Title: Social construction of gender - Wikipedia
Headings: Social construction of gender
Social construction of gender
Contents
Basic concepts
Status (feminist theory)
Social constructionism
Gender
Gender roles
Gender identity
Sexuality/sexual orientation
Core gender identity
Intersections of gender identity with other identities
Gender as accomplishment
Accountability
Sex and sex category
Applications of gender performance
Infancy and young childhood
Teen years
Queer identity
Political potential and limits
During development
Gender-based harassment
Adolescent view of adulthood
Depression
Body image
Education
Media
Research methods
Promoting social change and criticisms
Social change
Criticism and opportunities to "undo" gender
Nature versus nurture
See also
References
Further reading

Content: Materialist theories, which underline the structural aspects of the social environment that are responsible for perpetuating certain gender roles; Discursive theories, which stress the creation, through language and culture, of meanings that are associated with gender. They also argue that both the materialist and discursive theories of social construction of gender can be either essentialist or non-essentialist. This means that some of these theories assume a clear biological division between women and men when considering the social creation of masculinity and femininity, while other contest the assumption of the biological division between the sexes as independent of social construction. Gender
Main article: Gender
Gender is used as a means of describing the distinction between the biological sex and socialized aspects of femininity and masculinity. According to West and Zimmerman, is not a personal trait; it is "an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements, and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society." As a social construct, gender is considered an achieved status by feminist theory, typically (though not exclusively) one which is achieved very early in childhood.