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Gender and Race: The Difference Between Social Constructs

 

            The moment someone is born, a question is asked: is it a boy or girl? When that question is answered, the parents become apart of a societal process, and that process begins with purchasing clothes for the baby based upon color. Primarily, pink is bought for girls and blue is bought for boys. Determining what color one wears is nearly an automatic reaction. How did it come to be like that? Expectations for the varied genders are determined not by human instinct, but by social construction. Social construction is how society classifies it's inhabitants by what expectations certain groups have, and what privileges some have over others hindrance. Race sits alongside with gender, as well. Genetically and scientifically, race is insignificant and nonexistent. Much like how gender is determined by the sex the person has at birth, race is determined by the pigmentation of ones skin. The genetic variance of two people from the same race could be as different as two people from different races. Race is about identity; gender as well. Whether or not one wants to embrace that identity is up to him/her, but society enforces that races' or genders' social construct status with stereotypes, expectations, and close mindedness regardless of how that person acts. Race and gender differ when one analyzes class structure and the social construction that comes along with it. Once class is assumed within an individual because of race, that assumption is almost impossible to erase.
             Women are seen as more emotional and feminine because society tells them that they are. Men are seen to be masculine and unfeeling because if they're anything else, that jeopardizes their stance on the social spectrum as a dominant male. When one is a male, he sees himself as a person. He isn't repeatedly told of limitations he has in the world he lives in. When one is a woman, she sees herself as a woman because society articulates how women have less opportunities than men, therefore she is constantly reminded that she is not only a person, but also a woman.


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