Capitalism and the Social Construction of Gender

Birthday cards, deceptive in their seeming simplicity and innocence, actually contain

powerful connotations of gender. These ‘artifacts’, which represent on a larger scale the system

of capitalism, play an important role in the process of social construction of gender by reflecting

and reinforcing this country’s socially constructed patriarchal concepts of gender which privilege

men and subsequently oppress women. These ‘artifacts’ are the physical manifestation of the

patriarchy system itself, and thus provide a good way of exploring the ways in which various

systems contribute to the social construction of gender.

The theory of social construction asserts that gender is not in fact a biological creation,

but rather a social creation. While people are born a certain sex, they are not born with certain

genders. It is at birth that the process of gender construction begins. As sociology professor

Judith Lorber explains, people are assigned a sex category, which becomes a “gender status”

through various “gender markers” such as naming and clothing (Ferguson). In this

country’s patriarchal culture people are taught since childhood, by the different interacting

systems of society, that there are two genders (i.e. man and woman) and the mannerisms and

qualities associated with each gender. Boys are taught to be masculine, and girls to be feminine

(Ferguson). As Allan Johnson explains in his work Patriarchy, the System, this system of

patriarchy not only holds that men and women are exceedingly different, but that men possess

the more favorable traits and are therefore superior to women. This system sees hierarchy as “the

only alternative to chaos” (Johnson, Patriarchy, the System: An It, not a He, a...

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...Works Cited

Ferguson, Susan J. "Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology (4th ed.)." Lorber, Judith. 'NIGHT TO HIS DAY': The Social Construction of Gender. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. 96-105.

Johnson, Allan G. "Patriarchy, the System: An It, not a He, a Them, or an Us." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives (3rd ed.) (2004): 25-32.

Johnson, Allan G. "Privilege, Power, and Difference (2nd ed.)." Johnson, Allan G. Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 41-53.

Johnson, Allan G. "Privilege, Power, and Difference (2nd ed.)." Johnson, Allan G. Privilege,Oppression, and Difference. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 12-40.

Johnson, Allan G. "The Forest and the Trees: Sociology as Life, Practice, and Promise." Johnson, Allan G. The Forest, the Trees, and the One Thing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997. 7-35.