This is crossposted at The Feminist Agenda.
I've been involved in a number of conversations lately about the social construction of gender, and it occurs to me that what it means for gender to be a social construct, along with the implications of a social construction theory of gender, is not clear to a lot of people. So here's an explanation that may clarify things a bit.
A social construction is something that doesn't exist independently in the "natural" world, but is instead an invention of society. Cultural practices and norms give rise to the existence of social constructs and govern the practices, customs, and rules concerning the way we use/view/understand them. In other words, we all act as if they exist, and because of our intersubjective agreement, they do.
The classic example of a social construct is money. Various cultures utilize paper, gold, silver, or other items as a medium for trade. To do this, we invest the object with value that we all acknowledge (we act as if it has value), and this informs our practices when it comes to money. But money is not a thing that occurs independently of human activity in the natural world. Thus it is a social construction. It's very real - calling it a social construct does not amount to calling it imaginary or non-existent. But its existence is dependent on our culture and our practices. This means that its definition, use, meaning, value, etc. is entirely contingent on culture.
As our culture changes, so do our constructs. Some constructs come into being and then fall into disuse and thus go out of existence. Others remain but change from one culture and historical period to another. Gender is one such construct. The traits and behaviors that are thought to be "masculine" and "feminine" differ dramatically from one culture and time period to another. Appropriate ways of behaving, the labor that's assigned to gender groups, beliefs about natural abilities and propensities, etc. change significantly. And this variation and adaptation to conditions and social pressures reinforces the idea that gender is a social construction rather than some sort of essence that arises from biology. Because if gender was determined by physical sex, then it wouldn't vary in this way, but would remain constant, just as other biologically determined attributes remain constant. Instead, gender varies with cultural change.
Generally speaking, gender is assigned at birth according to physical sex. Medical professionals look at the baby's genitals and announce that the baby is a boy or a girl (unless the child is intersex, in which case much work is done to force the child into one camp or the other). And then the work begins to socialize the child and teach them the script that goes with the gender they've been assigned. And most of us get to be pretty darn good at acting out the appropriate script. We learn which emotions we're supposed to display, which activities we're supposed to enjoy and excel at, and which ones we're supposed to avoid or suck at, to each other, how to manage our body language, which kind of work and hobbies we're supposed to pursue, etc. And for many of us it's not a great fit, but we manage, or we learn how to make those features of ourselves that don't fit the script less conspicuous (i.e., we pass). But for some of us, it feels wrong enough that we can't just fit in or pass. For transgender and genderqueer individuals, performing the other script, or a different script altogether, is the only way to make life livable. (For transsexuals, the issue encompasses more than gender, so they will have other issues, except insofar as they often also learn to perform "the other" gender script.)
So this description raises a number of questions. Why are there only two scripts, when bodies seem to come in more than two shapes? Why do we need these scripts at all? Why are we so committed to the idea that there must be a one-to-one correspondence between the two scripts we have and the two kinds of bodies we insist on believing people are born into? These are all good questions, and all things that feminists should be pushing on and tugging at the loose strings. A few brief answers:
We need the scripts and the clearly delineated categorical distinctions, because you can't build hierarchy without difference. Hierarchy depends on difference, so you choose some physical differences, like genitalia and skin color, and invest them with significance. Once you have groups which are thought to be essentially different, you can build up and justify your hierarchy on the basis of them. Making them essential, or biologically grounded, gives them immutability and God-ordainedness.
So then we need to maintain the one-to-one correspondence in order to maintain the stability and essential nature of the distinctions. We can't allow people to go around determining their own identity and position in the hierarchy will-nilly, or everything will fall apart. And we especially must maintain the gender-sex link because of heteronormativity. After all, one function of gender is to indicate to the world what kind of bidness you've got going on under your clothes. As an outward marker of physical sex, gender allows us to identify which individuals are potential mates for us, and avoid the oh-so-horrifying experience of being attracted to someone with (gasp!) the wrong set of genitalia.
So what follows from the view of gender as a social construction? First, it reveals that gender is not immutable or set in stone. Harmful aspects of our construction of gender can and should be discarded. But beyond that, if gender exists to support hierarchy, then gender, as it is viewed and practiced in our culture, is not only uncomfortable for many people, but a tool of oppression. So at the very least, driving a wedge between sex and gender, and putting pressure on the notion that everyone has to fit into some kind of neat binary or follow some kind of carefully delineated script, benefits everyone and serves to weaken patriarchal structures. And allowing every individual to navigate their own identity formation and locate their own spot on the gender continuum would lead to a lot less disonnance and uncomfortable performances, not to mention physical danger and stigma for those who don't adhere to the script to which they were assigned.
However, one thing that the social construction view of gender does not get you is a condemnation of trans people for "reifying gender." First, this view (espoused by some very vocal radical feminists, to the horror and dismay of other radical feminists) is based on a profound misunderstanding of social constructionism and reification. Second, the view is inconsistent in that it condemns one group (trans folk) for performing gender, but ignores the fact that all of us are performing gender all the time. If trans people reify gender by adhering to a script, then so do cis people. And even if this view was coherent, it shows a profound lack of compassion and understanding of the individuals. We are all of us born into a system that is already gendered, and our social survival depends on our learning how to perform the script. This is not an individual decision that's ours to make. So this is an instance where we ought to hate the game, but not the player.
And one thing's for sure: we all benefit by discourses and practices which drive a wedge between sex and gender. The loosening of these strict categories and binaries can at least result in a view of sex and gender which is far more fluid and flexible, allowing more breathing room for everyone.
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I appreciate your clarification of social constructionist ideas and perspectives.
Your definition of the social construction vs. biological (evolutionary, behavioral ecology) viewpoint however paints a rather dramatic strawmen of biological perspectives (e.g., paragraph 4).
Many evolutionary/biological perspectives also focus on how different environments and ecologies evoked different evolved strategies. For example, behavioral ecologists examine how the distribution of resources (clumped vs. spread out) can dramatically shift the gender relations in a species. Evolutionary psychologists examine how the prevalence of parasites or the relative availability of resources across cultures can shift preferences for traits like symmetry and ideal body fat level. They do experiments to examine how high and low testosterone individuals respond differently when placed in a high and low status social position. Variability across individuals and adjusting to ecological niches is one of the core perspectives used in evolutionary theories of behavior. There is a strong focus more generally on how humans developed adaptations for producing and dealing with culture as part of a highly social species.
I understand the value of social constructionism - it provides a nice narrative for evoking a desire for changing gender roles and making it seem readily possible. I strongly support this. Some of the early fights between evolutionary and social constructionist researchers hinged on questions of whether there are limits on human variability (e.g., how much do preferences for waist-to-hip ratio vary), which makes social constructionists wary of ev psych more generally. Also, it is clear that biological perspectives are sometimes used as justification for maintaining historical injustices and touting ideologies supporting historically dominant groups. Some ev psych theories smell like simple biological reification of cultural norms. But many ev psych perspectives simply cannot be placed in these boxes.
What I strongly dislike is the continual dismissal of biological and evolutionary perspectives - you can be an evolutionary psychologist/biologist and be strongly identified as a feminist as well. There are just some things about women's experiences (e.g., change in what women find attractive during ovulation; preferences for the smell of men with different MHC genes) which would never even be predicted by a strictly social constructionist perspective, and excluding those perspectives paints an incomplete picture of women's experiences.
There are quite a number of accessible reads from feminist biologists that drew me to biological understandings of behavior - Marlene Zuk (sexual selections), Sarah Hrdy (mother nature). There are more general reads as well (e.g., Olivia Judson - Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation; Melvin Konner - "the tangled wing").
Your criticism seems wildly over the top given there was no outright dismissal of biological/evolutionary perspectives of human behavior*, as if human behavior is inherently tied to gender is your assumption.
If so, you're validating the social constructionist's point because gender does not define our behavior as individuals (a group), just as our individual (group) behavior does not define our gender -- assuming of course, we're not abiding by "the script."
*There is no one perspective on how to study, interpret human behavior.
I disagree. My critique was in direct response to the framing used by the original poster, which was an attempt to bolster the perceived legitimacy of social constructionism by pitting it against a biological perspective that is allegedly highly focused on immutability and genetic determinism. This is contrasted with approach that is portrayed to be the more desireable approach - the social constructionist approach - which promises a focus on fluidity, flexibility, and a more just world. This is a common view among feminist social scientists and regularly goes uncritiqued on this blog. In my view, this kind of framing also drives somewhat of a wedge between some of the life/natural science feminists and social science feminists.
Later (post directly below), the original poster modifies her claims a bit (acknowledging that she in general dislikes the biological/evolutionary approach but that not all EP falls into the stark category drawn above - what she views as exceptions to the rule ). I realize the intent of her article is to use this framing to create more harmony among feminists and trans men and trans women who feel marginalized and attacked by some strands of feminism (a worthy goal), but I don't think this requires painting a negative (and in my view, inaccurate) framing of the general biological approach.
I disagree that the argument in favor of a social construction view of gender was elevated by pitting it against biological/evolutionary perspectives. [I might be misinterpreting the intention of the OP. If so, clue me in.] The overarching point is that human behavior is explained by neither social nor biological interpretation alone. However, a social construction investigation of gender offers a point of view that an evolutionary investigation cannot (or is inherently limited from doing) -- illuminating the false definitions and rules regarding gender.
I think this is the central point. We need all perspectives to form more robust diagram of humanity, yet there is one perspective (social construction) that does something for us none of the others can do. That's it. Any negativity regarding biological/evolutionary interpretations, I'm assuming, are almost solely a reaction to the uses of such interpretations to defend and protect patriarchal illusions of gender.
Several things:
I'm not sure about your claim that I'm making a strawman out of essentialist perspectives. I don't dismiss the idea that biology and evolutionary strategies have some impact on behavior. But in my experience, this idea is almost always taken to mean biology is destiny. In my experience, most Evo Psych, for instance is a thinly veiled defense of the status quo using scientific instead of religious/political terminology. And yet, I realize that this most likely isn't the case with all EPs. But I do think that EP is an area where cultural attitudes and preconceptions are very likely to influence interpretations and explanations because there's so much speculation going on, and the influential events and developmental phases being studied and explained are long in the past and unavailable for current observation and validation of claims. That being said, I have read a few examples of EP work that don't seem to fall prey to these issues as much.
And in our culture, the idea that gender, with it's whole constellation of roles and propensities and traits, is firmly believed to arise completely out of biology. Start this conversation in almost any bar in America and you'll see what I mean. So I may state this in a fairly extreme way simply because I've argued about this with so many people who are deeply skeptical and willing to flat-out deny any kind of evidence that you present them.
Finally, I actually prefer the balanced sort of approach that someone like Anne Fausto-Sterling takes. A great example of this can be seen in this article.
For what it's worth, EP isn't taken all that seriously in related fields. Like anthropology, for example. It's often thought of as a sort of pseudo-science.
I don't necessarily see that as a critical condemnation. There is a fair amount of tension within anthropology between cultural and biological anthropologists. Historically there has been sharp differences in perspectives between biological anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists. The fact that they are willing to call each other pseudosciences is mostly reflective of intellectual turf wars (in my opinion)
But I can see why a lot of EP would be referred to as pseudoscience. If one criteria of scientific work is falsifiability, and EP is an area where theories and explanations are basically impossible to disprove, because defenders of that position just come up with one ad hoc explanation or theory after another, then it does seem to fall into the category of pseudoscience. But of course, I'm using the criteria from Philosophy of Science (Karl Popper and the like), which may differ from the criteria used by those working in anthropology and other related fields.
[Rachel, this is a response to your argument above defending the idea of EP as a pseudoscience. I moved my reply down here to avoid squishing the text too narrowly]
As a whole EP follows pretty accepted standards for what qualifies as science. The fact that there is a historical component - an added level to the hypothesis generation - is an issue in multiple fields, ranging from evolutionary biology to archaelogy to primatology. I don't see any more pseudoscientific ideas in EP than in any other social science field.
Evolution and human behavior researchers have paid a great deal of attention to issues like: What qualifies as evidence for an adaptation, byproduct, or noise? What aspects of our ancestral past can be relatively certain of, and how can this information guide our hypotheses (e.g., we know fertilization was internal and that women ovulated)? How can phylogenetic analyses across primates inform our understanding of human behavior (e.g., attachment theory)?
In response to some critiques by philosophers (1), evolutionary social scientists have compelling responses in my opinion (2). They consider how evolutionary psychology fits within established ideas in philosophy regarding what qualifies as science (3). They consider in detail how to overcome the issues presented by the fact that we can't directly see the ancestral past as it unfolded (4). If your claim is that evolutionary psychology is, writ large, a pseudoscience, then I strongly disagree.
Another way of getting at this: You said above that not all EP falls prey to the kind of biases you are talking about. What are examples of EP you view favorably (or not negatively)? What are examples of EP that you find disagreeable and unscientific?
1. [short version of Buller's critique]http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=four-fallacies
2. Response to Bullers Critique. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/barrett/debunking%20Adapting%20Minds%20Machery%20Barrett.pdf
3. One of many articles examining EP and philosophy of science: Ketelaar, T. & Ellis, B. J. (2000). Are evolutionary explanations unfalsifiable?: Evolutionary psychology and the Lakatosian philosophy of science. (Target Article) Psychological Inquiry, 11, 1-21.
http://www.psych.nmsu.edu/~ketelaar/papers_and_abstracts/ketelaar&ellis2000.pdf
4. Methods in evolutionary psychology:
Simpson, J. A., & Campbell, L. (2005). Methods of evolutionary sciences. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 119-144). New York: Wiley.
I don't think the view you're recommending and the OPs view are necessarily inconsistent, or at least they're not necessarily polar opposites. You could believe that there were some biological factors in human behavior while still seeing gender as a social construct. And I think the OP is arguing against the view in pop culture (which inevitably permeates science to some extent) that almost all behavior is naturally gendered, i.e. that all gendered behavior springs from a biological source.
Thanks for the post - lots of interesting information.
You state (I think correctly) that not everyone fits into the "script," and that some people find the script feels so wrong that they cannot fit in. I think this is a very central point, and probably at the core at a lot of disagreement about this topic.
Namely, what is it that causes parts of "the script" to feel wrong to some people? My personal opinion is that we simply do not have enough information to know, yet, and that we're a fairly long way off. However, I'm interested to hear how you think about this. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, though - do you mean that we do have some innate characteristics that correspond to those we think of as gendered, but that who has those characteristics and how strongly doesn't correspond to our genetic sex as strongly as our society thinks it does?
My view is probably pretty unpopular on this, but I've never been that worried about popularity, so here goes.
I kind of doubt that anyone has any really strong or deep innate characteristics that correspond to a gender identity at all. But I could be wrong about this, and much of my view stems from my own experience and my observations of individuals around me. I think that 1) some of us are socialized better than others, or take easier to socialization, 2) we all do have some natural propensities, but generally speaking they won't all fall on one end of the gender continuum or the other, 3) some people may in fact have more natural propensities that fall on one end of the spectrum, but this has little to do with biology, and 4) given the many, many incentives to perform your assigned gender, and the many social costs for diverging from it, the vast majority of people will toe the line. This doesn't mean it's "more natural" to be cisgendered. It just means it's easier.
But even with these incentives and costs, nobody completely fits into the "masculine" or "feminine" type. We all just approximate it to some extent. And given the freedom to develop according to our own propensities and preferences, I would imagine the vast majority of us would be somewhere in the middle of the continuum with very few individuals on either end.
I also think there are other factors involved. For instance, I've never been girly, and never felt comfortable with a lot of the feminine script, and to be quite honest I've never invested much time or energy into conforming. I don't have a strong gender identity. In fact, I have no idea what it would be like to "feel like a woman," or what that could possibly even mean. But I don't feel like a man either. I just feel like a person, I guess. But I have never once had a problem passing as a woman, because I tend to fit the cultural beauty standard in spite of my lack of makeup, hairstyling, girly clothes, manicured nails, etc. Being tall and thin and blondish gets you a lot of free cultural shit. Also, I've always been very athletic, so my androgynous behavior is written off as being tomboyish, which is thought to be cute, as long as you're attractive. However, I recognize this as a privilege. I have had many friends who weren't any more androgynous than I am, but because they weren't privileged in the ways I am, they got a lot of shit for their failure to properly perform gender. So these kinds of cultural forces have to be factored in.
Based on my view, I tend to characterize both cis and trans people as "passing" when they perform gender because 1) I think this highlights the fact that it's script we're performing for all of us, 2) it helps de-stigmatize the trans experience, which is normally the only time the performance of gender is referred to as "passing," and 3) it highlights the fact that none of us really are our gender, deep down underneath it all.
But I do feel like I need to add a little caveat in order to avoid othering anyone or their experiences. I am deeply skeptical of the whole "I feel like a woman" meme because I've never experienced it and can't imagine what that would be like. So I suspect it's a matter of having been told you're a girl/woman or boy/man all your life and having internalized the script. However, I am open to the possibility that others do have a strong gender identity that's distinct from the script and the socialization, and that this may play a role in the transgender experience. My lack of a felt gender identity and my suspicion that we internalize a gender identity as we grow up doesn't rule out the possibility that others may experience this or make their lived experience invalid.
I agree 100%. Thanks for the wonderful post.
well, I do think that traits/preferences have a strong genetic component. it's just that everyone has a variety that will most likely not all 100% fit into one gender box without help.
Right, but those who espouse the essentialist view of gender think that our traits are all genetically determined to fall into either one camp or the other and that this follows our biological sex. Ironically, these are often the same people (like those in the Quiverfull and other Religious Patriarchy Movements) who do the most work to force their kids into a pefect performance of gender. Which makes you wonder how they can believe this is all biological when it requires so much work to produce people who conform perfectly?
Thanks for this wickedly awesome post!
Personally, it has been quite a struggle separating gender and sex. As a kid, I readily bought into the "fact" that sex belied gender -- gender defined as two readily identifiable categories. However, alarm bells went off in my head when I began seeing how much negativity (or positivity) was attached to certain gender-specific attributes, regardless of individual. It is still difficult to push my mind beyond gender assumptions, but the difficulty is so worth moving behind trivial yet oppressive definitions and assumptions.
Thanks again.
Thanks for your always-very-lucid summaries of gender theory, Rachel. I agree with all of the ideas you present, but I do wonder if your discussion will be even more complex if gender is presented as a "spectrum" rather than a "binary."
That is to say, I think social scripts (even patriarchal scripts) have always been comfortable with a certain level of flexibility in order to maintain the status quo. I believe that traditional masculinity is in some ways so robust because it is flexible: it's all about power, of course, but this power can be defined physically, financially, creatively, etc. etc. Men who don't fit one "script" will often choose another. Traditional femininity tends to be less flexible: the one-way street of virginity, the trickiness of defining success without some man on your arm, etc. etc. but nonetheless terms like "tomboy" still allow for a certain amount of flexibility.
This means for many cis-gendered individuals, it is often very easy to approximate a certain gender, because the sex-gender system we operate under must have a certain level of flexibility in order to get so many of us to buy into it. How much dissonance one must feel between a comfortable sense of self and the script we play before we abandon it is variable: for some people, it can be a single, very important facet; for others, it must be many.
My comment doesn't add much, but I do think it presents a little more of the difficulties we feminists will face -- for precisely because it is socially-constructed, patriarchy can bend to our movements more and less if it stands to keep the bonds from breaking completely. On the other hand, a lot of positive social change can come precisely from a cultivating and maintaining this flexibility: terms like "tomboy" and "metrosexual" and others can seem like release valves on social tension, but they can also be new categories to help reshape gender. (even if, yes, the gender remains)
Another interesting post!
You are definitely right that socialization has a huge impact on how we express gender. But, I do want to point out that a teeny bit of that essentialism you hate so much has actually stood up to testing, just because I think it actually strengthens your point.
What I am talking about is the influence of sex hormones on behavior. Several studies have shown that when female fetuses are exposed to higher levels of androgens such as by increased levels in amniotic fluid, that later in childhood they engage more in stereotypically "boyish" behaviors like wrestling, and are more likely to choose "boy's" toys, than other girls. And this is without any externally observable changes to clue in those doctors at birth, so it can't be coming just from socialization.
Obviously most people do not have unusually androgen-rich amniotic fluid while in utero, but estrogen and androgen levels have been widely linked to stereotypically feminine and masculine behavioral traits, and the androgen-fetus studies suggest more than just coincidental correlation. So the point is, there is more to sex than external genitalia. Since most behavior and personality is seated in the brain, and the brain is an organ of the body, a person's personality is not separate from their biology. (And personality is affected a lot by DNA! Check out some twin studies for really fascinating genetic findings) It's just that you can't check a baby's brain at birth like you can its genitals. "Congratulations! It's a spatial reasoning genius!"
You say that "if gender was determined by physical sex, then it wouldn't vary in this way". But yes, biological traits do vary! Do all women have identical vulvas, identical breasts? Likewise, we all have different levels of sex hormones that affect the development of our brains.
The reason I bring this up is that it suggests that some people are biologically "destined" to not fit the culture's gender mold. If someone is born with a uterus and a vagina but they act and feel like a man, that is often just the way they were made, and they are "supposed" to be the way they are, just as much as a more cisgendered person is "supposed" to be how they are. And, this is no more abnormal or wrong than having different breast sizes or facial hair patterns.
Yeah, as I mentioned in my earlier comment, I don't doubt that biology has some influence on behavior, and I've read a number of these studies as well. I think I tend to state it the way I do because I'm largely responding to the view in pop culture and in much of EP that gender is a direct product of biology in every way. And it is the case that we have these two gender categories which we take to be discreet and totally distinguished from each other when in fact nobody fits into either one of them. Nobody.
But I do agree that my statement about gender not varying if it was determined by sex was overstated. However, biology cannot possibly account for the huge constellation of gender roles, expectations, propensities, etc that culture attaches to gender. And it also cannot account for the significant shift in gender from one historical and cultural context to another. And I think you're talking about variation from one individual to another while I'm talking about cultural/historical variations in how we define gender and what we expect from people. From this perspective you can clearly see how it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the majority of people do conform more or less, even though the construct they're conforming to is drastically different than that of other contexts.
And one final note about many of the studies that have been done on children who have been exposed to different hormones... It's impossible to closely observe a person without changing their environment. What I mean by this is that the children who are being studied will be aware of it, and they'll be more attuned to their gender expression than a child who's not being studied. The kinds of questions researchers often pose to children in these cases (I realize we've come a long way since the days of John Money), and the heightened attention paid to their gender expression is not lost on them. So, while I agree that there are biological factors at play, I think it's inevitable that a patriarchal culture will put much more weight on these factors than they probably merit. I also think people underestimate the degree to which the environment and social expectations interact with biology. I don't think the causal connection only goes one way, but this is the general assumption behind much of the research.
We're both highlighting different sides, but I think we pretty much agree on everything.
I want to point out that the variations I mentioned also apply across cultures, and not just individually, but EndersGames already addressed that so I didn't want to repeat it.
I guess the reason I mentioned individual differences is, I was trying to evoke the feeling of a continuum of gender, which is determined by both sexual biology and socialization. So I do think that the ends of the continuum are actually, biologically, more typical of different sexes, but with a lot of within-group variation, and a lot of overlapping. And that this correlation is way exaggerated and dichotomized by society. (And well, continuum isn't a great word because it suggests polar opposites, but I hope you can bear with me on that count)
I often use "continuum" to describe it as well, because it seems to be the only way to capture the reality that no real people (excluding fictional characters) actually fit neatly and completely into "masculine" or "feminine." It's a really useful classroom exercise to have students list the characteristics of the most masculine or feminine person they know, and then classify these traits as either masculine, feminine, or neutral. Suddenly they totally get the point about how none of us totally fit into our category, even though we're told that we ought to. So this is part of what makes me suspect that if we dropped the rigid categories and allowed people to explore their identities and pursue their own interests and propensities, most of us would end up somewhere in the middle of the continuum, with a few people on either end.
"And one final note about many of the studies that have been done on children who have been exposed to different hormones... It's impossible to closely observe a person without changing their environment. What I mean by this is that the children who are being studied will be aware of it, and they'll be more attuned to their gender expression than a child who's not being studied."
I don't think that is necessarily the whole story, however. There are now several studies of different species showing male monkeys and female monkeys preferentially play with toys that we consider male/female toys. Some of the studies of CAH girls find that despite explicit efforts by parents to direct them towards female-oriented toys, there is still this preference (e.g., work by Melissa Hines).
These findings, of course, are quite bizarre. Clearly we did not have trucks and balls and dolls in our ancestral history. I have no idea why these findings emerge - the adaptive value of these behaviors is unclear. The only explanation I can think of is a very general -- maybe there is something about the stimulus properties of the toys that is processed differently by males and females (e.g., motion, the type of motion, shape, etc.). The cross-species evidence makes me think there may be some pre-existing bias that gets ramped up and reinforced by cultural processes encouraging furter differentation between boys and girls.
But much of the influence of sex hormones has proven to be culture-dependent as well. For instance, in cultures where they don't have all the mythology surrounding PMS like we do, women don't report experiencing the symptoms of PMS in a menstruation-related pattern. Similarly, in cultures where pregnancy and childbirth are constructed differently than in our culture, women report experiencing them differently than we do. Much of the moodiness and over-emotional reactions, for instance, are not reported by women in other cultures during pregnancy, because they're not taught to expect that. And childbirth is not experienced as being as painful as it is in the US in cultures where they don't portray it as a dangerous, out-of-control, and terrifying ordeal, like we do here. I think this backs the claim that there is a lot of the self-fulfilling prophecy dynamic going on here.
And I still think the point stands that what counts as a boy toy and a girl toy varies greatly among cultures and time periods. In Newfoundland, boys are taught to knit, but girls show little interest in knitting. In Greenland and Ethiopia girls are thought to be far better at math, spatial reasoning, and quantitative analysis than boys, so they are. Etc, etc.
You bring up some interesting points, and I don't doubt that there are cultural differences in socially constructed gender norms.
However. Unless you can find a culture that is exactly the same as ours, with the sole difference being its gender expectations, we can't tell which aspect of culture is causing these phenomena.
Part of the PMS mythology is that the symptoms are a result of female hormones. First of all, we live in one of the most over-medicated societies on the planet, with hormonal birth control changing what a normal menstrual cycle is, and medication marketing that pathologizes every little natural body function, making us freak out about things that other people might not notice. And secondly, we have one of the most mass-industrialized agricultural systems, which feeds us a ton of growth hormones through our meat and dairy products.
So women in our culture are probably subjected to different gender expectations than women in other cultures, but we also have different gender-neutral health expectations, and are exposed to different hormones. Some of these things are "made up" by society, but some are very real, biological, natural reactions to different environments. And this is why I am uncomfortable with settling on just one explanation.
As far as childbirth, I know that in many Asian and South American cultures, everyone squats over a sunken toilet to use the bathroom, and they also give birth in this position. Being in this squatting position several times a day strengthens many muscles for childbirth, and actually a squatting birth position is supposed to be healthier, whether or not you practice that position regularly. So it could be because of gender expectations, or it could be because of preparing the body in different ways. I personally think it's a little of both.
"What counts as a boy toy and a girl toy varies greatly among cultures and time periods." Yes. I have no doubt that "Girls like dolls, boys like trucks" stereotype did not exist before the invention of dolls and trucks. Biology needs an environment to react to.
"Girls are thought to be ... so they are"
How do you know it's not the other way around?
All I'm saying is that cultures differ in more ways than just gender expectations, so we can't attribute all cultural differences to that one cause. I absolutely agree that it is a cause. Just, we can't say it's the only cause, or how big of an effect it has compared to other causes.
Rachel, this may be my favorite post that you've written. This is a really complicated subject and you break it down in an awesome way. I'm taking a class this semester called Race and Identity and my professor has been trying SO hard to explain this very concept and no one seems to get it! I'm going to point him right here!
Thanks!
Can someone point me in the direction of more examples of gender construction in other cultures that differ from the United States/UK?
It would be great ammo at my next family dinner with my ultra-religious extended relatives.
= ) Thanks
Points of agreement -->
We both clearly agree that social constructionist perspectives are quite valuable - they give us a way to understand people's identity formation, the way social pressures shape our experiences, and the way these constructions affect our bodily experiences and development.
I agree with you that there is a disturbing trend in how people generally conceptualize sex differences, assigning men and women into categories, assuming these differences are "biological/genetic" (in the lay understanding of what this entails), and equating biology with destiny. As a biologically-oriented psychologist who teaches courses on sexuality, the genetics of sex determination, and the role of hormones in sex differentiation, this is troubling to me on several levels. The first is it shows a rather poor understanding of how evolution, genes, and environment shape the experiences of complex biological organisms.
The second is the concern you raise throughout your post, that this lay belief regarding what it means for something to be "biological" is detrimental to advancing feminist causes. As I'm sure everyone on this board has experienced, it is *extremely* difficult to get students/friends/family to see just how pervasive sexism is and how what feels "natural" is really imprinted due to a lifetime of expectations. I have no quarrel with the idea that these lay understanding of biology can be harmful (to society and science) and also that some perspectives on sex differences within biological sciences are really social constructions.
Points of Disagreement -->
I've read Fausto-Sterling (Sexing the Body; Also the Bones article you provided). I think her insights are valuable. But they don't necessarily push most social constructionists out of their comfort zones. The idea that culture inscribes itself onto our biology, directing it, shaping it, fits well with the pre-existing beliefs of social constructionists. It gives social constructionists away to claim "we are knowledgeable of biology and not biophobic" and therefore greater credence when dismissing biological perspectives that push them out of their comfort zones (e.g., that there are pre-existing biases due to our evolutionary history that lead to statistical and meaningful differences in attitudes and behavior of men and women).
Reading over many of your posts, it seems like Sarah Hrdy would be a researcher of interest to you. Behavioral ecologists are generally less "essentialist" than evolutionary psychologist - their entire field is a biological approach to understanding how organisms adjust to the demands of their environment. They have a strong presence within the evolution and human behavior field and have pushed evolutionary psychologists to think more critically about their early focus on categorical sex differences. http://www.citrona.com/sarahbhrdy.htm
It seems like our main disagreement is over the overall value of evolutionary psychology as a field. In my estimation, you see it as a basket full of rotten apples, with perhaps a few good apples strewn throughout. I tend to have the opposite view - there is a bundle of good apples with a few bad apples strewn throughout. I certainly agree there is a specific strain of evolutionary psychology that does fall prey to kind of biases you are talking about, and this strain is heavily popularized and disseminated in the media. That said, I see this as just one strain, rather than a reason to be dismissive of ev psych generally.
I generally like your perspective on the importance of encouraging individuals to explore their identity and to allow a greater tolerance and promotion of identities that don't fall on opposing ends of the gender continuum. I also think you are right on in talking about how we all - trans or cis, hetero/gay/lesbian/bi, - are putting on a performance to some degree, responding to social expectations and our own core sense of self. People should be encouraged and enabled to develop their identities in ways without unnecessary external limitations.
This is a brilliant post!