Understanding the Social Construction of Gender | CSS Gender Studies Notes
Social constructivists propose that there is no inherent truth to gender; it is constructed by social expectations and gender performance.
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. 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”.