Topics Feminism

Question Do you think that gender roles are socially constructed? I realize it's reductionist not to consider both the biological and the social influences, but I was wondering which could be said to have a greater effect on average, and what arguments would support this. Is there any inherent difference between male and female mannerisms (not thought patterns, because I believe that the differences there have been established empirically, as far as these things can be), or are they assumed gradually due to social pressures and expectations? Also excuse my English! Thank you, Isabella

Accepted:
July 30, 2007

Comments

It is as you say difficult to know how one would unwind social and biological factors in determining gender roles, or indeed a whole variety of other roles also. If people were brought up in a rather different manner from the norm, and then exhibited rather different gender expectations and behavior, that would be suggestive of the significance of the social. These experiments are easier to carry out on animals, of course, and there does seem to be some evidence there that gender roles are to a large degree social and not natural. Many philosophers would want to query the radical distinction that sometimes is held to obtain between the social and the natural in any case. Even if a particular gender distinction is natural, that does not mean that we should make it, or act in accordance with it. Civilization is often taken to be the curbing of the natural by the social, and so even if it is natural for me to act as a brutish male, I hope I resist the temptation as far as I can.