Sometimes people take constructionism as a direct attack — e.g. “my gender isn’t constructed!” This is probably because the person promoting constructionism is doing so in a very simplistic way that implies that gender, as a construction, is frivolous or fake. Identity systems are socially constructed in that they are built up through human processes of language and meaning-making. This doesn’t contradict anyone’s right to identify however they choose and to be the authority on their identity.
• It doesn’t imply an etiological argument about gender variance. It’s not saying that “socialization” is the cause of gender identity. It’s saying that the notion of gender (or sexuality) itself is a historically-specific, human-created system of meaning. Constructionist arguments generally oppose transhistorical invocations about the existence of LGBTQ folks across all times and places, because those labels did not and do not exist everywhere. Surely there has always been gender variance and same-sex sexual activity, but to subsume all of those who participated in these phenomena into modern identity labels is to naturalize and universalize concepts that are distinctly modern (and western).
• Finally, and this is probably my most controversial argument, the distinction between “biological” and “social” aspects of gender is itself a construction. Sex (here used to mean “biological gender”) is constructed in that particular aspects of bodies (e.g. hormones, genitals, secondary characteristics) are awarded status as determinants of sex while others are not.

(via mickyalexandria)

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   This makes it sound like the only thing...goes wrong with “social

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    These are all good points, and they drive me towards other questions, like: 1) Where does agency play out in relation to...

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    thank you for saving judith butler from everyone ever

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    real. I like this idea. And it also legitimizes me identifying...an androgyne. I exist...

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    too’ and this explains...concisely. I would also add that it

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    YES. A lot of discussions of the “social construction” of gender a) misunderstand the term, and b) end up re-creating...

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50. fagglet reblogged this from pinebark and added:

    great! So often “gender...construct” gets thrown around

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