The majority of people seem to think sexuality as a given, something natural and coming from God and biology has a lot to do with it. Now, as a society that's constantly changing, observing and questioning many things of society and cultures; there comes a realization that many concepts in life are constructed instead of it plainly being existential just because of God or biology itself created it. When people think of the word "construction" they usually think of huge machinery, materials and things being built with these huge types of machinery and materials, it's similar as concepts being constructed. Concepts are being constructed by these huge machinery and materials, all tools that work together to create one thing. The materials and …show more content…
I never thought outside of that box, that there was more to the concept or believed that the concept within itself was constructed. To be able to make clearer on how we can use these concepts to make more sense of the life we live in, more clear the society we live in, the concept itself has to be explained. The term social construct derives from the understanding that a certain concept or idea is being constructed by society. To define the term it could be said that "A social construct refers to a phenomenon or category and developed by society through its cultural and social practices" (Christiansen and Fischer, 5), which in other words means that that society plays a huge role in constructing a concept. To understand the concept social construction of sexuality it has to be seen how different types of views on socially constructed things. In Chapter 2, Theoretical Perspectives, author Steve Seidman mentions sociologist Jeffrey Weeks and his approach on sexuality and introduced the ideas of essentialism and constructionism. Weeks states that by definition, the essentialism perspective is a view that some …show more content…
In Springer, she defines the word Queer to better explain queering heterosexuality, "Queerness, them, is not an identity but a position or stance. We can use "queer" as a verb instead of a noun. Queer is not someone or something to be treated. Queer is something that we can do" (Springer, 86). To put the words queer and heterosexual together, in other words, means that while being heterosexual one can be queer, to do something out of the norm. To not be queer is to conform to others thoughts on people should be or do traditionally, such as serving others for their own satisfaction and pleasure and being property. Springer emphasized this idea when she states "Claiming queerness is linguistic, but ultimately about actions that does not reinforce the stereotypes". Which means queerness is about action of going against stereotypes, and queering heterosexuality is being able to be heterosexual but do things differently and express their genders in nontraditional
At this point, I’d like to define a few terms somewhat precisely, at least as I intend to use them in the context of this paper. In this paper, I use the term "queer" for two reasons: one of which is in the spirit of reclaiming a word that has traditionally been used to verbally abuse non-heterosexual people for decades, and secondly because in the heterosexual mindset there are no differences between bisexuals, gay men, lesbians, transgendered and transsexual people. Brett Beemyn and Mickey Eliason write: "We have chosen to use ‘queer’ because it best characterizes our own personal beliefs, and it potentially leaves room for all people who are attracted to others of the same sex or whose bodies or sexual desires do not fit dominant standards of gender and/or sexuality" (5). One of the first questions that must be answered, of course, is why is it important to look at literature from a queer perspective? Is a reader, such ...
I identify with being a white, Catholic, straight, teenager girl living in Owensboro, Kentucky. I considered those my cultural and societal groups. There is no objective way to pick my real group. With my taste, opinions, characteristics and age constantly changing so are my cultural and societal groups.
LGBTQ is an initialism for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuality, Transsexuality, and Queer. “Queer” is a nomenclature for unlisted orientations and identities, such as Pansexuality, Asexuality, Non-binary gender, and so on. Through the continued uses of employee discrimination, bisexual/non-binary erasure, prejudices from religious people, and general marginalization has created an atrocious environment for a lot of LGBTQ individuals.
This is where a society makes up ideas of what is normal and abnormal genders. For example, gender is socially constructed into two different genders (male and female) in the U. S. A. Male and female is what society views as normal genders and the other gender identities are considered abnormal. Two examples of the U.S. socially constructing gender are babies getting gender colored clothing when they are born and getting gendered toys (lecture 922/16).
As Fritsch et al. states, “even as ‘queer’ became an established identity in the LGBTQ rainbow acronym, it also worked against the normalization of gender and sexuality by challenging the presumption of a two-gender system” (336). A majority of the queer community had/have conflicting thoughts about whether the term queer must be used as a way to distinguish or rather alienate oneself with from binary system. Many of the people within the community don’t like to separate themselves, believing that by doing so will push them further away from society when in reality this will result in losing their loved ones and friends. Others argued that by doing so they break apart the binary structure and in order everyone in a sense is queer; there is no set standard for what normal is. Moreover, people believe that with trying to embrace and embody the term queer, there will be negative emotions and actions made towards them which puts them at an even higher risk of being victimized. Being in the center staged of the whole movement not only brings conflict but it can in the long run off put people from overall trying to identify with the queer movement or the term queer
“This is Where it Ends” is a young adult novel written by Marieke Nijkamp. It was originally published in 2016. The story is set at Opportunity High School, a fictional high school in a fictional town, Opportunity, Alabama. The entire story unfolds within the campus, mostly in the auditorium where an assembly takes place. The novel explains the terrifying events of a fifty-four-minute school shooting, exploring the themes of courage, grief, and resilience.
Since the beginning of mankind, the human species has been able to populate and cover the planet through reproduction. The natural reproduction is between a man and women, so heterosexuality is seen as the popular form of sexuality. However, many people believe that not only is heterosexuality not natural, but is constructed by society. Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington, believes that heterosexuality is a construct of cultural norms. Society creates expectations for how sexuality should be presented and performed, but down to the root of human nature heterosexuality is much more prevalent than any other form of sexuality. I disagree with professor Schwartz, and I believe that
Looking at our past, there have been dramatic changes in the way humans view sex. Long before the 1900s individuals framed their views based on the religious institution. Due to the fact that they strongly centered their idea of sexual thought on religion, they believed that the only purpose of having sex was to procreate. As the 1920’s approached, there were various factors that changed the way individuals viewed sex. The “new women” known, as flappers were women who were confident in who they were. They changed their attire as well as their social attitude. In the 1920s, the flappers redefined sex; customs and traditions were broken and new norms were created by society.
In reality, gender is not based on one’s genetic make-up or their reproductive organs. Expanding on this, an individual does not have any control over their assigned gender, but everyone has a gender identity, which is one’s internal sense of being male or female. From a sociocultural perspective, gender roles have the greatest influence on gender as a social construction. Gender roles are the attitudes, behaviors, rights, and responsibilities that particular cultural groups associate with each sex. In regards to gender, the social construction theory acknowledges the connection the topic has with power and meaning, and states that social interaction, or “language” controls how these things are portrayed to individuals. Similarly, sexuality is socially constructed in a sense that, one’s sexual orientation depends on what they are taught to be “socially acceptable”. For example, a person who is raised by homophobic parents would most likely be taught that every aspect of homosexuality is wrong, and therefore they would be influenced to be heterosexual. While many would like to believe that people are born with their sexual orientation, that is far from the truth. All in all, when looking at the big picture, it is clear that race, gender,
Sexuality is a fundamental part of our self-discovery, involving much more than just being genetically or anatomically male and female and it is not defined solely by one 's sexual acts (Ministry of Education 1989, p.79 cited in Gourlay, P 1995). The notion that sexuality is fixed and innate disregards the social aspects that impact ones’ sexualities. Gagnon and Simon (1973) further commented that sexuality is a feature of social
From birth, one's sexuality is shaped by society. Cultures institute behaviors that are to be seen as the societal norms, which work to constantly reinforce societal expectations of how genders should act in relation to one another. Although some may argue that one's sexuality is an innate characteristic resulting from genetic makeup, there is a large amount of evidence pointing to its social construction instead. Through the power differences between males and females, established gender roles, and drastic economic shifts, society establishes sexuality and reinforces the behaviors that are expected of its citizens.
Also known as straight. Homosexual a [medical] term used to describe a person primarily emotionally, physically, and/or sexually attracted to members of the same sex/gender. This term is considered stigmatizing due to its history as a category of mental illness, and is discouraged for common use (use gay or lesbian instead). Bisexual a person emotionally, physically, and/or sexually attracted to male/men and females/women.
Just like Alfred Kinsey said “The world is not divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white.” The world is divided into people that want many different things in life, everyone has a different opinion and mind set on what they want. Some people have other beliefs and values than other people, so we cannot judge them for being themselves. I believe that sexuality is the way that you express yourself through sex, or sexual actions. There are many factors that go into sexuality. I mainly learned about how sex worked through my health and child development classes. There were other things that contributed to my knowledge on sex, those were media, talking with friends or people at school, and my family values. How I think about sex is greatly impacted by these factors, some factors impacted me more than others but all of them still have an impact on my beliefs today.
“A family can be defined as a set of people related by blood, marriage or in some other agreed upon relationship, or adoption, who share primary responsibility for reproduction and caring for member of society". (Schaefer, 2009, p. 288) This leads to a wide open range of interpretation on the exact definition of how a family is truly made up. Depending on your culture, religion, or geographical location a family may represent and be comprised of many different ideals and social norms. There are many theoretical perspectives that have their own interpretations on the subject of what a family is and how it is perceived. I will attempt to expound on three of these perspectives; Functionalism, Conflict, and Interactionalism.
The sexual orientation of a person can be defined as being heterosexual, bisexual or homosexuals. Heterosexuals are those individuals who are attracted to members of their different sex. The meaning of this is that, men are always attracted to females and females are attracted to males under this category. On the other hand, homosexuals are those individuals who are romantically as well as physically attracted to people of the same sex. The meaning of this is that, females are always attracted to females and males are always attracted to other males.