User:JHolman43/"Workplace" Social Construction of Gender

Social construction of gender

Gender roles[edit]
Main article: Gender role

Gender roles are a continuation of the gender status, consisting of other achieved statuses that are associated with a particular gender status. In less theoretical terms, gender roles are functional position in a social dynamic for which fulfillment is a part of "doing gender"

Empirical investigations suggest that gender roles are "social constructs that vary significantly across time, context, and culture". Ronald F. Levant and Kathleen Alto write:"A recent synthesis of meta-analytic studies of gender differences provides strong evidence for a social construct understanding of gender. Ethan Zell and colleagues examined more than 20,000 findings from 12 million participants comparing men and women on topics ranging from risk-taking to body image. The authors found that the majority of effects were very small to small, indicating far more similarities than differences between genders."American philosopher Judith Butler makes a distinction between gender performativity and gender roles, which delineates between the social behaviors of the individual seeking to express the behavior which articulate their own perception of their gender; and behavior which creates the perception of compliance with societal gender expressions in aggregate. This is not to imply that participation in gender performativity cannot correspond to pressure to fulfill a gender role, nor that fulfillment of a gender role cannot satisfy the desire for gender performativity. The distinction refers primarily to context and motivation, rather than particular behaviors and consequences- which are often closely linked. Gendered behaviors can be taught. In Argentina, missionaries intending to educate the Qom people reinforced a conversion to gender norms and European modernity on the indigenous community.

Workplace
Moroccan women in Belgium with high-skill jobs report struggling to find a work-life balance; they leave ethnicity out of the discussed influences on professional identity, but do discuss gender. Portrayals of gender can be advantageous or disadvantageous for Moroccan women in the Belgian workplace. Disadvantages include the view of women in their twenties as busy with homemaking and child-rearing, and the Islamic tradition of wearing a headscarf leading to discrimination. Advantages include second generation immigrant women receiving less discrimination than men, and being highly educated further reduces chances of discrimination.

In the U.S., changes in gender ideology relate to changes in an individuals life, such as becoming a parent, getting a job, and other milestones. Racial differences and gender are determiners of treatment in the workplace; African American mothers suffer a wage penalty if they are married with big families, while white women are penalized upon becoming a mother. African American husbands are not seen as serious economic providers, and do not receive a wage premium for parenthood, while white fathers do. Current, full-time working women have a more egalitarian gender ideology than non-working or part-time women. Men relate work to providing roles and only shift to a more egalitarian gender ideology when opportunities are blocked and they learn to redefine success; blocked opportunities are more prevalent for black men.