Woonkee (Sam) Jo 30OCT2017

Assignment 1

All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I was talking to my mum about
gender identity. In fact, the reason behind this conversation was that this topic didnt leave my
mind ever since we had discussed this in sociology class; the topics were about gender and
gender roles, penis-envy and social construction of gender identities. To be brutally
honest, when I heard my instructor say, gender is fluid or gender identity is socially
constructed as a conservative Christian thinker, this got me to really think and reevaluate my
taken-for-granted assumptions about gender resulting from my religion and nationality.
Before I took this course, I always thought gender to be more or less fixed by nature. For
me, it was so obvious and normal for a male to think and act like a male, and likewise the female
act and think differently from a male. Moreover, the roles given to a male and female were
fixed in my head, such as that males are responsible of the family and that females are a
necessary helper and supporter of the head of the family. What I described is a very typical and
mainstream description of the biblical view of marriage and gender roles, however, one of
the main goals in sociology is to make the ideas and ideologies that are familiar to me unusual so
that I can study a topic with a broader intellectual horizon.
Apart from my beliefs, another reason why I didnt challenge my opinions about gender was
because that I could never imagine myself being attracted (sexually) to other guys; this thought
was completely out-of-the-box. I was so convinced with this to the extent I thought to myself,
Even if the society or my parents taught me differently about my gender, I would still be
attracted to my opposite sex. However, through the process of sociological imagination, I asked
myself, What if I was raised with different values and norms about my gender?. Under these
circumstances would I have been thinking and acting the same way?
With all this myriad of thoughts in mind, I went ahead and asked my mum the following
question, Mum, what do you think is the difference between sex and gender? To which she
replied, Arent they the same thing?. After hearing this I said in my heart, Thats exactly what
I thought!. But I continued the conversation by explaining that sex is understood as the
biological features of a male and a female, and gender is how one identifies himself or herself
when it comes down to being male or female. This idea was weird to my mum, and she tried
to defend her position by saying that if ones sex is male for example, wont his gender also
be considered male as in his thoughts, actions, lifestyle and role? I partially agreed to this
answer because sex (biologically) does influence the gender directly or indirectly (for
example, males and females have different hormones, females are biologically designed to have
a baby etc.). Nonetheless, I tried to show that the reason why we might think that sex and
gender are the same thing is because of social or religious influences. For example, why do we
see numerous individuals who are gay or lesbians? Are they to be considered unnatural? Is
homosexuality a normal phenomenon or should it be frowned upon? All of these questions are
legitimate but controversial questions that biologists and social scientists try to answer. I think
the key here is to understand the social construction of reality without our biases getting in the
Woonkee (Sam) Jo 30OCT2017

way. As we have seen in the previous example, what was considered illegal or unnatural such as
homosexuality, is now being considered acceptable and everyone is required to tolerate one
another. In addition, the idea that gender roles are brute facts (such as males should work
outside, and females work in the house) is now being challenged by many thinkers across the
world. The new theory is that gender roles are being socially constructed and on top of that,
these roles could have been constructed differently which would lead to totally new societies!
For example, we can imagine a society where homosexuals are considered straight and
heterosexuals as queer. All of this depends on how societal values change over time and how
society perceives sex and gender.
In conclusion, I want to tie all my thought process with two vitally important statements. First, it
is essential for all individuals in a society to be aware of the society theyre living in and what is
expected from them as a citizen. In other words, no man is an island, so everyone must know
their social position, status, duties and rights. Considering this, it is not enough just to know the
society the individual is in, but one must also seek to look further at other societies and cultures.
In this way, all of things that were thought of as normal to the individual might become
abnormal or even unacceptable in other societies. This realization is fundamental especially
when it comes to testing the validity and the truth of ones own beliefs that might not have been
challenged otherwise. Secondly, one must not fall into the trap of thinking that the reality
society constructs is the absolute truth. So, in our example, the fact that society considers gender
as fluid or that gender roles are socially constructed in no way means that this is how our society
ought to be, nor does it mean we must blindly accept what society constructs for us.
Nevertheless, what society constructs for us sheds light on our norms and values, and it also
provides an insight on how all societies are going through the process of structuration throughout
history.