Difference between Essentialism and Social Constructivism in Gender and Sexuality

This essay elaborates on the difference between essentialism and social constructivism in gender and sexuality. It sheds light on how race and gender are socially constructed and how social institutions contribute to the formation of identities.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
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1SOCIOLOGY
Gender and Sexuality have caused many controversies in where they have been
derived from. Some advocates the essentialism approach, while the other prefers the approach
of social constructivism- questioning about the fact that whether human beings are
programmed biologically or the aspects of such personalities of theirs are formed through the
social influences (Halley, 2017). This essay is going to elaborate on the difference between
these two approaches. It will shed light on how the race and gender be understood as socially
constructed and how the social institution contributes to the formation of identities.
Furthermore, the paper shall also focus on how the identity characteristics affect the
opportunities present for an individual in their lives.
In a society, people are classified in accordance to several aspects like that of gender,
class or race. They are treated according to their identities in their daily lives. The concept of
Essentialism refers to the approach that argues that man is born in order to fulfill these
different statuses that classify them into such groups (Quist-Adade, 2017). The Essentialists
believes that the gender and sexuality are both biologically and naturally assigned to every
individual. In other words, it is an idea that a naturally occurring set of traits, which is
generally genetic, defines a specific group of people and is unchanging in nature. Social
constructivism, on the other hand, argues that through interacting with other people, such
statuses are creates. It is something that is seen as natural but is in fact made up of things and
is changes over the passage of time. It is based on the values and norms set by the society.
Social constructivism is the idea that depicts that a social event is developed in a social
context. Both social constructivism and essentialism are different from each other to a great
extent. The social constructivism sees the aspects and traits of the identity of a person as
something that could be developed trough the society, while in case of essentialism, it sees
those aspects of the person’s identity as something that an individual is born with. It is
something that is innate (Davis, 2013).

2SOCIOLOGY
The approach of social constructivism understands the gender as social category that
is imposed on the sexed body (MacKinnon, 2018). It would account for the differences of
gender between the women and men as a result of the environment in which they have grown
and are raised in. They would use something such as the means of advertisement in the media
in order to explain that how the system of binary gender is extended. However, the
essentialist approach for understanding gender is quite different. It is that an individual is
assigned with his gender by birth. According to this approach, the gender and the roles of a
person that comes with him are linked to the physiological and biological factors.
In context to race, Lee, Mahendra Raj and David (2013), on the social constructivism
of race has stated that there is an existence of much more differences with the populations
consisting of same race than inn between the populations consisting of different races. This
concept of social constructivism refutes the idea that the racial division reflects the key
genetic differences, depicting that races must be constructed socially. Furthermore, it is also
stated by Williams (2017) that the blacks are much more intelligent than the whites.
According to him, it is the genetics, which differentiate a race from the other ones on the
levels like intellectual and physical.
Social institutions consist of a group of individuals that belong from a common
purpose (Suttles, 2017). These social institutions are one of the parts of the social order of the
society and they govern the expectations and behaviors of the individuals. Social institutions
play a vital role in the stereotyping of the gender roles in the society. It starts from the home,
where the women are supposed to take care of the household activities and plays the part of
housewives. They are generally regarded as an object of service and fertility. These
stereotypes suggest that men are superior to the women. Women are expected to stay in the
home and men are expected to work without showing that they are weak. This indeed greatly
contributes to the formation of the identities. Furthermore, it is also to be noted that such

3SOCIOLOGY
identity characteristics constructed by the society may also limit the opportunities present for
the individuals in their lives.

4SOCIOLOGY
References:
Davis, L. J. (2013). The End of Identity Politics: 0n Disability as an Unstable Category. The
disability studies reader, 263.
Halley, J. E. (2017). Sexual orientation and the politics of biology: A critique of the argument
from immutability. In Sexual Orientation and Rights (pp. 3-68).
Lee, Y. Y., Mahendra Raj, S., & Graham, D. Y. (2013). Helicobacter pylori infection–a boon
or a bane: lessons from studies in a low‐prevalence population. Helicobacter, 18(5),
338-346.
MacKinnon, C.A., 2018. Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination [1984].
In Feminist legal theory (pp. 81-94).
Quist-Adade, C. (2017). Social Justice and the Social Construction of Inequality and
Difference. In From the Local to the Global (pp. 69-86). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Suttles, G. D. (2017). Friendship as a social institution. In Friendship as a Social
Institution (pp. 95-135).
Williams, L. F. (2017). White/Black perceptions of the electability of Black political
candidates. In Contours of African American Politics (pp. 62-81).