The Body As A Social Construction Essay

Have you ever asked yourselves why males and females are described the way they are in today’s society? Why do such views of “active” males and “passive” females continue to dominate in the most industrialized nations? All of these are questions that deal with how the physical body is socially constructed and in what way do the social structures continue to shape them. To investigate these questions, the article “The Body As a Social Construction” is summoned for discussion and further analysis from the various sociological perspectives.

In their article, “The Body As a Social Construction,” the authors, Samantha Kwan and Jennifer Graves, discuss the varying perspectives on the how society views the physical body along with the ultimate real

Thus, in the case of the social construction of the body, the idea can be applied to be based on a conflict between two social classes, that of males and females. Rather than fully incorporating the merit of science to social meanings, most western cultures still portray males as more “superior” to females even in cases that are “scientifically” proven otherwise. For example, the authors discuss the process of human insemination and how has recent research found that women’s cells tend to be more active than those of men. Despite these new depictions, many medical textbooks will continue to portray the dominant sexual conquest that men are active and women are

The use of interactionism allows us to understand how do individuals eventually create such cultural inscriptions on the body and ultimately, how their interactions shape the nature of those inscriptions. To begin with, the theory provides that individuals see themselves through the interaction with other members of society, which not only includes their friends and relatives but also the media at large. Thus, in the case of social construction of the body as explained by the authors, males are assigned their “masculine” attributes because of the ways the females act towards them and the way they are portrayed in the media at large. Conversely, the same stream of logic can be applied to the way females get their “feminine” attributes. This eventually leads to the survival of this notion despite the rise of opposing “scientific” claims since the treatment of both genders still remain the