The Social Construction of Gender

     The image is from the popular movie South Pacific, which is known for dealing with the issue of racism, and is strewn heavily with gender-role examples: a naieve woman and many confident, some gun-weilding men.  Where do these strong, sexist images of male and female roles come from?  They are easy to pick out in this film from 1949 - they are almost painfully obvious - what about in present day?  Are they biologically based or socially developed and conditioned into us?

"Gendered people emerge not from physiology or sexual orientation but from the exigencies of the social order..." (Kirk p. 67)

"...  gender differences are not natural or biological but learned from infancy" (Kirk p. 55)

     What a significant statement!  Evolutionary biologists would have us believing that men and women are fundamentally physically different because we had different gender roles thousands of years ago while we were evolving genetically - which is circular reasoning.  Gender roles didn't evolve from gender roles.  What is a more reasonable explanation for human behavior is social conditioning - the ways we learn through our interactions with those around us to behave in certain ways.  What if thousands of years ago, cave men and cave woman both each hunted and gathered herbs.  How would we ever know?  Maybe women were hunters too.
     This leads to another major idea in the Patriarchy reading in Women's Lives: paths of least resistance can explain why players of a game and also members of a social system rely on behaviors that are easiest under the social circumstances.  In this case, social conditioning is a matter of learning and being taught what paths to take in life and personal thought by taking those that offer the least challenge.  When your best friend tells you all women are stupid, there is a tendency to agree. Social Gendering is the main topic of the text and,

"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." (Kirk p. 65)

     So we learn gender stratification, we live gender stratification, we engender gender stratification.  Males and females are both participants in skewed system which generally advantages one over the other.  To give a concrete example of that, there is the double standard of sexuality in society as illustrated by this anti-sexism excerpt:

"Fuck up the double standard. Don't let people call girls sluts! Engage folks in conversations about
why they think it's cool for guys to hook up, but not girls." (Full Frontal Feminism, p. 238)

     This double standard is ridiculous, but it's the current state of affairs in popular thinking.  Although, if it's cool for a guy to hook up but not for a girl to hook up, does that mean guys should only date guys, if women technically shouldn't participate?  I'm only pointing out the humor in this double standard.  But this is an extremely pervasive double standard that is the product of social gendering.  Males are taught at a young age to think they are better than women, and that women should feel crappy about themselves for doing exactly the same things the men do- even for partaking in the "hooking up" in this case, is "wrong" morally for the female to do.
      After reading the texts I find myself doing some self-assessment.  I think every man on the planet can probably say he has laughed at a sexist joke.  But what I think I'm learning is that the degradation adds up.  And from what I'm learning in social psychology class so far - that "schemas" that represent aggressive behaviors can be "primed" by being exposed to aggressive images, and we see sexually degrading images in the media, and I ask myself, what sort of behaviors does this create in the general populace, and how is this used to reinforce social gendering (in say, the media)?  Ethics is extremely unrepresented by modern society.
     Look at internet porn for example.  Pornography that is terrifying for what it represents - the degradation of women at the hands of men.  There should be healthy sexual intercourse "recreational" video / image materials available for all humans - but not where a specific "group", in this case women, is systematically and thoroughly degraded in ways not fit to describe here, which is basically an example of malicious social gendering on the part of the men involved.
    Sexuality is a beautiful thing that should be celebrated, and I think historically when humans were mostly pagans before christianity appeared, we found it fascinating to get together and watch other people have sex at moon lit festivals - I wonder what kind of sexual roles there were when the Goddess was worshipped?  How was sexuality and masculinity and femininity back then?  What constituted womanhood, manhood?  Was a "Virgin" still an independent woman - or did that image start to skew when Christianity arose?  I quote:

"The bitch was Artemis-Diana, goddess of the hunt, most often associated with the dogs who accompanied her.  And the virgin was merely a woman who was unattached, unclaimed, and un-owned by any man and therefore independant and autonomous." (Kirk p. 74)

     It's strange how these words have become twisted in our modern times.  For ancient people, then, am I to understand that the dog was a positive feminine symbol?  Perhaps, of loyalty, strength, intelligence, and master of the hunt even?  Social gendering is possibly an inescapable process - in which case, we need back those ideas of strong women, of huntresses and wise women, of independant women, to give to our children as something a better way of being and a more respectful place in society.
     So yes, there is something strange going on.  It's called the patriarchal system.  As a man, I can see it's perpetuated by men, so let's address what needs to be different for men in a better system.  Male attitudes and indifference is one of the biggest causes of skewed social gendering.  A new idea of masculinity is needed:

"What is and was needed is a vision of masculinity where self esteem and self-love of one's unique being forms the basis of identity.  Cultures of domination attack self-esteem, replacing it with a notion that we derive our sense of being from dominion over another." (Feminism is for Everybody p. 70)

     This is pretty much a universal factor in the troubles and trials of any human spirit.  We all need self-esteem and self-love, and somehow, we get that at times by making other people miserable (through sexism, discrimination, at home, in the workplace, in politics etc).  If I'm the A group, why make the not-A group miserable?  Men orchestrate and women participate in this strange system of social conditioning.

     In Jessica Brown's letter about her activism, in which her pro-lesbian group wore cupid costumes and were bear breasted and entered the Family Research Council (a christian organization for legislation against gay rights, among other things), Both groups were basically degrading each other.  However, christianity is one of many common places where social institutions are basically against women's rights, and among christans, often social gendering occures at a young age.  Women are seen as the "source of original sin." and are taught to view themselves as such. In a case like this, the FRC proved themselves to be extremists, who being extremely socially gendered, tried to make the bear-breasted women miserable by physically pushing them out the door and then purposefully breaking the gift they had brought.  It appears people pick on each other in part because of social gendering.
     Notice how all the FRC women left the room and the men all came forward and became aggressive towards the demonstrators, as though they thought that kind of behavior was appropriate.  Notice that there were women working for this christian organization that was basically against women's (human) right to love other healthy human beings without harming others - which is what gay and lesbian marriage really amounts to.  The social gendering starts young to teach people to lobby against their own rights - and the scary thing is, popular christianity does this effectively by alienating one group from another through stereotypes and dogmas.

     Finally, it goes back to Kathy and her problem with their not being a woman's bathroom at her workplace.  Her supervisor was male, and ignored her problem.  When she locked the bathroom door, basically when she made them understand there was a real problem, they delivered her a bathroom.  Men are a great cog powering the problem of patriarchy, we are perhaps the most and worst gender conditioned of any group, and as was said, with bad self esteem to boot.  To make a long story short, if you're a male, you could probably become a better feminist, and if you're a female, stand up to those men and show them you're not afraid to make a point.

     What did Rachel really accomplish that day, for her and her schoolmates?  The boys were systematically ruining the girls self esteem at school, by loudly rating their body parts on a 1-10 scale - a very degrading thing. Rachel got the girls together and made a plan to humiliate the boys - but not to torture them forever.  She didn't just turn the tables and use their system against them from then on - she made her point systematically and also by writing a letter that was probably a very clear statement.  She made an impression. And that's part of what feminism is about too, because we can't become conscious about social gendering and sexism unless we make demonstrations that get the point across clearly and concisely to oppressors.