Daldumyan 1

Ezabella Daldumyan
Professor Beadle
English 115
4 December 2016
The Hows and Whys of Who We Are
Have you ever wondered why each gender acts the way it does? There are many ideas
explaining why we act the way we do; some think its the physiology of the genders, others think
that were just programmed to act based on our gender. Whether or not you think these ideas
are right or wrong is up to you, but almost everyone can agree that there is a higher influence that
affects the way genders behave. It might seem absurd that one factor can influence people for
generations and no one, up until recently, decided that it doesnt have to be that way. Society
decides what gender is and gender is constructed in a way to benefit what society wants. Society
has been controlling gender in so many ways, but I going to focus on the three main ways; how
society created gender as a social construct, how society divided the characteristics between the
two genders, and how society has surrounded us with role models that we look up to and try to
become. All these points are made in multiple articles, such as Judith Lorbers Night to His
Day, Ruth Hubbards Rethinking Womens Biology, Claire Renzetti and Daniel Currans
Women, Men and Society, and Aaron Devors Becoming Members of Society. This idea
doesnt seem so ridiculous now and its true; society has defined how and what each gender
should be.
As a society, we first need to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex is
what a person is born as, the biology part, and gender is what the person identifies as. Since
gender is constructed by society, society has the power to make the rules and tell people what is
right or wrong. In Judith Lorbers article; Night to His Day, she talks about the
building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses (Lorber 22). This just means the

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society has the power to say what each gender should act or be like. In a very few cases if
someone doesnt want to follow the gender norms, they are ignored by society; this is one of the
powers society has over everyone. Lorber goes on saying that gendering is based on religion,
science, the values formed by society, and many other factors (Lorber 29). In another article,
Rethinking Womens Biology, Ruth Hubbard focuses on the role of women in society. She
wrote that the description for women came from wealthy, educated men and they based this
description on what seemed to be more natural and what would benefit them (Hubbard, 46).
These two women wrote articles talking about the idea of how society constructed gender to
show everyone all the power one group has over how a person act and behaves. Society is
controlling how we live our lives by threatening to exile (figuratively) anyone that breaks the
mold and does their own thing. You might think that since we know about this, we can change it,
but that seems so much easier said than done. Growing up I had to follow the rules society laid
out for me; like how I have to dress or how I have to talk softer and gentler compared to boys.
This is a huge problem, especially in a world that is dominated by men, any woman/girl that is
considered weak will get eaten alive out in the real world.
All of our lives we are influenced by everything/everyone around us and we get to choose
who we look up to. In the article Becoming Members of Society; by Aaron Devor, it talks
about how at a young age, children learn the rules of membership in society, they come to see
themselves in terms they have learned from the people around them (Devor 35). Children learn
by watching others, so as they grow up, children see how their parents act and they get to decide
what is the normal way to act. Due to this, childrens individuality is shaped into what society
finds acceptable and on how the people around them act. Everywhere you look, you see
advertisements that portray each gender differently; women are feminine and men as masculine,

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these types of ads are what young people see and think that it is the correct way to be and act.
Devor wrote about this to convince younger people to not fall into the trap society has formed
and to show how much influence anyone can have when it comes to gender.
Advertisements portray each gender differently, femininity and masculinity, but do we
really know where this differentiation came from and why it exists? The answer is yes we do.
According to Devor, society has femininity and masculinity to claim and communicate their
membership in their assigned sex or gender (Devor 38). This means that we have this
distinction to show whether we belong in one of the sexes or genders. With this distinction, there
are certain characteristics that describe each of the sexes. The two groups are commonly known
to balance each other out; with masculinity being the one with all the dominance and femininity
being the one that is more submissive. These characteristics were developed years ago based on
what seemed the most natural for each gender, according to white men that wanted to limit the
things women can do to benefit their needs. In Women, Men, and Society written by Claire
Renzetti and Daniel Curran, it talks about how influential parents are when it comes to
expressing the difference between the genders (Renzetti and Curran 77). In this article, it shows
how much parents of young children go out of their way to make it clear that their child is either
a boy or a girl. Due to this, children learn that if Im a girl I need to do this or Im a boy so I
need to act like this and they continue these patterns for the rest of their lives. When I was really
young I got my ears pierced and I didnt think much about it at the time, only that it was pretty
cool because the earring was a dolphin, but as I got older I started to think about why I got my
ears pierced. I now know the reason behind my piercings was to show that I was a girl and so
other people wouldnt confuse me for a boy; if the piercings didnt do, the pink dresses probably
did. These were only a few ways my parents and society helped me learn how act and behave.

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As a society, we enjoy categorizing people or objects into smaller groups and labeling
the; the same concept applies to gender. Society divides up the sexes and put a label on each.
Society made all the rules for gender and basically constructed it to work in a way that makes
everyone comply to the rules. First society decided what gender is and created the rules for each
gender and if you dont follow these rules, everyone pretends that you dont exist because you
decided to do what you wanted to do. Society also divided each of the characteristics of both
genders so it can be easier to label each other and much easier to see how a person should act and
what attributes a person should have. Lastly, society surrounded us with role models that
showed how we should carry ourselves and what we should aspire to be like. There are many
articles; like Judith Lorbers Night to His Day, Ruth Hubbards Rethinking Womens
Biology, Claire Renzetti and Daniel Currans Women, Men and Society, and Aaron Devors
Becoming Members of Society that go into more depth about how society and gender are
connected. Society has so much power over gender and it is very good at making everyone
comply with the rules that it has laid out, and with this power society helped form me and
everyone else into the person they are today. Maybe in the future the world might be different if
society changes its idea of gender and everyone can be whatever they want.

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Work Cited
Devor, Aaron. Becoming Members of Society. Composing Gender, edited by Rachael Groner
and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014, pp.35-45
Hubbard, Ruth. Rethinking Womens Biology. Composing Gender, edited by Rachael Groner
and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014, pp.46-52
Lorber, Judith. Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender. Composing Gender,
edited by Rachael Groner and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014, pp.19-34
Renzetti, Claire and Curran, Daniel. From Women, Men, and Society. Composing Gender,
edited by Rachael Groner and John F. OHara, Bedford/St. Martins, 2014, pp.76-87