Social Construction/Essentialist – Flashcards

i. Social Constructivism is in an interpretation of gender, sexuality, and race that results from assigning culturally-specific sets of symbols and norms. Gender, sexuality, and racial categorization results from the way humans interact with each other and the structure of societal organizations and institutions.

ii. Essentialism is the idea that a naturally occurring trait or set of traits (usually biological or genetic) defines a particular group of people and is unchanging. This is based on science, research and so called "facts" as opposed to social constructivism.

gender is a social category imposed on the sexed body, advertisements in the media help perpetuate the idea of a traditional, binary gender system, things such as pens socially construct the idea of gender, unintentional biases and institutional structures hinder the advancement of women (lecture)

girls should be girls, boys should be boys, people like Lawrence Summers believe in the essentialist idea and that there are biological differences in men and women that can account for the lack of women in science and engineering fields

1.Sabine Lang: shows evidence of different gender constructs in different cultures, raises questions about essentialism, provides a dynamic fluid way of thinking about gender categories 2.Stephen Gould: shows Brocha's essentialist notions about women were false because of objectified research

The environment one grows up in and their socially constructed upbringing plays a factor in their sexual orientation

Essentialist would argue that there is a "gay gene", there is a biological and factual abnormality within homosexuals 1. Shuklenck and Stein Just the essentialist looking for an origin of homosexuality reveals homophobia

most respected research has found no biological basis of difference between races 1. Haney-Lopez argues that humans produce races and that these races are constructed relationally, against one another, rather than in isolation, social prejudices became legal ones, creating race