Social construction of gender

Gender is a word we use to talk about whether someone is a boy or a girl. But did you know that what we think of as being a boy or a girl is not just something that we’re born with? It’s something that we learn from the people around us, like our parents, teachers, friends, and the media.

When we’re born, people look at us and decide if we’re a boy or a girl based on whether we have a penis or a vulva. But after that, a lot of what we learn about being a boy or a girl is made up by society. This is called the social construction of gender.

Basically, it means that people in our society have come up with ideas about what it means to be a boy or a girl, and these ideas have changed over time. For example, in some places, it used to be considered more masculine for men to wear makeup and high heels, and in other places, it used to be more feminine for women to be strong and do “manly” things like work in construction.

Nowadays, we have different norms about what boys and girls should do and be like. For example, we might think that boys should wear blue and play with trucks, while girls should wear pink and play with dolls. But this is just what our society has decided, and it could change again in the future.

When we talk about the social construction of gender, we’re basically saying that the idea of what it means to be a boy or a girl is something that people have made up over time, and it’s not something that’s set in stone or determined by biology.