Race, unlike ethnicity, is a social construct. Race is associated with an individual's skin color and other physical attributes. Race can overlap with an individual's identity. Racial constructs will influence an individual's behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and other aspects that help individuals know their identity. Gender is also a social construct as it is an individual's relationship to categories defined and sustained by society. Gender constructs affect how individuals identify themselves. It also affects their attitudes and beliefs towards the exiting gender roles, which help to propagate gender. Individuals have different identities, depending on their race and gender. Although identities appear to be different, the process through which these identities are formed is similar, thus explaining how gender construction remains a similar process across different races and genders.
How Racial and Gender Constructs Help individuals identify themselves
Race and gender constructs are among the various ways that people use to identify themselves. People's identities are mainly what they believe themselves to be as well as what society sees in them (Markus, 2010). Identity is composed of beliefs, qualities, personality, and expressions. Identity has three basic elements; personal identity, social identity, and family identity, all of which help a person ascribe to unique social groups that they feel they share most qualities with (Markus, 2010). Individuals will identify themselves with regard to how much they believe they share a racial history with one group over the other (Self- attributes and identity, n.d). A good example would be an individual who is born of a Caucasian father and an African American mother identifying as Black because of their skin color or experiences that they have gone through that coincide with the experiences of Black people. Racial constructs, therefore, emerge as being based on the perception of shared racial history.
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Individuals who feel like they share more psychological attachment with a particular racial category will identify with this group. This then leads the individuals to begin taking part in cultural practices and activities that are believed to be unique to the particular social group (Markus, 2010). Individuals feel like through participating in these activities, they are acknowledging their racial identity and making it known to everyone else. Individuals then tend to develop feelings of attachment and belonging to the social group. Moreover, an individual's behavior is also influenced by race as they tend to behave differently, depending on how people from their perceived race have been treated (Castrellon, 2010). If people have experienced discrimination before due to their perceived race, they are more likely to be suspicious and cautious, which influences their identity.
Gender identity is seen as an individual's affiliation to gender as a social category. Gender identity used to be assigned biologically, where one's sense of being female or male determined their gender (Castrellon, 2010). Research on gender identity, acknowledges that biology affects the gender identity process. This occurs through biology, creating a body for the individual, which society has certain expectations of (Castrellon, 2010). Through this, one is assigned a sex category where society and the family begin to influence their identity. Individuals will begin to behave and carry themselves in the manner that portrays their identified gender (Greco, 2013). This is seen through their adherence to gender roles of their specified gender. By doing this, individuals meet the different expectations of society based on their biological category.
Sexuality, a result of gender construction, helps in making part of an individual's identity. Individuals will look at society's perception of sexuality and conform to what they relate to. However, for them to identify with the existing sexual identities, they must first conform to one of the exiting genders (Self- attributes and identity, n.d). This, therefore, explains how gender influences how people identify themselves. An individual's genetic makeup may influence one's identity, but it will not unbendingly determine it (Greco, 2013). With time, some individuals will realize that they do not relate to the gender assigned to them at birth. According to how one perceives themselves, individuals will begin to showcase their identity through behaviors and attitudes unique to the gender they identify with (Self- attributes and identity, n.d). The existence of these gender constructs thus, helps the individual realize their unique gender. Gender and racial constructs are, therefore, important in helping people identify their identity.
Similarities of Identity Construction across Gender and Races
People will identify as members of different races and gender in society. The process through which an individual constructs their identity is varied across gender and race. The identity of an individual is their psychological relationship to a particular social category (Markus, 2010). Most people will invoke the term identity when their social category systems clash with those of the collective group experiences. There exist salient similarities in the process of identity construction in human beings. It is important to note that first, an individual's identity depends on how one perceives themselves (Markus, 2010). Any individual who is on a quest to understand themselves will identify their unique characteristics and decide on which attributes they will highlight about themselves and which attributes they will downplay. The identity that an individual will ascribe to themselves could, therefore, vary from how society views the individual (Markus, 2010). This runs true for everyone regardless of their gender or race.
Secondly, it is worthy to note that identity construction is a product of society (Markus, 2010). This is a fact that remains true across the various genders and racial groups. Society will determine whether a woman is considered white or colored depending on their physical attributes just as they will subject an African American man to the same criteria. Finally, identity construction is a dynamic process that depends on the current location of the individual (Markus, 2010). Identity is a collection of an individual's experiences, beliefs, and attitudes and is not static across the lifespan. Depending on where an individual is located, their individual identity may vary since their experiences at the time might influence how they perceive themselves (Markus, 2010). These three concepts explain how although identities of individuals are unique, the identity construction of a white woman can be similar to the identity construct of an African American man.
References
Castrellon, E. (2010). An exploration of the social construction of race and racial identity: a project based upon an independent investigation. https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2253&context=theses
Greco, J. (2013). Gender: A social construction. The Sociological Imagination: Undergraduate Journal, 2(2). https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a21c/a1e1a8dccf9629e1833e77d06878f877f908.pdf
Markus, R., H. (2010). Who Am I ?
Self- attributes and identity. (n.d). https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/57244_Chapter_3.pdf
