Title: Sociology of Gender – The Other Sociologist
Headings: Sociology of Gender
Sociology of Gender
Gender
Social Construction of Gender
Masculinity
Femininity
Transgender and Intersex Australians
Gender Across Time and Place
“What stays constant is that women and men have to be distinguishable ” (my emphasis).
16th Century Europe
Wodaabe (Niger)
“Two Spirit” (Navajo Native American)
Female Husbands (Various African Cultures)
Kathoey (Thailand)
Studying Gender Sociologically
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Content: Identities are immutable; and that
Deviations from dominant ideas of male/female must be “unnatural.” As I show further below, there is more variation across cultures when it comes to what is considered “normal” for men and women, thus highlighting the ethnocentric basis of sex categories. Ethnocentric ideas define and judge practices according to one’s own culture, rather than understanding cultural practices vary and should be viewed by local standards. Social Construction of Gender
Gender, like all social identities, is socially constructed. Social constructionism is one of the key theories sociologists use to put gender into historical and cultural focus. Social constructionism is a social theory about how meaning is created through social interaction – through the things we do and say with other people. This theory shows that gender it is not a fixed or innate fact, but instead it varies across time and place. Gender norms (the socially acceptable ways of acting out gender) are learned from birth through childhood socialisation. We learn what is expected of our gender from what our parents teach us, as well as what we pick up at school, through religious or cultural teachings, in the media, and various other social institutions.