The Social Construction Of Sex And Gender In Sociology

ABSTRACT : The term paper majorly talks about the two basic concepts of sex and gender of sociology in detail. The paper majorly tries to look into the social construction of gender and how much fluid it can be, focusing on the roles the category of gender plays in maintain the social. On the other hand I will also try and question the rigidity of the whole idea of sex in our society. Is sex biologically bipolar as male or female or for say third sex..? is there something more to it. Can sex too be a socially constructed idea, or natural phenomena the way we see it…?

In layman terms the concepts of sex and gender are favorably used interchangeably and are considered one. It is dominantly understood that the roles and functions of a a particular

In sociology and anthropology, the inter linkage of gender and sex is challenged. Some sociologist and psychologists explains the social construct of gender and some challenges it.

The fruedian school of psychoanalysis, the boys must reject their mothers and deny the feminine in them in order to develop the masculinity and become men. For boys the major goal is the achievement of personal masculine identification with their fathers and sense of secure masculine self, achieved through superego formation and disparagement of women.(chodorow 1978,165).

In the same way, his student Carl Jung talks about the presence of archytypes( anima and animus) in an individual’s unconscious self. According to him, boththe archytypes are present both males and females. Animus is the archytype of reason and spirit which is also present in females as males. And similary Anima is the archytype of love, care, com[passion which too is present in males as in females. According to him the socialization we receive in our life, strengthens a particular archytype and thus strengthens a gendered identity as the society demands. The work of Simone de Beauvoir’s that says, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” ,distinguishes sex from gender and suggests that gender is an aspect of identity gradually

Or the idea of sex(male, female,and transgender) also socially constructed…?

Anne Fausto-Sterling in her article, ‘The Five Sexes; Why male and female are not enough, explains how western culture is deeply committed to the idea there are only two sexes. Even language refuses other possibilities, its always he or she. We do not have any pronoun that can denote any other sex.

She further explains it historically, saying that in Europe a pattern emerged by the end of the middle ages that, in a sense, has lasted to the present day; Hermaphrodites were compelled to choose an established gender roles and stick with it.

Similarly in india, as Gayathri reddy explains that the transgenders living in south india are living either as males or females, they do not have a separate dressing or style to follow.

Sterling quotes an example of a hermaphrodite named Emma who had grown up as a female. Emma had both a penis size clitoris and a vagina, which made it possible for him/her to have “normal” heterosexual sex with both men and