Varalika Deswal Week 1

1        Night to his Day –Judith Lorber

The author argues that gender is not a biological product but a result of social interactions, so it can not be equated with the physiological and biological differences between human males and females as it is socially constructed. The construction of gender often begins at childbirth when parents on the basis of their child’s sex (male or female) start assigning and associating their child with certain gender characteristics.  A society roles and responsibilities are distributed on the basis of gender which makes it one of the ways in which we organize our lives. There are infinite number of combinations of sex, mannerisms, sexuality and role that could introduce variances in humans which all depend on production and maintenance of gender statuses. The author also attempts to explain the distinction between transsexuals and the third gender; transsexuals are biological male or females that transform themselves from one sex to the other via a sex change surgery to align themselves with their gender identity.

Gender is not attached to our biological sex and is a result of societal and some individual factors, gender is not constant but fluid, the similarities and distinctions between genders don’t exist in nature biologically but are created by society, in this way gender also becomes a social institution.