Jan 25, 2018 in Analysis

Gender Studies

Human identity is influenced and shaped by social life, human interactions, and gender. These factors are generated by religion, science, and the society’s entire set of values.

Identity of human being is socially constructed by the differences between “women” and “men”

Individuals construct and maintain gender order throughout their lives. They learn what society expects from them, and react in expected ways. From ancient time, the law makers established different laws to protect women from gender-inappropriate behaviors. The administrations created socially imposed standards for men and women.

When I was studying in first grade, we used to have school excursions to the different cities for developing pupils’ practical knowledge. In that time, the school administration did not let boys and girls to sleep in the same room. So I was a little bit confused with the laws of school administration, but now I can understand the values of such laws. When I reflect back on such memories of being gendered, I can understand that I learned to act like a girl from my childhood; as my parents, school administrations, neighbors, etc., taught me to behave in a different way than boys. My parents taught me to dress like a girl, which made me realize that girls should have different personalities than boys. It was my first step in life to improve my personality as a girl by following some of the ethical rules of a girl.

After reading about “doing gender”, I have learned that children are usually put into various sex categories, and start the gender construction at their childhood. Society creates various responsibilities to the human beings according to their genders. For instance, women are more likely to do lower-wage jobs and raise children in most of the Asian countries. On the other hand, men work for state, society, construction fields, etc. However, if an individual in a society decides to go beyond the culture and its norms, then in most of parts of the world it would be considered as violation of government and ethical values of humanity. For instance, most of the Asian and Middle Eastern countries believe that gay and lesbian affairs are against their laws and ethics. In those countries, homosexual behaviors are considered to be inappropriate. Moreover, it can cause formal punishment or threat of punishment in the society. However, in Western societies, most of the human decisions concerning sex and race are respected and supported by the laws (Lorber, 1990).

According to the European news report, social construction of gender is not a fruitful way to improve the society

Some of the social organizations believe that gender equality is the best way to protect human rights. So, Swedish government introduced gender equality laws by introducing genderless pronoun, such as “hen” instead of “han” (he) and “hon” (she). Swedish toys companies have made categories of toys by adding playing dolls for boys and guns for girls, so that children can understand the equality of gender from the early childhood. The government believes that it is a good way to control humiliation concerning genders (Reville, 2013).

In Stockholm, one of the parents decided to call their children “friends”, instead of calling boys and girls

The authority believes that sex stereotypes play a distinctively persistent difference to boys and girls, which leads a boy to prefer rough and tumble play, and a girl to nurturing play. In order to avoid such kind of differences, the country has decided to follow gender-equality laws, which is quite beneficial for its society (Reville, 2013).


  1. Lorber, J. (1990, December 1). The Social Construction of Gender. Sage Publications.
  2. Reville, W. (2013, April 4). Gender is not a social construct. The Irish Times. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/gender-is-not-a-social-construct-1.1347741

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