Manifestation of Gender in Society

Sex is a biological labeling done on the basis of difference in genitalia while gender is a social construct. The social institutions, behaviour of people, different needs make gender very naturally rooted in our minds. The way in which we talk about the people of opposite sex, the jokes me make, the conflicts which occur, the judgments based on the choice of colours, movie genre, food preference, etc explain how gender is exaggerated even though it is just an elaboration of the biological construct, i.e., sex.

   

We get to know the importance of gender from everywhere.  It is evident from all the symbols and representations – in public spaces where there is a separate place to sit for women. In art forms where women are mostly shown as beautiful, delicate as in Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings and at times oppressed, clothing codes in workplaces etc. Gender is experienced in all settings from government offices to street games.  It is obvious in the family, the neighborhood, temple, school, the media, walking down the street, eating in a restaurant, going to the restroom.

 

Even before a child is born, people around begin to guess if it will be a boy or a girl. If a boy is born, all the clothes bought for him are mostly blue in color while that for a girl is pink. While this has been accepted as natural by society, this does not make any difference in the treatment meted out to them. It is difficult to say if the qualities of the two sexes were attributed to the two colors or vice-versa but apparently pink is considered as a more delicate color than blue and so it is thought to be suitable for girls. Right from their childhood, boys and girls are understood and interacted with in different ways. While females are handled more gently, the baby boy is dealt with more teasingly.

  

Seemingly, male and female infants cry the same amount but as they mature, boys cry less. Children learn to behave in a manner which gets them favorable response from adults. If a boy cries, adults tell him that boys are supposed to be strong and not meek like girls so they cry less as they mature whereas a girl is pampered even if she cries for no reason. It is a fact that unless we can attribute a gender to a person, we do not know how to interact with another human being or how to judge them and talk about them. Gender prejudices decide what we think of ourselves, about others and thus our behaviour towards them.

Educational institutions also reproduce the gender order in numerous ways. As prime sites for socialization, schools are key institutions for the construction of gender. Elementary schools not  long  ago  were  known  for  keeping  girls  and  boys  separate – lining  them  up  separately  to move  about  the  school,  pitting  them  against  each  other  in  competitions,  separating  them  for physical  education.  Throughout  the  educational  system,  men  are  more  likely  than  women  to  be  in  top administrative  positions.  But  also,  the  gender  balance  of  people  in  teaching  positions  changes dramatically as one moves from preschool through elementary and then secondary school, and on to university, with women primarily responsible for the education of small children, and men gradually  taking  over  as  the  pupils  get older.

  

The  view  of  women  as a nurturer is  deeply embedded  in  the  common  belief  that  women  are  more  suited  than  men  to  teaching  small children. In  a  fashion  analogous  to  women’s  entrance  into corporate  management,  men  can  enter  the  female  educational  workplace  not  because  they’re capable of being nurturer, but because they can bring important male changes to educational practice. A similar gender shift occurs in educational institutions and workplaces as the subject matter gets more technical.  Men  in  our  society  are  more  likely  to  teach  science,  math,  and technology while women are more likely to teach humanities and –to a lesser extent –social science. Even within the sciences, women are more likely to be biologists than physicists. In this way, essentialist views of women as more nurturer and men as rational are embedded in our institutions of knowledge and the ways we talk about them.

   

The  complex  institutional  status  of  the  family  is  underlined  by arguments  about  what  actually  constitutes  a  family.  Some  insist  on  marriage as  the  legal  and moral  foundation  of  a  family.  Marriage,  on  this  view,  officially  sanctions  heterosexual  union between  one  man  and  one  woman;  it  makes  them  responsible  for  rearing  any  offspring  they might  have,  and  the  family  is  then  the  unit  consisting  of husband,  wife,  and  children.  

 

The debate about same sex marriage does not focus primarily on children and families, but on civil rights –on the relationship between two people and the right of same-sex couples to enjoy the legal and fiscal benefits of marriage. The parenting issue began earlier with the right of gay and lesbian couples or single gay men and lesbians to adopt and raise children.

Women are treated as inferior to men and are regarded as weak-minded human beings who are vulnerable to all sorts of unconformities. The society believes that their physical attributes make them even more delicate and that they need protection all their lives. In Indian society, women are considered as Goddesses but on the other hand they are treated like animals and not given any respect in family as well as in public life.

  

The relationship organization of a society also plays a significant role in shaping gender relations and roles in most societies. Societies that are strongly patriarchal are very widespread. “Such societies are usually among those that are most unfavorable to women as they tend to markedly differentiate between the sexes. In such a system, there is a high value placed on the male offspring and men largely inherit property.”(Anuja Agrawal)

   

Women are treated as temporary members of their parents’ household and their husband’s household may or may not accept them as a member who has any right in the property or in taking decisions. Gender issue cannot be kept separate from class, caste, race and ethnicity structures. An urban middle class woman holds a different social position than that occupied by an urban middle class man. But her position is also different from that of a poor rural woman who works at her place. In India, a woman who is an administrator at office has no say at home when making decisions, whereas the man who holds the authority to take each decision at home may not have the same power at office in front of his lady boss. The infusion of class distinctions with gender distinctions eliminates the possibility of gender consciousness to rise above class consciousness.

Thus the conflicts and the biases because of gender in the society are very much obvious and the construction of this concept begins right from family and then exists in educational institutions, workplace, social life and relations with others.