Historicizing Constructionism

Background

In 1886 or 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that, “Facts do not exist, only interpretations.” In

his 1922 book Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann said, "The real environment is altogether
too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance" It means, people "live in the
same world, but they think and feel in different ones." Lippman's “environment” might be called
“reality,” and his “pseudo-environment” seems equivalent to what today is called “constructed
reality.”

Social constructionism has more recently been rooted in "symbolic interactionism"

and "phenomenology." With Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of
Reality published in 1966, this concept found its hold. Berger and Luckman’s ideas
were inspired by a number of thinkers, including Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and
George Herbert Mead. In particular, Mead's theory symbolic interactionism, which
suggests that social interaction is responsible for the construction of identity, was highly
influential.

In the late 1960s, three separate intellectual movements came together to form the
foundation of social constructionism.

1. The first was an ideological movement that questioned social realities and put a
spotlight on the political agenda behind such realities.

2.The second was a literary/rhetorical drive to deconstruct language and the way it
impacts our knowledge of reality.

3. And the third was a critique of scientific practice, led by Thomas Kuhn, who argued
that scientific findings are influenced by, and thus representative of, the specific
communities where they're produced—rather than objective reality.

The basic idea behind it is that people "make their social and cultural worlds at the
same time these worlds make them." 

Defining Constructionism

“Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge that holds that characteristics typically

thought to be absolute and solely biological—such as gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality
—are products of human definition and interpretation shaped by cultural and historical
contexts.”

As such, social constructionism highlights the ways in which cultural categories—like “men,”
“women,” “black,” “white”—are concepts created, changed, and reproduced through historical
processes within institutions and culture. We do not mean to say that bodily variation among
individuals does not exist, but that we construct categories based on certain bodily features, we
attach meanings to these categories, and then we place people into the categories by considering
their bodies or bodily aspects. For example, by the one-drop rule, regardless of their
appearance, individuals with any African ancestor are considered black. In contrast, racial
conceptualization and thus racial categories are different in Brazil, where many individuals with
African ancestry are considered to be white. This shows how identity categories are not based on
strict biological characteristics, but on the social perceptions and meanings that are assumed.
Categories are not “natural” or fixed and the boundaries around them are always shifting—they
are contested and redefined in different historical periods and across different societies.
Therefore , the social constructionist perspective is concerned with the meaning created through
defining and categorizing groups of people, experience, and reality in cultural contexts.

For Example:

While Americans might recognize a “thumbs up” as meaning “great,” in Germany it would
mean “one” and in Japan it would mean “five.” Thus, social realties are created and are
heavily influenced by our interactions.

The Social Constructionism of Gender

The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social
constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people “know” or see as
“reality” is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially
constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. Take, for example, money. Money is a
socially constructed reality. Paper bills are worth nothing independent of the value individuals
ascribe to them. The dollar is only worth as much as value as Americans are willing to ascribe to
it. Note that the dollar only works in its own currency market; it holds no value in areas that
don’t use the dollar. Nevertheless, the dollar is extremely powerful within its own domain.
(Book: Introduction to Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Authors: Miliann Kang,
Donovan Lessard, and Laura Heston)

These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to
human life, including gender. Is gender an essential category or a social construct? If it is a social
construct, how does it function? Who benefits from the way that gender is constructed? A social
constructionist view of gender looks beyond categories and examines the intersections of
multiple identities and the blurring of the boundaries between essentialist categories. This is
especially true with regards to categories of male and female, which are viewed typically as
binary and opposite. Social constructionism seeks to blur the binary and muddle these two
categories, which are so frequently presumed to be essential.

In simple words, Social Constructionism means that cultural and historical contexts shape our
definition and understanding of concepts.
Social Constructionism vs. Other Theories

Social constructionism is often placed in contrast with Biological Determinism/ Essentialism. 

Biological determinism suggests that an individual's traits and behavior are determined

exclusively by biological factors. Social constructionism, on the other hand, emphasizes the
influence of environmental factors on human behavior and suggests that relationships among
people create reality.

In addition, social constructionism should not be confused with constructivism. Social

constructivism is the idea that an individual's interactions with her environment create the
cognitive structures that enable her to understand the world. This idea is often traced back to
developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. While the two terms spring from different scholarly
traditions, they are increasingly used interchangeably.

Social Construction of Gender

We can trace this way of dividing up the world as far back as the ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle in Western European history (see Synnott 1993). In his Metaphysics Aristotle
summarises what he calls the Pythagorean table of opposites and it shows clearly how these
divisions work. On the one side are terms such as Limit, Odd, One, Right, Male, Resting,
Straight, Light, Good, Square; on the other side, Unlimited, Even, Plurality, Left, Female,
Moving, Curved, Darkness, Bad, Oblong (Aristotle 1968–69). Aristotle sets one series of nouns
against another, sorting them into opposites, where the obviously opposite pairs reinforce the
oppositionality of the merely different pairs (male is to female as an oblong is opposite to a
square?). Aristotle took his curious set of binary oppositions even further in his Economics
where he states that men were stronger, women weaker; men courageous, women cautious; men
the outdoors type, women domestic; men educate children, women nurture them (Aristotle 1968–
69). An examination of TV ads shows that ancient Greek philosophy continues to have its
influence centuries later. Beer commercials show men shooting dangerous rapids, while women
are pictured elsewhere decorating the home. Even our language is gendered: nouns which are
feminine in English (as in many other languages) more often than not have negative
connotations. Abuddy (a word derived from brother) is a good thing to have, but no one wants to
be a sissy (derived from sister). (Gender Studies, Terms and Debates)
We grow up with the idea that a person’s gender is determined by their sex2 . Moreover, in
general people think that the sex of a person is something stable3 and we develop the idea that
sex and gender are binary . However, gender and sex are two different notions: Psychologist
Robert Stoller was the first to distinguish between the terms gender and sex, according to
Stoller the word gender describes how much feminine and masculine behaviour an individual
displays and the word sex describes the biological characteristics of a person. Gender denotes
men and women depending on social factors such as social roles, position, behaviour and identity
and sex denotes the biological characteristics of someone’s body.

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.

The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism and sociology about the

manifestation of cultural origins, mechanisms, and corollaries of gender perception and
expression in the context of interpersonal and group social interaction. Specifically, the
social construction of gender stipulates that gender roles are an achieved "status" in a
social environment, which implicitly and explicitly categorize people and therefore
motivate social behaviors.
A intimately related, though notably distinct matter in feminist theory is the relationship
between the ascribed status of biological sex- male and female; and their achieved
status counterparts in gender- masculine and feminine.
Examples:
Take for example the gender pay gap. Men in general are paid better than women; they enjoy
more sexual and social freedom; and they have other benefits that women do not by virtue of
their gender. There are variations across race, class, sexuality, and according to disability and
other socio-economic measures. See an example of pay disparity at the national level versus
race and pay amongst Hollywood stars.

Actress Natalie Portman is the latest White woman celebrity to talk about the gender pay gap in
ways that demonstrate tunnel vision on the intersections between racism and gender inequity.
From Patricia Arquette’s highly misguided attempt to discuss the wage disparity during her 2015
Oscars speech, to Jennifer Lawrence’s essay calling for equal pay, White actresses have a very
skewed view of the inequities faced by “women” in the entertainment industry and in everyday
life.

Sports such as soccer and ballet and the colour pink are typically associated with a specific
gender. These ideas on gender are not stable, they vary over cultures and throughout history. For
example, in the United States soccer is considered a girls sport and in Europe it is typically for
boys. It is described by many authors that there are differences between what is now commonly
attributed to a specific gender, in comparison to what was common for that gender a few decades
or a few hundred years ago. The color pink is now seen as a girly colour, but this was not the
case one hundred years ago. Hence, gender norms are changing. This raises the question: how
they are formed and changed?

Also when looking at other cultures, we see differences between gender norms. For example two
men walking in public while holding hands is normal in Iran, while in Western Europe that is not
common. Several authors write about how these gender roles are formed. According to Rubin,
the differences between genders are caused by social interventions in which people are told not
to behave a certain way because it does not match their gender.

According to Haslanger (1995, 98) saying that gender is socially constructed in some contexts
means the same as saying that the reason women are feminine and men are masculine is socially
determined instead of biologically determined.

The very first theories originate from cultural comparisons and the explorations into the Hibitoe
tribes, as the western ideals of the ‘masculine’ man and ‘feminine’ women are contrasted against
their own principles.

Examples of Masculinity and Femininity`s Social Construction

While it`s not a matriarchy (by our own definitions which are limited) the men are the
ones who sit at home, looking after the children and gossiping. They have been coined
the ‘best fathers in the world’ due to being around their children more than any other
parent. They even allow the baby to breastfeed while the women go out to hunt.
Suggesting that women are the ones who should look after their children as its ‘natural’
is completely wrong and gender is socially constructed.

Another view on this topic is gender fluidity. This is where gender is not a binary
concept, it is not a fixed point. It is fluid, peoples conception of self identity change all
the time, you may act ‘feminine’ ‘masculine’ throughout your life it all depends on the
circumstances and context of the situation. Men don’t always act like ‘men’ it varies so
they may act more ‘feminine’ and tender in different situations, vice versa for women.
This would suggest that gender is a social construct otherwise men would always act as
men while women will always act as women.

This is from the movie Danish Girl, it explores sex and gender; exploring how any non-
conformity to the established norms of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are called ‘freaks’
and some people even go so far as to try put Lili, the main character, (tiny tiny spoiler) in
a mental asylum. While some people may argue that this may be due to a ‘hormonal
imbalance’ with ‘evidence’ showing such, in reality transgender people often get
operations to more resemble their sex and gender meaning the hormonal results will be
skewered. Spoiler alert: Lili in the end dies from trying to achieve herself expression and
identity and from the operation she had.

Is Sex Socially Constructed?

In this fascinating article by Mey: It’s Time For People to Stop Using the Social Construct
of “Biological Sex” to Defend Their Transmisogyny:

She argues that biological sex is a social construction, this is from the assertion that
doctors judge sex based on genitals. These genitals are often “ambiguous” and far from
“binary” with around a 1 in 2000 being born with both genitals and the doctors often
have “sex confirmation surgeries” basing their sex off what genital is left. Thus the
doctors choose what sex we’re through how it is all based upon their opinion and
judgment. And if sex is a social construction then gender definitely is.

The next argument is much more complicated, and this is the brain.

There has been a consensus on how women and men have different brain structures,
thus gender is not constructed and is dictated by sex. However, more recently many
studies have shown that male and female brains are extremely similar or even the same.
The studies that emphasis that any differences from the brain structures are ‘soft wired’
meaning it has many extraneous variables such as a socialization or effects of cultures.
Meditating can even have an effect on the brain structure. This would all suggest that
the brain is more complicated then just black and white, our knowledge of such a
miraculous creation is very much lacking and thus more research is needed (and is being
carried out) into the brain.

Deconstruction of Gender by Judith Butler/ Social Construction of Sex

Judith Butler is one of the most prominent social theorists currently working on
issues pertaining to the social construction of gender. Butler is a trained philosopher
and has oriented her work towards feminism and queer theory. Butler’s most known
work is Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, published in
1991, which argues for gender performativity. This means that gender is not an
essential category. The repetitious performances of “male” and “female” in
accordance with social norms reifies the categories, creating the appearance of a
naturalized and essential binary. Gender is never a stable descriptor of an individual,
but an individual is always “doing” gender, performing or deviating from the socially
accepted performance of gender stereotypes. Doing gender is not just about acting
in a particular way. It is about embodying and believing certain gender norms and
engaging in practices that map on to those norms. These performances normalize
the essentialism of gender categories. In other words, by doing gender, we
reinforce the notion that there are only two mutually exclusive categories of gender.
The internalized belief that men and women are essentially different is what makes
men and women behave in ways that appear essentially different. Gender is
maintained as a category through socially constructed displays of gender.

Doing gender is fundamentally a social relationship. One does gender in order to

be perceived by others in a particular way, either as male, female, or as troubling
those categories. Certainly, gender is internalized and acquires significance for the
individual; some individuals want to feel feminine or masculine. Social
constructionists might argue that because categories are only formed within a
social context, even the affect of gender is in some ways a social relation.
Moreover, we hold ourselves and each other for our presentation of gender, or how
we “measure up.” We are aware that others evaluate and characterize our behavior
on the parameter of gender. Social constructionists would say that gender is
interactional rather than individual—it is developed through social interactions.
Gender is also said to be omnirelevant, meaning that people are always judging our
behavior to be either male or female.
Queer Theory
A number of theorists from several perspectives can be seen as shaping the theoretical porridge
that has generated Queer Theory. These contributing perspectives include Psychoanalysis
(Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan), Structural Linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure), Marxism (Louis
Althusser), Social Constructionism (for example, Jeffrey Weeks), Feminism (including Diana Fuss
and Denise Riley), and writers on ‘race’ (for instance, Hazel Carby and Henry Louis Gates).
Nevertheless, several names repeatedly bob up as central figures.

Foucault’s historical studies of the emergence of sexual categories demonstrate that

marginalised sexual identities are not merely victims of power – a natural form of self repressed
by power – but produced by power. These marginalised identities, no matter how socially
excluded they might be, are not outside but part of the organisation of societies.

While Foucault offers a critique of the status quo, he is very wary of potential new ide- ological
agendas presumed by political movements that advance sexual minorities. He is doubtful, in
 other words, of claims by marginalised groups like gays and lesbians that their advancement
will necessarily revolutionise the dominant social system. Instead, Foucault suggests that we
pay close attention to the forms of selection and exclusion in these identities too. For Foucault,
resistance to power that promotes itself as a new sexual truth replicates the dangerous
naturalised certainty of the existing order. It is precisely this certainty which requires
dismantling (Jagose, 1996: 79–83). Foucault has, however, been widely criticised as focusing on
sexuality to the point of offering an analysis that is gender-blind (Cahill, 2000; Beasley, 1999;
Braidotti, 1991, 1994a; McNay, 1991; Grosz, 1987, 1994c; Bartky, 1988). He is charged with
concentrating upon heterosexual/homosexual hierarchies in sexuality while largely ignoring
gender hierarchies, which cut across sexual divisions. It is suggested that he presents a history
of the regulation of sex which largely ignores the ongoing deployment of women.

The works of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, David Halperin, Michael Warner and Judith Butler are also
commonly recognised as highly influential and as furthering Foucault’s insights.

Butler argues that gender and the category ‘women’ within it do not designate stable or
coherent identities but rather identities tenuously constituted in particular historical and
cultural contexts. There is no essential ‘core’ natural to women or men (Butler, 1997b: 402).
Rather, human beings are constructed socially and specifically through language, which shapes
and organises our social understandings and hence possibilities. This ‘nominal’ account of
gender identity gives little credence to any intrinsic content for gender and gendered
embodiment. Such a position is asserted in similar fashion by Post-colonial feminist Gayatri
Spivak, who states that her ‘defini- tion as a woman’ is not in terms of some essence but is
provisional and subject to polit- ical context. (Learn this paragraph for social construction of
gender too)

“ Queer thinking does involve a multiplicity of sexualities and a rejection of singular gay/lesbian
identities, but arguably the queer that is invoked is not simply a refusal of identity per se.”

(Learn Queer Theory from Book)

Masculinity
Professor Connell defines masculinity as a broad set of processes which include gender relations
and gender practices between men and women and “the effects of these practices in bodily
experience, personality and culture.” Connell argues that culture dictates ways of being
masculine and “unmasculine.” She argues that there are several masculinities operating within
any one cultural context, and some of these masculinities are:
 hegemonic;
 subordinate;
 compliant; and
 marginalised.
In Western societies, gender power is held by White, highly educated, middle-class, able-bodied
heterosexual men whose gender represents hegemonic masculinity – the ideal to which other
masculinities must interact with, conform to, and challenge. Hegemonic masculinity rests on
tacit acceptance. It is not enforced through direct violence; instead, it exists as a cultural “script”
that are familiar to us from our socialisation. The hegemonic ideal is exemplified in movies
which venerate White heterosexual heroes, as well as in sports, where physical prowess is given
special cultural interest and authority.
A 2014 event between the Australian and New Zealand rugby teams shows that racism, culture,
history and power complicate how hegemonic masculinities play out and subsequently
understood.

“The terms “masculine” and “feminine” point beyond categorical sex

difference to the ways men differ among themselves, and women
differ among themselves, in matters of gender.”
Femininity
Professor Judith Lorber and Susan Farrell argue that the social constructionist perspective on
gender explores the taken-for-granted assumptions about what it means to be “male” and
“female,” “feminine” and “masculine.” They explain:
women and men are not automatically compared; rather, gender
categories (female-male, feminine-masculine, girls-boys, women-
men) are analysed to see how different social groups define them, and
how they construct and maintain them in everyday life and in major
social institutions, such as the family and the economy.
Femininity is constructed through patriarchal ideas. This means that femininity is always set up
as inferior to men. As a result, women as a group lack the same level of cultural power as men.

As women do not have cultural power, there is no version of hegemonic femininity to rival
hegemonic masculinity. There are, however, dominant ideals of doing femininity, which favour
White, heterosexual, middle-class cis-women who are able-bodied. Minority women do not
enjoy the same social privileges in comparison.

Gender Across Time and Place

Behaviours that come to be understood as masculine and feminine vary across cultures and they
change over time. As such, the way in which we understand gender here and now in the city of
Melbourne, Australia, is slightly different to the way in which gender is judged in other parts of
Australia, such as in rural Victoria, or in Indigenous cultures in remote regions of Australia, or in
Lima, Peru, or Victorian era England, and so on. Still, the notion of difference, of otherness, is
central to the social organisation of gender. As Judith Lorber and Susan Farrell argue:
“What stays constant is that women and men have to be distinguishable”
Gender does not look so familiar when we look at other cultures – including our own cultures,
back in time. Here are examples where hegemonic masculinity (issues of gender and power) look
very different to what we’ve become accustomed to in Western nations. Let’s start with a
historical example from Western culture.

16th Century Europe

European nations have not always adhered to the same ideas about feminine and
masculine. As I noted a few years ago, aristocratic men in Europe in the 16th and 17th
Centuries wore elaborate high-heeled shoes to demonstrate their wealth. The shoes
were impractical and difficult to walk in, but they were both a status symbol as well as a
sign of masculinity and power. In Western cultures, women did not begin wearing high-
heeled shoes until the mid-19th Century. Their introduction was not about social status
or power, but rather it was a symptom of the increasing sexualisation of women with the
introduction of cameras.
“Two Spirit” (Navajo Native American)
We-Wah, Two Spirit woman.via Chicago Whispers
I wrote about the “Two Spirit” People found amongst the Navajo Native American cultures, who
make up two additional genders: the feminine man (nádleehí) and masculine woman (dilbaa).
They are traditionally considered to be sacred beings embodying both the feminine and
masculine traits of all their ancestors and nature. They are chosen by their community to
represent this tradition, and once this happens, they live out their lives in the opposite gender,
and can also get married (to someone of the opposite gender to their adopted gender). These
couples have sex together and they may also have sex with other partners of the opposite gender.
If they have children, they are accepted into the Two Spirit household without social stigma.

Some Important References to remember:

1.) Gender and Sexuality by Chris Beasely

2.) Routledge Guidebook to the History of Sexuality
3.) Beyond the Binaries: Depolarizing the Categories of Sex, Sexuality and
Gender
4.) Critical Theory Today by Louis Tyson
5.) The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber
6.) Theories of Gender Studies by Chris Bailey