“Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here; and fill me, from crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty”.
“To be or not to be”….. How does it happen?
(Shakespeare, 1606-7)

The following five points may be significant for an understanding of how gender is socially constructed. (1) The first point is that there are a range of sometimes conflicting theories that attempt to explain gender and gendered behaviours, that raise questions that further research may not answer absolutely. The second point is that gendered behaviours have been viewed as responses/reactions to power and authority in such things as British Colonization, Capitalism, Patriarchy, families, adult/child relations, workplace, groups, and institutions such as schools. Point number three is that messages from media, texts, history, popular culture and social structures are believed to have a powerful influence on gender construction. Point number four is that gender construction has been viewed as taking place through ‘discourse’. The final point, number five, is that public places such as schools are important sites of gender construction/production, reproduction. These points are all interrelated and cannot be discussed in depth without overlapping into another.

THEORIES

The concept of Gender is ‘one of the muddiest concepts’ according to Constantinople (Connell, 1993, 174). It is ‘problematic’ (Thorne, 1993, 58), because it means different things to different people. Some use the word interchangeably with the word sex. Eg. ‘Gender’ is written on some documents to find out the biological nature of the person filling out the form. For some who view it from a biologically determined perspective, it is a natural outcome of such things as genetics, hormones and brain organisation. (Weiten, 1998, 464). For some who view it from an environmentally determined perspective, the word is used when referring to the variable and negotiable, culturally and socially constructed ways of being ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ in a particular historical or cultural circumstance (Measor and Sykes, 1992, 5). The concept is as problematic as the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate! It is also problematic because the concept of gender has introduced a range of influential and derogatory vocabulary that is reinforced, through popular beliefs and usage. E.g. ‘Tomboy’, ‘Wimp’, ‘masculine’, and ‘feminine’.

The concepts raise questions such as: Why use the words ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ when referring to behaviours and characteristics, thereby inferring that some are normal for a particular sex? Why not just call them behaviours and characteristics? Surely leadership qualities are not ‘masculine’ or male behaviours. Surely caring qualities are not ‘feminine’ or female behaviour.
Are there any behaviours that are only socially constructed? Are all but physical differences between the sexes socially constructed?

How much control does a person have in becoming and being who they are?
Would genderless behaviour mean eliminating the word ‘gender’, ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’? Do we want to become so indiscriminate that we accept as many ways of being that are possible or desired?

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