Discuss the debate between the natural/biology theories and social/cultural theories of gender.
Since the 1950s, an increasing use of the term gender has been seen in the academic literature and the public discoursefor distinguishing gender identity from biological sex. Gender can be defined as what a person says or does to reveal that he or she has the status of being boy or girl, man or woman (masculinity or femininity of a person). Gender is a complex issue, constituents of which encompass styles of dressing, patterns of moving as well as ways of talking rather than just being limited to biological sex. Over the years, the perception of the issue ‘gender’ has been changing and developing from essentialism to social constructionism. Essentialism suggests that gender is a biological sex, by contrast, social constructionism suggests that gender is constructed within a social and cultural discourse. Due to its complex nature, gender intrigues numerous debates over the extent to which gender is a biological construct or a social construct things like attitudes, memories and emotions. There are different perspectives of gender with respect to its complexity. One of them is very typical of many people (ordinary people and some academicians). They believe that gender is tied to biology and is binary with categories of male and female. In this sense, gender is natural, stable and like something given by God, which means gender cannot be changed. That is to say, gender is biological sex, and it is an oversimplified and stereotypical vision of differentiating between genders. This view is problematic when it is used to interpret the real world around us because there are many cases that don’t neatly fit into the two socially accepted categories. For example, in Indian culture, a hijra is considereda ‘third gender’ person, who is neither a woman nor a man. Most of them are male biologically or intersex, and they usually disclose themselves as women at the language level and dressing pattern. Hijras existed in India from the earliest records. And this ‘third gender’ was acknowledged in Indian culture throughout the Hindu history. What stays constant is that women and men have to be distinguishable. Biology does not distinguish them-in the gender category “woman” you find male-to-female transsexuals, who havechanged their genitals and hormonal output but not their chromosomes, who are biologically intact males living out their lives as social women.
Contrary to the biological view of gender, others have argued that people are not born with behaviors and characteristics of being masculine or feminine, but gender identity is developed within a culture and society and is nurtured, and perpetuated by the culture. People are expected to comply with the norms within that culture, and are socialized and gendered in a way in which presupposed and ready-made behaviors and beliefs are constantly and repeatedly reinforced. The characters of new-born infants are initially quite fluid such that they can take on the shape or form of whatever training they are given. Socialization theories imply that it is only gradually that people begin to solidify into particular sorts of personalities. Sometimes, women politicians have to be thought as ‘men’, showing their masculinity to the public, to sit and work with other men politicians. Biological view sees gender as being fixed when people were born and by socialization theory, identity is once shaped in a social context and it is difficult to change. The discursive psychologists state that “gender is neither something into which we are born nor something that we eventually become. We claim that people’s gender identities remain relatively fluid, capable of adapting to the particular social settings or contexts in which people find themselves. We can see that gender identity is not fixed and not unalterable, but is realized through interaction within social, cultural context. Thus, in my view, discursive psychology’s perspective on gender identity is more preferable than biological and sociocultural views on gender.
To conclude, biological and socialcultural perspectives of gender have their limitations and can’t explain some phenomena which does exist within a culture. In contrast, discursive psychology has developed the theory of gender identity by drawing upon the social constructionism. Discursive psychology highlights the way people construct the world, the selves through interaction. Discursive psychologists claim that gender is constructed in and through discourse. Discursive psychologists see gender identity as something that is fluid, multiple, fragmentated, discursively constructed through interaction within the structures of a culture. In a word, discursive psychology’s views on gender are convincing and explain more than other perspectives of gender.
Comments