In addition to existing as a part of people’s perceptions, both terms of gender and race have underlying deeper aspects that extend to broader social concepts. The world is made by social constructs through an ongoing dynamic process, and the existing reality represents a construction of society’s perception of reality (Marmol). The term gender exists separately from the biological definition of sex. Gender as the representation of a social construct is associated with society’s expectations from a specific individual based on their gender identity. Overall, gender as a social construct in the set of expectations from society determines individuals’ characteristics, such as behavior and moral statements.
Next, another example of a social construct is race; similarly to differences between gender and sex, the term of race is separated from ethnicity. One could determine that race is a social construct by analyzing how its meaning was shaped and manipulated through history. Moreover, besides its initial purpose of representing physical markers, race as a social construct comes with a set of requirements for affiliation, such as shared birthplace and language fluency.
Both social constructs of race and gender are similar as they represent a set of expectations and stereotypes created by society and manipulated by the powerful stratum of society. Moreover, both race and gender as social constructs are founded on the concept of difference, which explains the human tendency to connect with people with similar visual appearance or social position. However, while race as a social construct mainly represents an external process in which an individual is treated by society accordingly to physical markers, an individual’s definition of gender identity comes from internal processes.
Works Cited
Marmol, Brian. “Socially Constructed Society.” Baruch College, 2019, Web.