Gender as a Social Construction

Executive Summary:

This paper is an overview of how gender is socially constructed. It discusses how the biological basis to the differences between the sexes does not explain their lived differences and inequalities. The paper looks at the sex-gender distinction and the different explanations that have been given for the near universal inequality between men and women. A discussion on gender regimes in different domains of social life follows one on how religion and kinship shape particular constructions of gender. Finally the paper discusses how various dimensions of social stratification articulate with and construct gender.

The differences, inequalities and the division of labor between men and women are often simply treated as consequences of ‘natural’ differences between male and female humans. Such a view informs most commonsensical understandings of what it means to be a man or a woman in any society and has been intrinsic to worldviews prevailing across different societies throughout much of human history. The idea that natural differences between the sexes are the source of all that makes men and women distinct has also been deeply embedded in scientific discourses.

The sheer variability of the roles and relations of men and women across different societies and social groups presents itself as one of the fir st evidence against this crude biologically determinist view. If there is no constancy between how different societies expect men to be men and women to be women, then there must be something other than natural differences that underlie their makeup. Further, most of us have experienced incongruence between what is expected of our ‘sex’ and what we are. This mismatch between what ‘we are’ and what ‘we should be’ is another clear indicator that something more than natural differences are at stake in constituting us as men and women. That gender is a social construct is obvious from the fact that it has a variety of manifestations and that it has more to do with institutions than with individuals.

Because the naturalization of sex differences has been more detrimental for women than for men, these constructions have been more often questioned by women. Gender even became a key sociological concept owing to the impact of feminism. Thus, arguing that ‘anatomy is not destiny’ and that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’, Simone de Beauvoir questioned the assumptions behind such formulations in her feminist classic The Second Sex. De Beauvoir’s famous assertion is equally true for men. At least in the social sciences, there is now unanimity in accepting that distinctions between men and women are more social than natural. The conceptual distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ has sought to capture this view of the matter. It will be useful to have a brief overview of the intellectual trajectory of these and related concepts which have given a tremendous boost to a sociological understanding of one of the oldest forms of differentiation in human societies.

 Introduction:

The term “Gender as Social Construction” refers how gender is socially constructed and this term represents that the society and culture create the roles, and these roles are what is generally considered ideal or appropriate behavior for a person of that specific gender.

 Social constructions of gender determine attitudes about what men and women are capable of, how they should be have, what kinds of role models and images are presented for women and men, and who will occupy positions of power.

All social construction approaches adopt the view that physically identical gender and sex may have varying social significance and subjective meaning, depending on how they are defined and understood in different cultures and historical periods. Because a sexual act does not carry with it a universal social meaning, it follows that the relationship between sexual acts and sexual meanings is not fixed, and it is projected from the observer’s time and place at great peril.

Cultures provide widely different categories, schema, and labels for framing sexual and affective experiences. These constructions not only influence individual subjectivity and behaviour, but they also organize and give meaning to collective sexual experience through, for example, the impact of sexual identities, definitions, ideologies, and regulations. The relationship of sexual acts and identities to organized sexual communities is equally variable and complex.

 1. Understanding Gender:

1.1 Definition of Gender:

The modern English word “Gender” comes from the Middle English word ‘gendre’. It also comes from Latin word ‘Genus’ both of the words mean kind, type and sort. Gender is a grammatical term only to talk out of a person’s of masculine or feminine meaning of male or female sex is either a jocularity or blunder. Gender sociologically refers to social and cultural dimension or something that is often defined as biological fixed. Gender is not biological fixed al all but rather is culturally learned and is something that can often does change over time. Gender is a range of physical, mental and behavioral characteristics distinguish between masculinity and feminity.

Gender refers human traits linked by cultural to each sex. (Jhon Macionis , “Sociology” (1902).

According to FAO, “Gender is the relation between men and women both perceptual and martial. Gender is not determined biologically as a result of sexual characteristics of either women or men but it is constructed socially”.

 

1.2 Some Factors in Explaining Gender:

                                  I.        Gender Equity: Gender equity is about giving every individual, boy or girl, the same opportunities of access. Often mentioned in the education sector, the drive to put equal numbers of boys and girls into school is therefore referred to as achieving gender equity in education. Equity indicates distributions regarded as fair, even though equalities and inequalities may exist and persist. Equity approaches therefore can include programme for advancement of women within which systematic privileging of women may apply.

                               II.         Gender Equality: Gender equality is a distribution-oriented concept referring to uniformity between men and women: every person has the same rights and gets exactly the same access and opportunities. Gender Equality is the overarching aim of Gender and Development. It is embedded in human rights and is central for good governance. Gender equality as a goal is a key for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. It does not simply mean having equal numbers of men and women in development activities or treating them exactly the same. It implies that rights, benefits, opportunities and life chances for both women and men become and remain equality

                            III.           Gender mainstreaming: Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to achieve gender equality. In development work it means that development actors incorporate and address gender perspectives and gender equality as part of their goals in the way they work, in policies and programmes for all levels and stages of their actions and organizations.

          1.3 Basic concept of sex and Gender:

 When we consider how males and females differ, the first thing that usually comes to mind is sex, the biological characteristics that distinguish males and females. Sex refers to the biological characteristics by which we identify males and females. The Biological Sex continuum, shown on the top scale, includes external genitalia, internal reproductive structures, chromosomes, hormone levels, and secondary sex characteristics such as breasts, facial and body hair, voice, and body shape.

Everyone is born female or male. Biological and physiological conditions such as chromosomes, hormones, secondary sex characteristics and external and internal genitalia help us in calling 'a frying' as belonging to female sex or to a male sex. Only the sexual and reproductive organs are different to female sex or to a male sex. Only the sexual and reproductive organs are different and all other organs are the same.On the basis of gender study Margaret Mead (1935) stated that the western equation between masculinity and aggression on the one hand and femininity and nurturance on the other is but one among a number of possible permutations of traits which have no intrinsic relation with biological sex. Between them, the three non-western societies studied by Mead displayed other possible combinations of these variables.

The functionalist notion of ‘sex role’ was also a crude precursor of the concept of gender. It suggested that men and women are socialized into sex-specific roles, namely ‘instrumental’ and ‘expressive’. These roles were regarded as the basis of a complementary relation between men and women, which along with the sexual division of labor, contributed to a stable social order. Scholars have questioned the focus of this conceptualization upon ‘individual’ men and women who are socialized into sex- specific roles.

  Gender Role

Sex Role

Gender differs from society to society.

Sex is same in all societies they are universal such as it is only women who give birth to children all over the world.

Gender can Change with history.

Sex never changes with history.

Gender can be performed by both sexes.

Sex can be performed by only one of the sexes.

Gender is socially & culturally determined.

Sex is biologically determined.

They suggest that gender is something more than roles performed by men and women just as economy is something more than jobs performed by individuals (Lorber 1984). Critics have also pointed out that socialization is always a precarious achievement and that agency, interpretation and negotiation are a part and parcel of how gender identities are actually constituted.

 

1.4 Gender character of different domains of social life:

 

A question which presents itself at this stage is does gender manifest itself more often in some social domains than in others? Are there a set of ‘gender institutions’? In earlier writing on gender, family, kinship and the domestic sphere were somehow treated as the prime locations of gender relations. But in more recent times, social scientists have cautioned against such privileging of particular institutions in gauging the gendered character of society.

R.W.Connell (2002), for instance, warns against treating gender as a separate and isolated sphere of social life. He argues that gender permeates all aspects of social life and suggests it is not desirable to treat it as confined to particular spheres of social life. He uses the concept of ‘gender regimes’ to refer to ‘the state of play in gender relations’ in any social institution such as a school, a market, a workplace or even a street. Thus for example, a public street has a gender regime. How should boys and girls or men and women carry themselves in such places? With whom and how should they talk? Who can legitimately hang around where, for how long, in what dress pattern? Answers to these questions hinge on the gender constructions at play; they can vary significantly across different public locales and they may also change from day to night and from one occasion to another. Similarly, you can imagine that a adolescent get together or a college canteen also has a gender regime which may be significantly different from that of a family get-together or a public restaurant. It might be a useful exercise to try and identify such gender regimes in different sectors of one’s life (the public transport, the college, the road, the home, neighbourhood, family events, workplace, market, malls, cinema halls and so on).

 Connell also argues that there is nothing static about gender regimes nor anything singular about the direction in which they change. Thus it is perfectly possible that in certain spheres of social life, gender differences and inequalities are increasing rather than decreasing. This is a very crucial point to remember as it cautions us against the commonsensical assumption that the past was always more unequal than the present and that all change implies social progress.

 2. Understanding Social Construction:

  2.1 Definition of Social Construction:

 The social construction of meaning applies to various values, norms and beliefs that are created by the dominant economic and most powerful groups. These values, norms and beliefs are perpetuated and reinforced by social institutions like the workplace, the media, education, religion and others. These values, norms and beliefs primarily dictate access to upward mobility as well as shaping identity, personality, and gender roles. Gender roles and norms often result as the outcome of a socialization process based on the dominant values, norms and beliefs of society. From birth on, infants of both sexes are conditioned by parental and other adult responses to behave, think, act, and interact in gender-specific role manifestations. This analysis will explore the social construction of gender to show how men and women are often "assigned" certain traits and attributes that may or may not be limiting to their development. The basic assumptions of social constructions:

       i.           There are many examples of the different traits and attributes that males and females are socialized to accept as their own in society. Female children, for the most part are encouraged to be cooperative, compassionate, caring, and nurturing; largely in preparation for roles as wife and mother. Male children, in contrast, are socialized toward independence, assertiveness, competition, and achievement; they are often expected to suppress their emotions and feelings, especially ones that are tender or relate to value. Social constructionists suggest that knowledge is not only a social product, but a product of a specifically situated society; various accounts of reality depend on place and time – in order to study knowledge as a social product, one has to historicize and contextualize the given description of reality.

     ii.           Power and hierarchy underlie social construction: This focus results in showing how individuals differ in status, entitlement, efficacy, self-respect and other traits based on the kind of interactions one is involved in and subjected to.

   iii.           Language is at the core of knowledge: Language is considered as the building block of culture; it conveys meaning and creates the system of knowledge we participate in. Ultimately, language has a huge influence on how we perceive reality and, as a result, is the creator of this reality.

   iv.           Social construction is a dynamic process: Social constructionists emphasize the complexity of how knowledge is created in social interactions. Knowledge and meanings are not stable or constant, they are co-constructed in interactions with others, and they are negotiated, modified and shifted. People are active in their perception, understanding and sharing of knowledge acquired from their social milieu. In the end, it is necessary therefore to consider process as the main perspective when explaining the social construction of knowledge, including the knowledge about gender.

     v.           The individual and society are indissoluble: Social constructionists question the Western idea of an autonomous individual who can draw a clear line between the self and the society. According to social construction, individuals can create meaning only in relation to what they are exposed to in their environment. Paradoxically, the same individuals co-create the meanings that are available in this environment. Marecek conclude that therefore that society and individual are indissoluble and mutually constitutive.

 2.2 Gender character of different domains of social life:

A question which presents itself at this stage is does gender manifest itself more often in some social domains than in others? Are there a set of ‘gender institutions’? In earlier writing on gender, family, kinship and the domestic sphere were somehow treated as the prime locations of gender relations. But in more recent times, social scientists have cautioned against such privileging of particular institutions in gauging the gendered character of society.

 R.W.Connell (2002), for instance, warns against treating gender as a separate and isolated sphere of social life. He argues that gender permeates all aspects of social life and suggests it is not desirable to treat it as confined to particular spheres of social life. He uses the concept of ‘gender regimes’ to refer to ‘the state of play in gender relations’ in any social institution such as a school, a market, a workplace or even a street. Thus for example, a public street has a gender regime. How should boys and girls or men and women carry themselves in such places? With whom and how should they talk? Who can legitimately hang around where, for how long, in what dress pattern? Answers to these questions hinge on the gender constructions at play; they can vary significantly across different public locales and they may also change from day to night and from one occasion to another. Similarly, you can imagine that a adolescent get together or a college canteen also has a gender regime which may be significantly different from that of a family get-together or a public restaurant. It might be a useful exercise to try and identify such gender regimes in different sectors of one’s life (the public transport, the college, the road, the home, neighbourhood, family events, workplace, market, malls, cinema halls and so on).

Thus the gender regimes of the family and the workplace may complement each other in contexts where the women are expected to take up low paid part time work in order to fulfill gendered obligations within the household. Alternatively, these gender regimes may contradict each other when the household division of labor is highly gendered while the demands placed on men and women in the workplace remain undifferentiated. Connell also argues that there is nothing static about gender regimes nor anything singular about the direction in which they change. Thus it is perfectly possible that in certain spheres of social life, gender differences and inequalities are increasing rather than decreasing. This is a very crucial point to remember as it cautions us against the commonsensical assumption that the past was always more unequal than the present and that all change implies social progress.

 2.3 Social stratification and construction of gender

In a discussion of social construction of gender, we also need to ask how gender articulates with class, caste, race and ethnicity structures which, in different degrees and combinations, shape all societies. It does not require much effort to see how gender is inextricable from these vital determinants of any social organization. The position of an urban middle class woman is also significantly different from and also unequal to one occupied by a poor rural woman. The class distinctions permeate gender distinctions in a manner that may sometimes obliterate the possibility of gender consciousness to rise above class consciousness.

A society stratified along class lines also sustains different patterns of gendered relations across different classes with complex social ramifications. Thus the position of a well off middle class housewife as also of a professional woman from the same class in urban India is dependent upon her poor counterpart, i.e., a domestic worker, who is very often, though not always, a woman. This possibility does much to mitigate the need to negotiate an equitable division of household labor between the husband and wife, or rather, men and women. It is nevertheless possible that a poor domestic worker has relatively more personal autonomy and volition than the middle class and upper caste housewife for whom she works. The women from the dominant groups are often expected to become the harbingers of social respectability and honor for their families and communities in ways in which the women from marginal groups seldom do. But this caveat should not let us undermine the reality of class and caste privileges which are enjoyed by both men and women from dominant groups.

Thus the intersection of gender with other structures of difference and inequality can result in extremely complex social configurations which we cannot discuss exhaustively in this brief overview. But it is very crucial to take into account these different axes of social stratification in order to understand how gender takes its material form in any society.

 3. Understanding Gender as a Social Construction of Gender:

 3.1 Feminist Understandings – Gender and Power

The social construction framework explains that there is no essential, universally distinct character that is masculine or feminine behaviors are influenced by a range of factors including class, culture, ability, religion, age, body shape and sexual preference. 

 Construction of gender theory argues that girls and boys are actively involved in constructing their own gendered identities. Men and women can even take up a range of different masculinities and femininities that may at times contradict each other. This construction of gender identities (or subjectivities), varieties of femininities or masculinities, is also seen as dynamic, ongoing, changing and changeable, rather than static or fixed. Allard, Cooper, Hildebrand, & Wealands (1995: 24) assert that we “are not passively shaped by the larger societal forces such as schools or the media, but are active in selecting, adapting and rejecting the dimensions we choose to incorporate, or not, into our version of gender”.

This emphasis on the complexities and contradictions in the social relationships that shape our understandings of what it means to be male and female - both individually and collectively, and the notion of agency, or conscious choice, distinguish the model of the social construction of gender from essentialism or sex role theory. Feminist and pro-feminist researchers have also emphasized how power is contextually and historically shaped and regulated and linked to the benefits and costs of “emphasized femininity”). Poststructuralists emphasize the effects of language and discourse – how gender is spoken into existence; the intersections of race, class, disability and sexuality; the problem of masculine’s structures and the need to disrupt and transform male / female binaries.

3.2 Antifeminism:

There has been an overriding influence from distorting and trivializing media reportage on public perceptions about gender issues; with sensationalism and provocation gaining more attention from consumers than the more critically and empirically driven voices of academics.

The media informs or maintains the ignorance of many educators (pp. 58 -59). Researchers agree about the strong influence of an often explicit antifeminist backlash in the media and in popular literature about boys and education issues. The characteristics of this rhetoric include an essentialisation of masculinity and a positioning of men and boys as the new victims or competing victims. Many of their arguments are unclear, confused and contradictory, and some are highly emotive.  

Ludowyke (1995) points to how the critical analysis of feminists has publicly challenged the assumptions of dominant masculinity and affirms the necessity of acknowledging and respecting their insight. An actively feminist approach is required to address perceptions such that male workers in boys’ education and research are greater authorities than women (Reinharz, 1992); that we need more male role models and teachers; negative attitudes from boys to women who are working with boys; backlash assumptions such as the need for empowerment of boys; attitudes that boys have been neglected and are disadvantaged (Lingard et al., 2002, p.55); and the evident underutilization of resources which refer to the social construction of gender.

 3.3 Essentialism:

Essentialism or biological determinism is the belief that there is some essential biological difference in brain structures, learning styles, and interests, between males and females, that boys are possessed of particular masculine character traits such as aggressiveness and competitiveness, and are naturally more active and demanding - boys being boys.

 Essentialism also refers to adrenalin and hormones and differing rates of maturity for boys and girls. It is proposed that these differences must be accommodated and catered for in program design and implementation.

 

Examples of strategies founded on this understanding include: wilderness camps; boys single sex classes; male role models and employment of more male teachers; investigation of the different learning styles of boys and girls; and surveys of male students’ needs and interests. Biological determinist theory is problematic because it cannot provide an adequate explanation for the wide range of differences in behaviors amongst females as a group, or for the wide range of behaviors amongst males as a group. These groups are not homogenous.  Identities, like social structures, are not natural and immutable, but are, in fact, dynamic and shifting constructions.

3.4 Gender as Process, Stratification and Structure:

As a social institution, gender is a process of creating distinguishable social statuses for the assignment of rights and responsibilities. As part of a stratification system that ranks these statuses unequally. Gender is a major building block in the social structures built on these unequal statuses. As a process, gender creates the social differences that define "woman" and "man." In social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected ways, and thus simultaneously construct and maintain the gender order. Members of a social group neither make up gender as they go along nor exactly replicate in rote fashion what was done before. In almost every en- counter, human beings produce gender, behaving in the ways they learned were appropriate for their status, or resisting or rebelling against these norms.

As part of a stratification system, gender ranks men above women of the same race and class. Women and men could be different but equal. The process of creating difference depends to a great extent on differential evaluation.. The dominant categories are the hegemonic ideals, taken so for granted as the way things should be that white is not ordinarily thought of as a race, middle class as a class, or men as a gender.

In a gender-stratified society, what men do more highly than what women do because men do it, even when their activities are very similar or the same? In different regions of southern India, for example, harvesting rice is men's work, shared work, or women's work. A gathering and hunting society's survival usually depends on the nuts, small animals brought in by the women's foraging trips, but when the men’s hunt is successful, it is the occasion for a celebration, where there is inequality, the status "woman" (and its attendant behavior and role allocations) is usually held in lesser esteem than the status "man," Since gender is also intertwined with a society's other constructed statuses of differential evaluation-race, religion, occupation, class, country of origin, and so on-men and women members of the favored groups command more power, more prestige, and more property than the members of the disfavored groups Within many social groups, however, men are advantaged over women.

 As a structure, gender divides work in the home and in economic production, legitimates those in authority, and organizes sexuality and emotional life (Connell 1987, 91-142). As primary parents, women significantly influence children's psychological development and emotiol18l attachments, in the process reproducing gender. Emergent sexuality is shaped by heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and sadomasochistic patterns that are gendered -different for girls and boys, and for women and men-so that sexual statuses reflect gender statuses.

 When gender is a major component of structured inequality, the devalued genders have less power. Women still do most of the domestic labor and child rearing, even while doing full- time paid work; women and men are segregated on the job and each does work considered "appropriate"; women's work is usually paid less than men's work. In societies that create the greatest gender difference, such as Saudi Arabia, women are kept out of sight behind walls or veils, have no civil rights, and often cultural emotional world of their own (Bernard 1981) But even in societies with less rigid gender boundaries, women and men spend much of their time with people of their own gender because of the way work and family are organized. This spatial separation of women and men reinforces differentness, identity, and ways of thinking and behaving (Coser 1986),

Gender inequality-the devaluation of "women" and the social domination of "men" -has social functions and a social history. It is not the result of sex, procreation, physiology, anatomy, hormones, or genetic predispositions, It is produced and maintained by identifiable social processes and built into the general social structure and individual identities deliberately and purposefully. The social order as we know it in Western societies is organized around racial ethnic, class, and gender inequality

 4. Understanding the Factors of Social Construction:    

Although the possible combinations of genitalia, body shapes, clothing, manner- isms, sexuality, and roles could produce infinite varieties in human beings, the so 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.

Children learn to walk, talk, and gesture the way their social group says girls and boys should. Ray Birdwhistell, in his analysis of body motion as human communication, calls these learned gender displays tertiary sex characteristics and argues that they are needed to distinguish genders because humans are a weakly dimorphic species-their only sex markers are genitalia (1970, 39-46). Clothing paradoxically, often hides the sex but displays the gender.

 In early childhood, humans develop gendered personality structures and sexual orientations through their interactions with parents of the same and opposite gen- der. As adolescents, they conduct their sexual behavior according to gendered scripts. Schools, parents, peers, and the mass media guide young people into gendered work and family roles. As adults, they take on a gendered social status in their society's stratification system. Gender is thus both ascribed and achieved (West and Zimmerman 1987).

 Gender norms are inscribed in the way people move, gesture, and even eat. In one African society, men were supposed to eat with their "whole mouth, whole- heartedly, and not, like women, just with the lips, that is halfheartedly, with reservation and restraint" (Bourdieu [1980] 1990, 70). Men and women in this society learned to walk in ways that proclaimed their different positions in the society: The gendered practices of everyday life reproduce a society's view of how women and men should act (Bourdieu [1980] 1990). Gendered social arrangements are justified by religion and cultural productions and backed by law, but the most powerful means of sustaining the moral hegemony of the dominant gender.

 4.1 Hormonal Factors of Gender as Social Construction:

Biological factors play a huge role in shaping children's physical development. For instance, boys and girls are born with distinctive sexual organs, and become further differentiated when secondary sexual characteristics emerge upon puberty. Naturally occurring chemical messenger compounds in the body known as hormones are responsible for coordinating the appearance of these physical differences.

Some research suggests that the same sex hormones that enable sexual organ differentiation in utero and which later trigger puberty also pl an important role in shaping gender identity. Boys tend to have more androgens (male sex hormones) than girls. However, some boys and girls are born with a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), which causes them to have significantly higher levels of androgens than their non-affected peers. Scientists have studied children with CAH in order to understand how their extra androgen levels affect behavior. Boys with excess androgens play and behave much like normal male peers. However, girls with high androgen levels tend to display more gender-stereotypic male traits and behaviors than do than their same-age hormonally-normal peers. In addition, girls with CAH are born with external genitalia that look like male genitalia. Though these girls appear to have penises, they are still female. Girls' true gender is determined genetically rather than anatomically. Females possess two "X" chromosomes, while males possesses a single "X" chromosome and a "Y" chromosome.

Even after girls with CAH have surgeries to make their genitalia look more characteristically female, they continue to show heightened masculine traits. For instance, they prefer to play with male peers; tend to choose traditionally masculine toys and activities (e.g., blocks, cars, models, sports) over more "feminine" toys and games; and are physically active and aggressive. In addition, girls with CAH tend to avoid having girl playmates; don't play games revolving around stereotypical feminine events such as playing at being a mother or bride; and tend to care less about their physical appearance than do girls of their age who do not have CAH. In other words, higher levels of male hormones strongly influence girls to behave as though they were boys.

4.2 Social and Environmental Factors of Gender as Social Construction:

Other studies have shown that children's upbringing and social environments also impacts their developing gender identities. This work can be summarized by stating that children's interests, preferences, behaviors and overall self-concept are strongly influenced by parental and authority figure teachings regarding sexual stereotypes occurring in or before the early portion of middle childhood. Children who are taught that certain traits or activities are appropriate or inappropriate for them to engage because they are a girl or a boy do tend to internalize and be influenced by these teachings in later life. For instance, girls who are informed that boys are innately better at math than they are may report that they dislike math and disclaim their interest in that subject. They may go on to believe that they are not good at this academic subject, and to perform poorly on math tests and homework assignments.

Children learn vicariously, in part, through their observation and imitation of what they see their primary caregivers doing. They tend to imitate and internalize what they see and then repeat those patterns in their own lives as though they had come up with them independently. Children rose watching their parents adhering to strict gender-stereotyped roles are, in general, more likely to take on those roles themselves as adults than are peers whose parents provided less stereotyped, more androgynous models for behaving.

4.3 Homosexual, Bisexual and Trans-gendered Youth:

Subject as they are to intense biological and social conditioning pushing them towards a particular conclusion, most boys develop a primarily masculine gender-identity, and most girls develop a primarily feminine gender-identity. Though their willingness to engage in cross-gender stereotyped behaviors may vary, such children are the same in that their experience is one of essential comfort and lack of anxiety with regard to their sexual and gender status. Their gender identity feels natural and normal to them. The things they want to do, socially and sexually, are consistent and congruent with what family and society want them to do. There is no sense that they have been strong-armed into becoming something they are not.

A minority of boys and girls do not experience this sense of comfort and congruence. These youth have a different experience of anxiety and incongruence due to their gender-identity being out of sync with social expectation because of their homosexual or trans-gender identity. Children who develop a homosexual sexual preference experience a physical-gender-consistent gender identity, meaning that they are boys who feel comfortable and normal being boys, or girls who feel comfortable and normal being girls. However, they find themselves sexually attracted to homosexual (same-sex) peers rather than the normal case of heterosexual (opposite-sex) attraction. Trans-gendered youth have developed a gender identity in opposition to their physical gender. They may be physically male but experience themselves as female, or physically female but experience themselves as male. We will address this topic more in a future article on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Questioning, Intersex and Transgendered Children

 4.4 Cultural Factors of Gender as a Social Construction:   

 The social construction of gender is an important concept for better understanding the determinants of mental health in women and men. Going beyond physical and physiological differences and the traditional biomedical approach, interdisciplinary study of the complex factors related to culture and society, power and politics is necessary to be able to find solutions to situations of disparity in mental health, related to both prevalence of disorders, availability and response to treatment. Gender inequality continues to be a source of suffering for many women around the world, and this can lead to adverse mental health outcomes. This review focuses on developments in the literature on culture, gender and mental health over the past decade, focusing on themes around the social construction of gender, mental health and the media, a look at cultural competence through a gender lens, gender and the body, providing some examples of the intersection between mental health and gender in low-income countries as well as the more developed world, and the impact of migration and resettlement on mental health. At the clinical level, using a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model that can integrate and negotiate between both traditional and biomedical perspectives is necessary, combined with use of a cultural formulation that takes gender identity into account. Research involving both qualitative and quantitative perspectives, and in many cases an ethnographic framework, is essential in tackling these global issues.

 4.5 Economic Factors of Gender as a Social Construction:

Economic inequality of gender (also described as the gap between rich and poor, income inequality, wealth disparity, or wealth and income differences) is the difference between individuals or populations in the distribution of their assets, wealth, or income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of economic inequality involves equity, equality of outcome, equality of opportunity, and life expectancy.

Opinions differ on the utility of inequality and its effects. A 2010 study considered it beneficial, while other recent studies consider it a growing social problem. While some inequality promotes investment, too much inequality is destructive. Income inequality can hinder long term growth. Statistical studies comparing inequality to year-over-year economic growth have been inconclusive; however in 2011, researchers from the International Monetary Fund published that income equality was more determinate of the duration of countries' growth spells than free trade, low government corruption, foreign investment, or low foreign debt.

Gender as social construction varies between societies, historical periods, economic structures and systems (for example, capitalism or socialism), and between individuals' abilities to create wealth. The term can refer to cross sectional descriptions of the income or wealth at any particular period and to the lifetime income and wealth over longer periods of time

In many countries, there is a gender income gap which favors males in the labor market. For example, the median full-time salary for U.S. women is 77% of that of U.S. men. Several factors other than discrimination may contribute to this gap. On average, women are more likely than men to consider factors other than pay when looking for work, and may be less willing to travel or relocate. Thomas Sowell, in his book Knowledge and Decisions, claims that this difference is due to women not taking jobs due to marriage or pregnancy, but income studies show that that does not explain the entire difference. A U.S. Census's report stated that in US once other factors are accounted for there is still a difference in earnings between women and men. The income gap in other countries ranges from 53% in Botswana 40% in Bahrain.

                              Gender inequality and discrimination is argued to cause and perpetuate poverty and vulnerability in society as a whole. Gender Equity Indices seek to provide the tools to demonstrate this feature of equity.

4.6 Kinship Factors of Gender as Social Construction:

 The kinship organization of a society also plays a significant role in shaping gender relations and roles in most societies. The system of descent followed in a social group has direct consequences for the construction of gender relations in the group. Anthropologists have shown that whether the descent system of a society is predominantly patrilineal, matrilineal or bilateral has major implications for the construction of gender identities and relations of a society. This is because the descent system is very often the basis of group membership, entitlement to valued resources, ownership of property and patterns of residence.

Societies that are strongly patrilineal are very widespread. Such societies are usually among those that are most unfavorable to women as they tend to markedly differentiate between the sexes. In a patrilineal system, descent is reckoned in the male line and usually women move to their husband’s home after marriage, a practice referred to as patrivirilocality in anthropological parlance. In such a system, there is a high value placed on the male offspring and men largely inherit property. Women are treated as temporary members of their natal household and their incorporation into their husband’s household is always fraught with uncertainties. In an insightful essay on socialization of girls in Hindu India, Leela Dube has shown how the temporariness of a woman’s relation with her natal kin is a recurring theme in folk songs and forms the underlying motif of many religious celebrations which enact the brief return of a daughter to her father’s home.5

 

Patrilineal societies are also the most likely to place a high premium on female chastity which leads to strict vigilance of female sexuality. Seclusion of women is also a part of the complex of institutions which are geared towards control of female sexuality. In deeply stratified and heterogeneous societies such as found in India, this can result in strict curtailment of individual choice in matters such as marriage and employment.

Matrilineal societies are not resistant to sharing property with men but are not well-disposed to sharing the same with the men’s children who belong to their matrilineal group. Patrilineal societies usually show resistance in sharing property with the daughters as also their children, neither of whom are likely to retain membership of the daughter’s natal family. Matrilineal societies do not value virginity and chastity of women in a manner comparable to patrilineal societies.

 This does give a certain amount of sexual freedom to women unheard of in strictly patrilineal societies. The practice which allowed Nayar women to enjoy relationships with several ‘visiting husbands’ is highly incongruous with the possibilities offered by a patrilineal society where this would be treated as akin to prostitution. Anthropologists have also shown that there is far greater variation in organization of matrilineal societies and this system of descent is combined with different patterns of marriage and residence, thereby entailing different consequences for men and women.In bilateral societies, both male and female children derive their identities from both their parents. In American kinship system, studied by David Schneider (1968), again the child is seen as deriving its identity equally from the mother and the father. The question of group membership however does not present itself in the manner described for the Iban of Borneo as there is no general pattern of sharing parental residential property, as is the case among the Iban. There are other possible variations of this system of descent that I shall not discuss here. What should be evident from this brief discussion is the fact that such systems are least likely to distinguish sharply and systematically between men and women

 4.7 Medical Factors of Gender as Social Construction:

The birth of inter sexed infants has been documented throughout recorded time. In the late 20th century scientists can determine chromosomal and hormonal gender which is typically taken to be the real, natural, biological gender, usually referred to as the ‘sex’ of the infant. In spite of this, such biological factors are often pre-empted by cultural factors such as the ‘correct’ length of the penis, when doctors determine, assign and announce the gender of an infant.

Medical teams have standard practices for managing intersexuality based ultimately on cultural or social understandings of gender, and yet in the medical literature such [cultural/social] issues as post-delivery discussions with parents, and consultations with patients in adolescence, are considered only peripherally to the central medical issues of aetiology, diagnosis and surgical procedures.

Physicians hold an incorrigible belief in, and insistence upon male and female being the only ‘natural’ options even in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary . This paradox calls into question the idea that female and male are biological givens compelling a culture of two genders.

 4.8 Religious Factors of Gender as Social Construction:

The particular manner in which gender is socially constructed in a society is closely related to the religious organization of the society. Relations, both tend to bear strongly upon the particular characteristics of gender differences and inequalities which prevail in a society at any given time.

The religious approach has almost universally naturalized gender differences, treating them as immutable. Women are treated as inferior to men in their mind and bodily attributes and almost invariably men are treated as the normative human beings of whom women represent a deviation. But most religious worldviews also embody an ambiguity towards women. On the one hand women are treated as inferior and dangerous and on the other hand they are venerated. Thus the fact that in Hinduism women are equated with animals on the one hand and on the other worshipped as goddesses is characteristic of the religious ambiguity towards women. This inattention to gender contrasts with the liveliness of gender studies within the academy in recent decades. There have been a number of significant advances in theorising gender, most notably in three related areas. First, the idea that a distinction can be drawn between a biologically-given ‘sex’ and a socially-constructed ‘gender’ has been widely discredited. Historical studies like Laqueur (1990) demonstrate that sex is historically and culturally variable, with the modern idea of two separate sexes representing a shift away from the longer-established western view that there is a single male sex, of which the female is an inferior manifestation. The ‘sex and gender’ model has also been undermined by a model of sex/gender as produced in and by social processes and performances (Butler, 1999), or as a form of ‘social embodiment’ (Connell, 2002). The latter view stresses the mutual constitution of bodies and social processes, such that it is impossible to prise them apart, whilst the former tends to reduce the bodily to the social. Second, rejection of the ‘sex and gender’ model is bound up with a rejection of the idea that there are ‘two spheres’ of masculinity and femininity or male and female. Psychological research on sex difference has failed to find any large or universal differences between men and women (for a summary see Kimmel, 2000), and there is a growing awareness that in different cultural contexts gender can be viewed as one or as many, rather than as binary. Finally, these developments have rendered talk about ‘sex roles’ – a term which implies a sex and gender model – problematic. The idea that individuals are socialised into sex roles in childhood has been supplemented by the idea that sex/gender differences are continually negotiated throughout the life-course, in a process which is active as well as passive. Thus investigation into ‘femininities’ and ‘masculinities’ is replacing study of ‘sex roles’, one consequence of which is to move the research agenda away from a concentration on ‘women’ alone.

 Cumulatively, these developments have led to a shift away from the so-called ‘essentialism’ of the 1970s and early 1980s which set ‘women’ against ‘men’, towards a view which prefers to stress the multiple ‘differences’ which go to make up identities. This shift has rendered talk of talk ‘patriarchy’ suspect, since the idea that men systematically dominate, oppress and exploit women is challenged by the view that society is structured by a complex set of differences (ethnic, racial, gendered, class-based), and that both men and women occupy and negotiate a range of different positions within this complex matrix. Under the towering influence of Michel Foucault many writers dismiss the idea of power as a possession which is unequally distributed in society, above all between men and women, in favour of a picture of power as constantly negotiated in the small, ceaseless, real-time interactions between individuals. There is, however, a countervailing move by others who believe that the stress on ‘capillary’ rather than ‘arterial’ power has gone too far (for example, Sayer 2004; Skeggs, 1997, 2004), and that talk of ‘differences’ must not be allowed to mask the massive and consolidated inequalities of power which still structure contemporary societies – including, pre-eminently, that between men and women.

 This, then, is the lively tradition of debate with which the Sociology of Religion has thus far entered into only limited dialogue. As I will illustrate in this chapter, there have been a number of significant sociological contributions to the study of religion and gender in recent decades, which have nevertheless failed to make a significant impact upon the wider field of gender studies.[i] Even within the Sociology of Religion itself, those who engage with gender issues have failed to convince many of their colleagues that such a move is not an optional extra or an interesting specialisation, but an essential corrective to the gender-blindness which has, until now, restricted the discipline’s field of vision. The argument still has to be won that removal of these blinkers has consequences for the entire discipline – its methods, its theories, its critical tools and concepts, its focus, its areas of concentration, its specialisations, its hierarchies, its institutional forms and material practices.

 One consequence of this patchy and partial interaction is that there is as yet no agreed ‘syllabus’ in the sociological study of religion and gender, no tried and tested way of approaching the subject, no theory or theories of religion and gender. Of necessity then, this chapter cannot simply summaries the ‘state of the art’ and suggest. How it can or should develop in the future – it must also try to fill in some of the gaps. It will approach this task, first, by sketching a theoretical framework for understanding religion and gender, and then by substantiating the theory by reference to some key studies of aspects of religion and gender. Next, the significance of gender for the sociological study of religion will be illustrated in relation to classic theories of secularization. The chapter will end with a brief sketch of additional areas in which attention to gender has the potential to disrupt and reform agendas in the sociological study of religion.

There are of course varying consequences that different religious worldviews entail for gender relations. Some religions ordain a very strict segregation between the sexes while others may curtail their reproductive rights. This may manifest itself in practices of seclusion or in laws curtailing abortion rights. The practice of secluding women is prevalent in more than one religious systems of the world. Similarly many religions treat women’s bodies as impure and defiling and thus women remain excluded from several spheres of social life. Such beliefs and consequently practices have severe implications for relations between men and women as also for the life chances of women..

 

5. How Gender Is Socially Constructed:

The following five points may be significant for an understanding of how gender is socially constructed.

       i.           There are a range of sometimes conflicting theories that attempt to explain gender and gendered behaviors that raise questions that further research may not answer absolutely.

     ii.           Gendered behaviors have been viewed as responses/reactions to power and authority in such things as British Colonization, Capitalism, Patriarchy, families, adult/child relations, workplace, groups, and institutions such as schools.

   iii.           Three is that messages from media, texts, history, popular culture and social structures are believed to have a powerful influence on gender construction.

   iv.           Gender construction has been viewed as taking place through ‘discourse’.

     v.           The final point, public places such as schools are important sites of gender construction/production, reproduction. These points are all interrelated and cannot be discussed in depth without overlapping into another.

 

5.1 Theories:

The concept of Gender is ‘one of the muddiest concepts’ according to Constantinople (Connell, 1993). It is ‘problematic’ because it means different things to different people. Some use the word interchangeably with the word sex. E.g. ‘Gender’ is written on some documents to find out the biological nature of the person filling out the form. For some who view it from a biologically determined perspective, it is a natural outcome of such things as genetics, hormones and brain organization. (Weiten,1998). For some who view it from an environmentally determined perspective, the word is used when referring to the variable and negotiable, culturally and socially constructed ways of being ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ in a particular historical or cultural circumstance (Measor and Sykes, 1992). The concept is as problematic as the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate! It is also problematic because the concept of gender has introduced a range of influential and derogatory vocabulary that is reinforced, through popular beliefs and usage. E.g. ‘Tomboy’, ‘Wimp’, ‘masculine’, and ‘feminine’.

The concepts raise questions such as: Why use the words ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ when referring to behaviors and characteristics, thereby inferring that some are normal for a particular sex? Why not just call them behaviors and characteristics? Surely leadership qualities are not ‘masculine’ or male behaviors. Surely caring qualities are not ‘feminine’ or female behavior. Are there any behaviors that are only socially constructed? Are all but physical differences between the sexes socially constructed?

There are a number of frameworks that have been used to classify the different gender theories. E.g Connell (1993) uses, ‘extrinsic’ and ‘intrinsic’ to classify theories. The frameworks make it appear that the dominant academic theory has moved in stages from

(1) Favoring a biological imperative orientation to (2) A socially contracted one, to (3) a socially constructed one and now to(4) The framework that Howard and Hollander (1997) have used as a base to explain and discus some of the gender theories. In Socialization Theory gender differences have environmental origins and are mainly the result of socialization via the three main processes of ‘operant conditioning’, ‘observational learning’, and ‘self socialization’ (Weiten, 1989). They suggest that children actively learn through observation of role models and the reinforcements of powerful ‘others’ to classify themselves as male or female and to further value the characteristics and behaviors associated with their sex. Families, schools and media are considered to be the three most influential sources of gender socialization. These theories do not explain the structural and physiological influences, nor does why people develop ideological position contrary to the significant others in their environment. They do explain some gendered behavior. E.g. A number of mothers excuse what could be called anti-social behavior on the grounds that it is ‘real boy behavior’, when boys are preschoolers. The community is not so pleased with similar behaviors when the boys get a little older.

Post-structural Theories suggest that gender is consciously and unconsciously constructed as the result of cultural and social activities. It takes into account the complex interactions of human agency with the ‘constraining nature of social structure’ (Howard and Hollander, 1987). It views gender construction as a process of ‘subjectification’ not socialization and this takes place through the discourses they have available to them (Davies, 1993). These theories tend to leave out the influence of the physiological area in the gender construction equation. The human being is a complex creature. If gender is only socially constructed, then aggression, which is sometimes referred to as a masculine trait, must be self-controllable. Yet brain injuries and medications such as Ritalin, and hormone treatments such as Progestin are known to impact on this social (or anti social) behavior (Fausto-Sterling, 1992).

Franzoi (1996), suggests that ‘together’ some of the theories give a better understanding than any single perspective. Each of the theories has something to offer. Biological potentials filtered through cultural beliefs and understandings have influenced the gendered division of labor, which in turn influences gender construction. Eg. the ability to sing soprano will influence choices about whether to do so or not. Some aspects of Gender are learned and maintained through socialization. Social position in various social hierarchies such as race, class, age and sex orientation have an influence as do various structures. Human agency can also be seen at work in constructing and attempting to deconstruct gender realities.

5.2 Messages:

Many cultural practices are involved in the construction of gendered subjectivity (Clark, 1993, 81). Cultural ideals about men, women, girls and boys are created and maintained through overt messages from media, and intrinsic messages everywhere. Messages are embedded in and affect every area of production, the labor force, the market and society. For example, when clothing is designed, it is influenced by messages from the past and present. These are popularized through various media channels. Even the production process sends messages about the product. Desires for the product are created and influenced by a whole range of things such as store layout and atmosphere, display design and advertising. Clothing is advertised and displayed using life style messages about its rightness, ‘coolness’, and appropriateness for a particular sex and group. The clothes become part of the stereotyping of a particular masculinity or femininity and send gender messages. Moral judgments about who do and don’t wear the particular clothing are formed. People then resist or accept the messages conveyed in the clothing package, although life style may preclude the power to but these include lifestyle and promises of things like beauty, power and acceptability.

Gender messages have a powerful influence on gender construction. However they are not ‘simply absorbed’. They can be accepted or rejected. E.g. Hursthouse, a Victorian emigrant, immigrated to New Zealand because he wanted to ‘throw off the chains of effeminacy’ that pervaded/engulfed Britain, and ‘become a man’. He lectured and published a book that was ‘excerpted’ in a popular emigration publication. (Phillips, 1987). Hursthouse, recognised and rejected the influence of the gender messages he perceived in the job situation in Britain (Phillips, 1987). He rejected what he considered ‘effeminate’ masculinity, which he saw as the hegemonic masculinity in his English world and he encouraged others to do the same. Some may have been influenced by the overt messages Hursthouse published such as “New Zealand is a man’s country" and consequently emigrated. This may have increased the power of Patriarchy in New Zealand and the acceptance of the Fred Dagg image.

5.3 Power:

Power (force and influence) and authority (legitimate power) are ‘fluid and contextual’ (Thorne 1993). They work in many ways through many means to genderize. According to the socialisation theory of operant conditioning, ‘gender roles are shaped by the power of reward and punishment’ (Weiten, 1989). Significant others use the power of rewards and punishment to reinforce what they consider to be appropriate gender behaviour. They are able to do this because of their powerful positions. E.g. the adult/child relationship.

Power relations in cultural processes and social structure also genderize (Gilbert and Taylor, 6). According to James & Saville-Smith (1989), New Zealand gendered culture emerged out of the ‘exigencies of British colonisation’. It was not imported, nor part of the Maori culture. It developed as a way to cope with struggles over land. This resulted in social problems which some believe resulted in the ‘elaboration of particular forms of femininity and masculinity’ and their organisation into distinct female (‘the cult of domesticity’) and male (‘the man alone’ and ‘the family man’) cultures. It is believed that these Patriarchal cultures were maintained because difference was seen as biological, therefore normal and desirable, benefiting those in dominant positions in the hierarchies of race, class and sex. There were also some benefits to some subordinated groups who were able to expand their access to power and resources. The ‘glass cellar’ effect, where men feel ‘drafted’ into hazardous jobs because of the money they pay, could be used to support this theory.

Power has a constraining function on social practice (Connell, 1987). Its role as a constraint can be seen in what is called the ‘glass ceiling’ effect where ‘male dominance’, among other things, has lead to conditions that keep women from advancing into positions of power and prestige (Connell, 1987).It can also be seen in the limiting, legitimizing and/or marginalization of some forms of masculinity and femininity. Power also plays a part in what is questioned or challenged. Clark (1993, 83) suggests that some forms of gender persist because they are not questioned or challenged.

Power shapes language and knowledge and this include the definitions of words relating to gender. This power can be seen in how and what adults teach children, or what children learn from adults, and what educational institutions such as schools and universities put forward as acceptable language and knowledge to be learned. Some words, theories, and subjects are made more powerful in all sorts of ways because of the power that individuals, groups and institutions have. Those that support, and /or use them are also invested in power.

Power works in all of the structures and processes of credentialing which in turn empowers those who are credentialed. According to Connell (1993, 199) credentials open the door for a gendered identity for males, that include forms of passivity, rationality and responsibility, as opposed to ‘pride and aggression’ for those who are not. 8 According to Kerr (1991). It is a sense of ‘separation’ and a refusal to acknowledge gender limitations, which allows eminent women to resist the ‘daily barrage of stereotypic sex-role images and media comments’, and ‘powerful peer group pressure to conform’. Fleming (1996) puts forth an argument for social self-esteem as an important factor in androgyny and agency. Perhaps the measure of the power within has the greatest influence on which form of masculinity or femininity (types of behavior/characteristics etc.) a person exhibits/accepts/constructs/resists.

5.4 Discourse:

The social construction of gender takes place through ‘Discourse’. Feminist Post-structural Theory changes the ‘ideological’ understanding of the word to mean the complex interactions between language, social practice and emotional investment (Yelland, 1998).

Language is used to categories people on the basis of sex and gender. E.g. wife/husband, masculine/feminine, waitress/waiter. These categories give rise to expectations about how people should be. E.g. The category ‘girl’ influences gender specific expectations about what a girl is, looks like and does etc. Patterns of desire become associated with particular categories and social practises arise. (E.g. Clothing is designed to distinguish girls from boys). Emotional investments are made to ensure that the social practices are ‘right’. Discourses produce a sense of what is right and/or normal and can become institutionalised enabling some people to exercise power. E.g. parenting theories and Piaget’s ages and stages theories. Those discourses that have more political or social power dominate and can marginalize others. This political strength can be derived from their institutional location.( E.g schools)

Although gender is actively negotiated, ‘powerful discourses circulate in and via social structures and institutions’ and shape desires, making some ‘ways of being’ more possible than others (Yelland, 1998). According to Weedon (Yelland, 1998), the range and social power of discourses, the political strength of the interests they represent and a person’s access to them will determine some of the gendered choices people make.

5.5 Sites:

Gendered behavior is more often visible in public places particularly in public places such as schools. Schools are important sites of gender construction and reproduction because they are invested consciously and unconsciously (The not so Hidden Curriculum!) with authority to reproduce dominant ideologies, hierarchies, and gendered culture. E.g. ‘Hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity’ (Connell, 1985, 183). This is done through such things as age separation, the choice of knowledge, timetables, resources, teacher expectations, interactions, control of space, and hierarchical structures. 11 They are important sites also because of the inequalities that their gendered structures and practices produce for their ‘captive audience’, and because it is a site where changes can and are wrought. E.g. one of the changes that primary schools made in the name of anti sexism was to eliminate the images of females in traditional sex roles and include images of men in nontraditional sex roles. This powerful practice was another form of ‘sexism’ and gendering. It sent and continues to send value laden messages about (behaviors/characteristics) which forms of masculinity and femininity are acceptable. This may have contributed to the loss of social status and other negative attitudes, that women who choose to ‘stay at home’ now often face (McKenna, 1997).

 

6. In Bangladesh Perspective Gender as Social Construction:

In Bangladesh, gender relations are characterized by strong patriarchal power and religious believes. In this socio-cultural context, it is very challenging to aim at gender equality. Gender based discrimination and violence are high in all classes of the society: women’s insecurity and vulnerability due to violence and suppression is still widespread. In 2006, 67% of women in rural areas were subjected to domestic violence3. Gender inequalities are particularly persistent where customs and traditions prevail: the systems of dowry and Salish (informal, traditional system of justice) continue to undermine women's ability to gain greater power over their lives and to assume more meaningful roles in society. Though Bangladesh’s Constitution states that “women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the State and of public life” [Art. 28 § 2], discriminations regarding socio-economic opportunities, benefits and rights are still of concern as Islamic laws strongly influence the society and restrict women’s rights particularly women’s participation in decision making processes and control over resources.

Nevertheless, in recent years, positive changes towards more gender equality have been achieved. Bangladesh has already achieved gender parity in primary and secondary education and women’s employment rates have increased dramatically but at 26% for women 15-59 year of age, rates are still very low4. Important challenges prevail with high maternal mortality rates and malnutrition of girl children and women, high rates of girls drop outs from schools, limited presence of women in tertiary education, and marginal political representation and limited role in higher posts of state administration..

 

In cultural terms, Bangladesh is a relatively homogenous society: 90 percent of the population are Muslims (of the Hanafi School), the remainder being Hindu, Christian or Buddhist; 98 percent of the population are Bengali speaking (Blanchet, 1986). However, no tradition is monolithic, static or insulated. There have been cross influences between different religious/cultural communities as shown in the adoption of dowry among Muslims (Rozario, 1992). In local communities, religion often takes on syncretism forms whereby localized cultural forms become integrated into the social practice of religion (Kabeer, 1991). Blanchet (1986) and Kabeer (1991) note the struggle between Islamic and Bengali identities underlying the history of Bangladesh, with their differing conceptions of gender.

Bangladesh is a highly patriarchal society. Within the household and through local decision-making and legal bodies (e.g. the shamaj and salish), men exercise control over women’s labour, their sexuality, their choice of marriage partner, their access to labour and other markets and their income and assets. Women’s access to social, economic, political and legal institutions is mediated by men. They are dependent on men throughout their lives, from fathers through husbands to sons. State legislation and institutions underpin this gender subordination and dependence, in spite of constitutional affirmations of sex equality. Men’s authority over women is reinforced by pervasive gender-based violence.

The Islamic social institution of purdah defines separate spaces for men and women and ties the protection of family honour (izzat) to the control of female sexuality. Purdah restricts women’s mobility outside the homestead and thus the range of women’s economic activities and their involvement in public office and decision-making; it allows male authorities to exercise control over all women in the public sphere. Purdah is the means by which a rigid functional and spatial gender division of labour is upheld. Purdah also represents a set of norms internalised by women regarding appropriate behaviour. (Adnan, 1989).

In current processes of Islamisation, harsh interpretations of Islamic prescriptions as they relate to women by male authorities may be one way in which male (and class) interests are protected in the face of growing social differentiation and rapid social change. Women who transgress social and religious norms may be scapegoats. Women and personal law is an arena in which wider interests are fought out between groups of men, both at local and national levels, often in the name of ‘protecting’ women’s interests (Adnan, 1989).Women are not necessarily excluded from public spaces, nor from the exercise of public power. But they can only operate in these spheres by remaining within cultural norms of femininity. The movement of women into ‘male’ space (e.g. through increasing participation in agricultural labour) may therefore not be experienced as a liberation; women themselves may be reluctant, but are pushed into these spaces by necessity, often encouraged by men. However, increasing female labor force participation has probably not resulted in accompanying shifts in household divisions of labor (except perhaps the substitution of child - often daughter’s - labor for mother’s labor) and women’s income is used mainly for family rather than personal expenditure (Hossain et al, 1988. Women’s experience and interests in Bangladesh is strongly differentiated by their class position. Increasing pauperisation and landlessness have propelled some poorer rural women into activities to increase household income. However, given a large surplus of unemployed and underemployed rural labor, discriminatory and segmented labor markets, and the fact that most rural women are uneducated and unskilled, such women are highly disadvantaged vis-à-vis men in seeking outside employment. There is a strong ‘push’ factor where women’s participation in labor markets is increasing. Women in wealthier land-owning households are less likely to engage in outside productive work where this is seen as a sign of poverty and loss of social status.

Traditionally, women’s employment opportunities outside the homestead (bari) have been very limited. Much of the labour formerly performed by women at household level (e.g. in rice milling, weaving) has been displaced by technological change and mechanisation. Organised food for work and other employment schemes provide some employment for impoverished rural women, but are limited in scope and duration. In some areas, landless women collectively lease land or ponds to engage in activities such as livestock and poultry rearing, fishpond cultivation and vegetable production (Jahan, 1989). There is also some group ownership/operation by women of rice and oil mills (ibid.). Some younger women with formal education are finding employment in non-traditional spheres such as education, health and family planning and development extension work (Eggen, 1988).

The lack of employment opportunities in rural areas is also manifested in increasing rural-urban migration, including that of female-headed households. Migrant women find employment in domestic service, a variety of informal sector occupations (including prostitution) and casual unskilled labor, e.g. in the construction industry. Some, mainly younger women in urban and semi-urban areas are taking up factory employment in export-oriented industries such as garments, where the labor force is predominantly female. (Eggen,1988). Other potential growth sectors in manufacturing industry (e.g. shrimp processing, leather goods, toys) may employ significant numbers of women. However, most women in manufacturing still work in cottage industries as unpaid family labor.

In the patrilocal and patrilineal kinship system in Bangladesh, extended families have traditionally resided and worked together. A woman leaves the natal family at an early age to live with her husband’s family under the tutelage of the mother-in-law. Age, and particularly the bearing of sons, increases women’s status and control over younger female members of the household, such that there are often conflicting interests between women of older and younger generations. Older women are often instrumental in upholding patriarchal interests.

However, there is growing evidence of a breakdown of extended family units as landholdings become increasingly fragmented. According to Blanchet (1986), poverty is weakening the ‘patriarchal family as a unit of production’. This nuclearisation process is particularly marked among poorer households, as is the apparent phenomenon of growing female headedness. Whilst there may be liberating aspects for women to this process (e.g. escape from the authority of mother-in-laws), they may also lose the security associated with the extended family network and the scope for sharing of household tasks (Chen, 1986). Along with the breakdown of extended families, there has also been a weakening of women’s normative entitlements to social support, leaving them vulnerable to extreme poverty and destitution. Since, according to Islamic norms, the destitute woman supporting dependants is not supposed to exist, this problem has been given limited attention (Eggen, 1988).

In recent decades, the rise of a dowry-based marriage system, where previously a (nominal at least) brideprice system existed, is also related to the pauperisation process and increasing landlessness, although not in a simple way. The decreasing asset base of many households means that women’s labour in the household has limited returns and this, coupled with limited employment opportunities for women, means they are increasingly perceived as an economic burden by both ‘wife giving’ and ‘wife receiving’ households.

Although there have been recent shifts in policy emphasis, investment in human resources development in Bangladesh has been a low priority and this has particularly affected women, who in any case benefit less than men from government expenditure. Women’s nutritional status is worse than that of men (particularly among the very young and very old) and maternal mortality rates, among the highest in the world, have shown little change in recent years. Literacy rates and school enrolment ratios are low for both sexes but particularly for women. There has been some progress in reducing gender gaps in education (e.g. women’s literacy is rising faster than that of men) but the disparities are still wide, particularly above primary level. This low investment in women’s human resources is a major factor inhibiting women’s productivity and development (Nasr, 1992).

Conclusion:

In conclusion we can say all social construction approaches adopt the view that physically identical gender and sex may have varying social significance and subjective meaning, depending on how they are defined and understood in different cultures and historical periods

When speaking of social construction, we are referring to the way society defines and develops ideas and characteristics on issues that vary throughout certain time periods and certain cultures. There are many theories that suggest the development of the differences when dealing with the variations between men and women in society. Some social scientists propose biological differences, citing the distinct brain structures and the hormonal differences between the sexes. Others credit society, arguing that the process of socialization begins with early infancy and produces an acculturated being within a few years. Most find some middle ground between the two. An abundance of conflicting information continues to fuel the debate today.

There are countless arguments and much supportive evidence sustaining the view that gender is socially constructed. Gender differences are apparent beginning just a few months after birth. Whether they are the result of biology, cultural socialization, or some amalgamation of the two, has been debated by social scientists for decades, but no final conclusions have been drawn. In Anderson's writings, the debate is between nature and nurture. "Nature" refers to the biological differences between males and females and "nurture" refers to the social effects on gender. She supports the nurture approach by explaining that social construction is the basis for gender identity. From the practice of name giving as an infant, to adults in the job market, we as a society differentiate boys from girls and men from women.

Anderson adopts the nurture method as the basis for gender for many different reasons. In the case of physical appearance, for example, men usually weigh more than women. But the differences between women and other women and men and other men are much greater than the differences between the populations of men and women as a whole. As a result, the stereotype that men are larger than women is mostly because this is what society feels is desirable. Men are supposed to be bigger because they are intended to be stronger.

 Reference: 

  Dube, Leela 2001 Anthropological explorations in gender: Intersecting fields, New Delhi: Sage publications.

 Engels, Frederick 1948 The origin of the family, private property and the state, Moscow: Progress Publishers.

 Foucault, Michel 1989 The history of sexuality, vol. I, Penguin: Harmondsworth.

 Freeman, J.D. 1958 ‘The family system of the Iban of Borneo’ in Jack Goody

Clark, M. (1993) The Great Divide. Gender In The Primary School. Brunswick: Impact Printing

 Connell, R. (1993) Gender & Power. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers

 Davies, B. (1993) Shards Of Glass. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin.

Farrell, W. (1994) The Myth Of Male Power. Milsons Point: Random House Australia Pty Ltd.

 Fausto-Sterling, A. (1985) Myths Of Gender. Biological Theories About Women And Men. Revised Edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

 Franzoi, S. L. (1996) Social Psychology. Dubuque: Brown & Benchmark. James, B. and Saville-Smith, K. (1989) Gender Culture & Power. Critical Issues In New Zealand Society. Oxford: Oxford university press.

 Limerick, B. and lingard, B. (Ed.). (1995) Gender And Changing Educational           Management. Rydalmere: Hodder Education.

 

 

---