The first step in understanding the concept of gender as a structure is to separate gender from sex. In the instant context, sex refers to the state of being either male or female. The said state is critical to the continuity of the human species, primarily through procreation. However, although gender closely affiliates with sex, it is exponentially different. By definition, gender denotes the social attribution to the different sexes. It refers to how society considers and treats different sexual affiliations. Sex is a standard biological issue either relating to the sexual characteristic at birth or sexual characteristics that an individual acquires through inter alia, surgery. As such, sex is similar all over the world. However, gender varies exponentially from community to community-based on cultural affiliation and social norms. Understanding gender as a structure lies primarily in how gender differs from sex and from cultural affiliation or social norms.
The fact that children are born genderless as outlined in Lorber (2004) is an important component of the concept of gender as a structure. All children are born with a specific sexual identity but not a gender identity. Normal children may be either male, female or hermaphrodite, depending on their genes and sexual organs at birth. However, as far as gender is concerned, children are born neutral. Without any cultural or social inference, children would indeed grow up gender-neutral even as they retain their sexual identities. However, in spite of where a child is born, parents and communities begin to establish the structure of gender around a child soon after birth. For a start, the parents or community will give the child a name, which is either male or female.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The structure of gender then continues based on the kind of dressing put on the child and the way those close to the child will treat it. Parents, family and the community will imprint a gender identity into the mind of the child by act and omission, as it continues to grow. By the time the child is old enough to understand its surroundings, it already understands the different gender affiliations and will eventually select which gender to affiliate itself with.
An important component of the concept of gender as a structure lies how gender affiliation varies from community to community. In some communities, the feminine gender has to be submissive to the male gender absolutely, based on culture and social norms. In some countries, the feminine gender has to submit to the male gender based on the law of the land (Henning, 2016). In other cultures, such as the Garos of India, the feminine gender is assertive and dominant to its masculine counterparts (Jamieson, 2019). Further evidence of gender as a structure stems from the fact that gender affiliation of independent from sexual affiliation. There are men who present themselves in the feminine gender and women who present themselves in the male gender. Based on the above, sex is a biological affiliation while gender is a social and cultural structure.
Part II
The structure of gender, which involves a shift from gender sameness to gender differences, has a variety of significances both for the individual, and the community as demonstrated in Lorber (2004). In some cases, the significance of gender to the individual contradicts that of society. It is perhaps due to these contradictions that some individuals take up gender affiliations that do not conform with biologically assigned sexual affiliations. Beginning with the societal level, every community aspires for a combination of order and continuity. Societies will attain order when members behave as they are supposed to be while continuity relies in part on procreation. As reflected by Lorber (2004), most societies combined the two components of order and continuity by establishing social norms based on gender affiliation. Societies thus carefully constructed a gender attribution for males and for females. The two genders would then become complementary to one another leading to eventual marriage and procreation. As Judith Lorber indicated, society begins to talk about boys and girls getting married when they are very young.
For the individual, however, gender identity may stem from how the individual would want to by the community at large to consider him or her. In most cases, how the child would want society to consider it comes from a chain of cause and effect. How parents and society treat molds the idea of gender affiliation into the child. However, some individuals are assertive and break the barrier of societal gender stratification. Such individuals, who include transvestites, dress, and act to present the image of gender affiliation of choice.
Conversely, Lorber (2004) also argues that gender may be significant to the individual due to professional or pecuniary reasons. For example, some women will take up the gender identity of men in order to be eligible for jobs that society reserves for men only. Similarly, in most parts of the world, men are paid more than women for doing the same kind of work. In some case, organizations will assign similar duties different job titles, depending on whether the duties are carried out by a man or a woman. Normally, the different titles will come with varied pay, with men earning higher wages than female counterparts. To overcome this handicap, Lorber (2004) indicates that some women take up masculine gender identity. As outlined above, gender affiliation has different significances for the society on the one part and the individual on the other, and these significances may not always be aligned.
References
Henning, K. (2016). Gender and Women’s Rights in Islam. KfW Development Research .
Jamieson, P. (2019). Uncovering the Truth Behind Matriarchal Societies in the Ancient World. Nexus , 19 , 01.
Lorber, J. (2004). “Night to his day”: The social construction of gender. Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study , 6 , 54-65.
