The Gender Ethnicity And Controversial Topics Sociology Essay

The study of gender and ethnicity has long been a controversial topic in the field of sociology. Sociologists believe that gender and ethnicity are both the outcome under socialization, rather than biologically constructed. This essay will examine gender and ethnicity as a social construction, rather than a biological ‘given’. The concepts of gender and ethnicity will firstly be defined, and then the distinction in explaining ethnicity and gender between biological and sociological perspective will follow. Finally, a judgment on why social construction is the best in explaining the appearance of gender and ethnicity will be given.

“…biological term that defines an individual as male or female. It is determined by the possession of a vagina and ovaries (female) or testes and a penis (male). In addition, males possess and XY and females and XX chromosome.” (Holmes et. al. 2007)

It is divided based on one’s genitalia. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this is an easy distinction to make, and it can be found out through ultrasound scan before birth. Gender, however, is “a social term referring to the characteristics thought approximate for each sex at any given point in time in a particular culture” (Holmes et. al. 2007). It is what the society expects one as a man or a woman, of course, the degrees of expectation varies in different societies. In other words, gender is what individuals identify themselves as masculinity or femininity. Another concept that need to be clarifies is ethnicity and race. Ethnicity, or ethnic group, refers to “a large number of people who, as a result of their shared cultural traits and high level of mutual interaction, come to regard themselves, and to be regarded, as a cultural unity” (Robertson 282), whereas race is defined as “the categorization of humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics.” The former is changeable but the latter one cannot.

We always presume that out gender is biologically given, but actually it is not. In any society, our gender identity is produced through a series of social practice, which is so called gender socialisation. When a baby is born, people will firstly identify it as a boy or girl. From that moment onwards, the baby lives in an already existed social environment with lots of labeling, categorizations, expectations and cultural preferences. Since parents have an internalized ideological framework that tells them what kind of behaviour is expected from males and females within the culture, their goal is to raise their children that meet the normative expectations associated with gender appropriate behaviour. George Herbert Mead, in his “Mind, Self and Society” (1934), has explained the socialisation process. He claimed that children start to develop as social beings through a process of imitation. The children imitate those generalised other, which represents a set of behavioural rules and guide-lines. Through the process of imitation, the embodiment of general cultural values and morals will be internalised in children’s mind. For example, a boy may decide not to wear female clothing in public because his internalised conception from generalised others tell him that other would be offended by his action.

Another theory that explains gender socialisation, namely social learning theory, place lots of importance on observation, reward as well as punishment (Westen et al. 2006). This theory emphasizes four main aspects of the socialisation process, they are imitation, identification, role learning and conditioning (Westen et al. 2006). Imitation here is the same as the idea of Mead mentioned above. Children start to become socialised through the observation and imitation of people around them. Boys and girls are able to identify with their father and mother respectively as parents are a ready source of imitation (Livesey & Lawson 2005). Girls tend to imitate their mother’s life such as cooking and cleaning without understanding the content. For boys, since in most cases the father is absent from home at work, they tend to adopt images of masculinity from other sources, such as television, comics or online games. Identification is another process that appears to evolve in a more natural way. Girls identify with their mother and boys with the father because they are of the same biological sex. This process is, however, the result of the process of gender identification encouraged by children’s parents, both consciously and unconsciously (Livesey & Lawson 2005). Parents, as role model, encourage gender identification through their words and actions. For example, mother may encourage girls to give a hand in the kitchen. Girls may be punished for behaving in ways that are not ladylike such as shouting and fighting. The third process of social learning is role learning. It is obvious that all roles in our society represent socially-created ideas about what is normal for men or women to behave. Parents, of course, have been affected by socialisation and, because of this, parents develop clear ideas about the right and wrong ways for their children to behave in relation to their gender (Livesey & Lawson 2005). They use their socialisation experiences as a guide to socialise their children. Conditioning is the fourth process within socialisation. It involves systems of rewards and punishments, and children quickly learn through experience which behavioural characteristics bring rewards and which attract punishments.

Ethnicity, similarly, is constructed through socialising process. It is something we all have but always overlook. It is a basis for the formation of status groups, that is, groups that re distinguished from each other by specific lifestyles. Some sociologists view ethnicity as a basis of resource competition, which in turns differing the life chances of different ethnic groups. It is claimed to be a phenomena under social construction because of the existence of social class inequality. Those in higher social status are often dominant groups whereas the others may become subordinate groups. The latter one is also called ethnic minorities which “have been assigned a subordinated position in society by dominant groups on the basis of socially-constructed markers of phenotype, origins or culture” (Holmes et. al. 2007 p.148). Usually, ethnicity is notably recognised when individuals are marked as minorities. Those dominant groups use their superior status to get most of the power and resources, and at the same time, suppress the ethnic minorities so that they can maintain their superior position. It is generally resulted in racism and discrimination. The Nazi Germany and Jews is a good example. Clearly ethnicity played a vital role in definition of nationhood as the Nazi Germany saw it. They regarded themselves as the ultimate superior race, whereas Jews was people at the bottom. Jews at that time is a typical ethnic minority which was subdued by Nazi Germany. Another example is the Cronulla Riots happened in Sydney in 2005. The riot is rooted in the violence between several Lebanese (ethnic minority) and Australian (dominant group), which, as a result, led to an approximately 5000 people demonstration against Lebanese in Cronulla Beach, expressing their resent towards Lebanese (Poynting 2006). We can see, from the Cronulla riots, that the Australian was organising a protest in order to maintaining hegemony in their nation. It is, therefore, concluded that the class inequality and resources competition has stressed the socially constructed nature of ethnicity.

To conclude, the essay has demonstrated the fact that ethnicity and gender are actually social construction in stead of biologically produced. The first part of this essay gives clear definitions of ethnicity and gender. It then followed by explaining the process of gender socialisation through imitation, gender identification, role learning and conditioning, which involves both the conscious teaching and unconscious learning of social values and norms. The last part illustrates the power, economic resources and status interests are factors attributing to the production of ethnicity. It is a matter of class inequality that forms the nature of ethnicity and therefore, results in racism and discrimination.