Social gender construction in the West and Africa including its influence on the growth of African and Western feminisms.
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Course
AFS2100F (AFS2100F)
Institution
University Of Cape Town (UCT)
Gender is a fundamental feature of all cultures, and gender roles, behaviours, and expectations that are socially constructed. The social construction of gender is a theory that holds that people essentially decide an individual's gender based on characteristics in their environment. The social con...
Social gender construction in the West and Africa, and its influence on the growth of Western
and African feminisms.
Gender is a fundamental feature of all cultures, and gender roles, behaviours, and expectations that
are socially constructed. The social construction of gender is a theory that holds that people decide
an individual's gender based on characteristics in their environment. Social construction of gender,
according to my point of view, occurs when sociological circumstances around an individual are
being used by, including within society to evaluate and define their gender characteristics. To
address questions as to whether gender is a socially created concept, we must first recognize that
additional research is required to fully comprehend society's effects on gender. The answer is
probably yes and no without further investigation. Because society is not universal, it varies by
culture and race. This paper aims to show how gender is constructed to truly comprehend how
gender norms affect our lives. In addition, I will address gender construction, with an emphasis on
Western and African gender constructions, how gender is tied to feminism, and how African and
Western feminisms are linked. Finally, I will summarize the studies presented here and address the
contemporary implications of gender role creation.
The social construction of female and male divisions is known as gender. An excellent illustration of
social gender construction is the idea that all men are brave and powerful, meanwhile almost
all women are cowardly and physically weak. Biological differences between women and men are
referred to as sex. The anatomy of the human body is an illustration of a biological distinction.
Women “usually” do not have beards, have softer voices, and are less muscular than men. Men have
beards, muscular physique, and deeper voices (Connel,2009). Gender, unlike sex, is imposed
artificially, even though it is based on biological differences of women and men, it also is created by
the society individuals grow up in. The roles of gender, its attached expected behaviors, and
attitudes, are socially constructed in societies and maintained through social norms. One odd part
regarding gender is the fact that we are conditioned to think and left with the impression that we are
conceived with it. Society develops and absorbs gender, as Aaron Devor (1993) articulates in his
ground-breaking and extremely educational paper, "Gender Role, Behaviour, and Attitudes,".
Individuals, instead of just being recipients (which are passive) of societal standards on how
human behaviors should be, have a key role in the construction and formulation of gender norms, as
members of a society (Devor, 1993). In his succinct description of gender construction, Aaron Devor
(1993) explores the socially generated component of gender in contemporary culture and
convincingly advocates for a gender-neutral society and re-evaluation of heteronormative
assumptions in modern society. He convincingly demonstrates that gender hierarchy exists in our
societies and acknowledges the assumption that people think of gender norms as natural to dispel
, gender and sex myths and misconceptions (Devor, 1993). He contends that gender norms are socially
generated rather than inherent, and there is no genetic justification for gender norms naturalness.
Society is built on an entrenched patriarchal gender hierarchy, with women and men at opposing
ends of the scale as dichotomous gender players (Oyewumi, 2004). Devor says that an imbalance of
power is underlying our society's gender hierarchy and shapes gender perceptions since we are
taught from an early age that gender disparities are natural and normal (Devor, 1993). Without
initially understanding our society's widespread patriarchal framework, it is difficult to explain the
emergence of gender norms across most countries today. Patriarchy is a non-universal phenomenon.
A civilization with women leadership (matriarchy), has been documented in
diverse places like Africa and India (Amadiume, 1997). Notwithstanding its worldwide reach,
modern society is defined by its patriarchal foundation, which has far-reaching implications in a
wide range of social sectors. Social stratification can be explained by the gender hierarchy and,
women are overrepresented in jobs such as teaching, nursing, and librarianship, which pay poorly
and have little reputation. These jobs, according to Devor, are based primarily on the very same
characteristics that are considered innate in women (Devor, 1993). Gender role constraints are
mostly a consequence of social factors resulting from systemic power inequities in our society and
these reinforce gender-based discrimination. Because of our culture's clear gender hierarchical
structure, femininity is regarded inferior whereas masculinity is considered superior (like in the
nuclear family, where the wife is subordinate to the husband), the social organization of gender
impacts behaviours, responsibilities, beliefs, and aspirations (Oyewumi, 2004). Because of gender
norms and codes imposed by society, it is incredibly difficult to shift our deeply embedded notions
towards gender.
The nuclear family is a single-family home arrangement in the West that consists of a male
(husband), a female (wife), and their children. It is patriarchal, with the husband as the head of the
household and the woman as his subordinate (Oyewumi, 2004). Nancy Chodorow (1978) suggested
that the nuclear family was a result of the changes brought about by industrial capitalism in Western
society. The separation of the home and the job resulted in a smaller family with only the
matrimonial spouse and their child living together. Individuals' emotional and psychological well-
being was entrusted to this smaller unit, which was segregated from the other social and productive
units (Chodorow, 1978). Mothering became the fundamental social and emotional activity of the
lives of women in nuclear families. In the West, this was the milieu in which child personality was
formed (Chodorow, 1978). Motherhood has no intrinsic worth apart from the mother's primary and
sexualized identity as the patriarch's wife. The mother's sexual relationships with her husband take
precedence over their children; she is much more of a wife than a mother.
This is the outcome of presuming that the mother looks like a wife to the child ("gendered relational
being"). Only in the context of an 'isolated nuclear family' can Chodorow's arguments concerning the
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