Social Construction Of Gender Essay

Lea Cherbaka
February 17, 2010

Reaction Paper – The Social Construction of Gender

“I am arguing that bodies differ in many ways physiologically, but they are completely transformed by social practices to fit into the salient categories of a society, the most pervasive of which are “female” and “male” and “women” and “men (Lorber 1990, 10).”

The first thing that comes to people’s minds when they think of “the social construction of gender” is the characteristic that is normally associated with men and women. For example, men are strong and women are sensitive. In her article, Judith Lorber discusses the inequality between the genders and how society is the factor that has created such a divide between males and females.
When reading this article I thought that Lorber provided a lot of examples for her argument, which allowed me to relate to many of them. For example, one of the main points she touched upon was the male dominance in sports. The reason why male sports were more popular is because they were stronger and energetic due to their genes and hormones. Growing up, I have always had an interest in sports because my cousins were mostly boys and I was around an “athletic” surrounding. Thus, instead of playing with Barbie dolls like most girls did my age, I was more interested in soccer balls. Though I was a female, my actions weren’t so “feminine.” This went against society’s norm because sports were considered “manly.” I didn’t care about what anyone else thought because I enjoyed what I did. However, the boys would sometimes “go easy” on me when I played for the sole fact that I was a girl. I thought it was discriminating that they weren’t as aggressive toward me like they were toward each other. Now that I think about it, it is somewhat true. When I got to high school, I played soccer and basketball, which were the popular sports to play. However, the girls team never had fans, but when it came to the boys games, there was not a single empty...