Gender Is a Social Category Imposed on a Sexed Body

Topic: Gender is a social category imposed on a sexed body. Discuss.

Class: Thursday

World count: 1498 words

Introduction – Gender stereotype

The definition of gender stereotyping can be summarized as overgeneralization of characteristics, differences and attributes of a certain groups based on their gender (Smith, 2014). People in the world are categorized by the society into different type when having similar characteristic. That is to say, men and women have a predictable image in people’s mind which could be difficult to make change. In general, gender stereotype has been taken root in people’s mind no matter in the past or now.

One of the representative examples of gender stereotype in the past could be found in the traditional Chinese mindset. According to Zurndorfer (2014, p.29), the classical thoughts in old rural Chinese village include “Ignorance is women's virtue” and “Man work outside; woman stay within home”. This kind of old-fashioned historical thought constricted woman to think and live independently. The impacts of gender stereotype are not only on women, but also on men. Even now, some old Chinese believe that men should bear all the responsibility to take care of their family with no negotiation. Men should always be the highest authority in the family is another impression given to men in the past.

After culture development from time to time, people living in modern cities have developed different forms of gender stereotype. A variety types of social cognition towards gender created a conflict between men and women and influenced them in different ways. Some of the statements like girls are much more careful than boys or men are better in mathematics than women, as a kind of gender stereotype, are widely debated in nowadays society.

Development of gender stereotype

There are several reasons which may lead to change in the style of gender stereotype, including the developing method of society. Most of the countries nowadays have a knowledge-based society which requires more mental labor than hard manual labor. However, in the past, the situation reversed. Without the help of advanced machines, many repetitive work required people to have a physically strong body, but not required many well educated people. Under this background, since men are physically stronger than women generally, they automatically could have a higher social status than women as they contributed more to the development of society. Berdahl (2007) analyses evidence to show that in the 18th century sexual discrimination functioning to keep women out of desirable jobs and economically dependent on men by labeled women as powerless. Ruan (2013) provides more information about traditional China to illustrate dilemmas faced by women due to discrimination and low social status. The classical thought in Chinese believed that women should always listen to man and not to make decision themselves. Based on the above studies, It is plausible to conclude that the culture of male-domination appears in both Western and Chinese society in the past.

After the mindset of “female should depend on male” taken root in people’s mind, the problem of gender stereotype worsened. The fixed image of gender in people mind became difficult to change even with fact to indicate what women could have done. The empress Wu Zetian in Tang Dynasty is a case in point. People protested empress Wu to be the leader mainly because she was a woman, but not because the ability of her (Lu, 2014). Gender discrimination became harder to make changes from time to time.

The importance of the serious gender discrimination problem arises to people when industrial revolution started in the late 17 century. Feminist theories first emerged in 1792 to present women’s rights as an issue of “universal human rights” (Botting, 2014). Appear of feminist theories, change in working method and job structure and increase in women knowledge level, these three elements provided incentive to change the social atmosphere in relatively powerful Western countries likes America and England. During the development from classical society to modern society, it was observed that feminist theories also inflow to different countries that have an advanced state of civilization. Globalization accelerate the process of eliminate gender discrimination though it is still a common problem.

The impact of gender stereotype

Gender stereotype generates inconvenience towards both male and female. In general, women's gender stereotyping is more frequently discussed because most people agreed that the gender stereotyping of women has been a huge disadvantage for the advancement of women socially, through education and in the workforce when comparing with men. Gender stereotype may lead to self-imitation and social pressure.

Self-imitation can be attributed to the incorrect self-recognition. Based on the evidence by Piaget (2013), Gender stereotype restricted the development of children by telling them it is abnormal for them to do something different from their origin gender. People in society transfer information to children like “only boy can be a fireman” or “only girl can be a nurse”. When children grow up, even they have interest and talent; they may not choose the work they are interested in because of self-imitation.