Philosophy Assignment 2022

Philosophy 0
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Philosophy 1
Table of Contents
Gender and Social Construction: Who? What? When? Where? How?.....................................2
My opinion on the argument......................................................................................................2
Possible Arguments to my opinion............................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

Philosophy 2
Gender and Social Construction: Who? What? When? Where? How?
This book is a debate type format book. Here four authors discuss mainly on the two
factors of gender and its social reconstruction. Here in this paper, the focus is on Sally
Haslanger’s argument, that gender is socially constructed. Sally argues that we are born as a
male and a female and society turns us into a girl or a boy (Hackett & Haslanger, 2006), and I
agree with that argument.
My opinion on the argument
Completely in agreement with Sally Haslanger’s argument, I also think that being
born with a particular set of genitals doesn’t mean that society has to paint the clothes pink
and blue. Before a human is born, the gender reveals parties start by painting the walls and
the cakes in a specific color representing the gender of the baby. The clothes are bought in
girly or boyish shades which are pre-decided by society as pink and blue (Karacan, 2016).
Racism like gender is socially constructed. During the tribal times, men used to go out
and hunt to provide food for the family which the women cooked and fed. The women had to
stay home because they were the ones with the ability to give birth to a baby and feed them
and thus had to avoid going out. These turned into serious societal norms for women and
men. Mean doesn’t go out and hunt, but the woman is again expected to stay home. This is
something that we are taught from an early age, by seeing our own parents or others. Things
like these have been carrying on for generations and we need to see and understand that it is
time for a change.
The change can begin with the beginning. That means the very own foundation of
upbringing can be gender-neutral. The girl child should not be very obnoxious gifted a barbie
and a boy child with an action figure. Start by gifting a gender-neutral playhouse. The
children should not be burdened with the expectations of how and what they should play

Philosophy 3
with, or basically, as Sally says, behave masculine if they are male and feminine if they are
Moving on to a child’s teenage years, it is the time when the socialization occurs and forms
the base for the remaining life. The social gender construction is acted out fiercely here.
Magazines have articles for girls that tell them how they should look to become the “perfect
girl” and tell the boys “how to strike the perfect conversation with a girl”. This puts the
gender binary (Eckert, 2014) roots even deeper into the budding brains and tells us that
gender construction does not end at infancy and childhood but is shaped continuously.
We have moved past the idea of racism, that the people with lighter skin color are far
more superior than the people of “color” and thus they should be their slaves, and this is how
God made them. It is time that we also agree with the fact that women are race car drivers,
and men are excellent chefs. Women and men both can put up makeup like James Charles,
Huda Kattan, and Goss.
Gender, according to West and Zimmerman (West & Zimmerman, 2009), isn't a
private trait; it's "an emergent feature of social situations: each as an outcome of and an
explanation for varied social arrangements, and as a method of legitimating one in all the
foremost basic divisions of society." traditionally, the term gender was adopted as suggested
that of identifying between biological sex and socialist aspects of femininity and masculinity.
What is more, gender was thought of achievement and a lot of or less stable once it's non-
inheritable in infancy. Contemporary constructionist perspective, as planned by Fenstermaker
and West, proposes treating gender as an activity ("doing") of utilizing normative
prescriptions and beliefs regarding sex classes supported situational variables. These "gender
activities" represent our happiness to sex as supported by the socially accepted classification
of "women" and "men". It's noted, however, that these activities aren't forever perceived (by
the audience) as being either "masculine" or "feminine", they're at constant risk of being
assessed as a lot of or less "womanly" or "manly"; ultimately, any behavior could also be

Philosophy 4
judged based mostly upon its "manly" or "womanly" nature. "Doing gender" is in truth
supported these interactions that are official of current assessments in varied things. This
successively points to the situational nature of gender instead of its inherent, essentialist and
individual nature ("Journal of Gender Studies - Books received, vol. 26 No. 6", 2017).
Possible Arguments to my opinion
Like every coin has a flip side, there must be a lot of people who could disagree with
me. There are some natural traits to every gender like women or girls are more empathetic
than boys. Boys may lash out straight to their mother stating that the food isn’t good enough,
while girls might say that the dish that was cooked yesterday was better. The problem is not
the traits that are naturally embedded but it arises when these traits are more enforced to
conform to the societal gender norms. As women should always be empathetic and polite,
especially in the public, thus, to some extent taking away their basic right to speech.
There might be some people who might argue that gender-neutral parenting might add
enthusiasm to things like Drag, which are not yet universally accepted, but I believe, one
should know and explore themselves completely before conforming to a way that states how
they should lead their lives.

Philosophy 5
References
Eckert, P. (2014). The Problem with Binaries: Coding for Gender and Sexuality. Language
And Linguistics Compass, 8(11), 529-535.
Hackett, E., & Haslanger, S. (2006). Theorizing feminisms. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Journal of Gender Studies - Books received vol. 26 No. 6. (2017). Journal Of Gender
Studies, 26(6), 723-724.
Karacan, N. (2016). Concept of the Social Gender, Reconstrion and the Reflection of Art. Idil
Journal Of Art And Language, 5(24).
West, C., & Zimmerman, D. (2009). Accounting for Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 23(1),
112-122.