Gender. media and diversity Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Gender. media and diversity - Assignment Example Therefore, identity is an act of performance where individuals adopt certain behavioral habits, and perform them to a niche group of audiences (Farrell 39). Similarly, the readings liken the social element of gender to identity. As opposed to being biologically determined, gender is considerably regarded to as a performance. In this case, repetitive practice of habits reserved for a specific gender invariably amounts to construction of an underlying gender. Therefore, feminine and masculine genders can be socially constructed by anyone, regardless of an individual’s biological sexuality. Primarily, social construction of gender implies that feminine qualities are not necessarily associated with being sexually female, while masculine qualities are not necessarily reserved for male persons. In essence, biological sexuality is natural whereas gender is culturally defined. In American societies, the aspect of gender is used to assign roles to men and women. For example, American societies perceive women as being physically and mentally weak, while their male counterparts are physically and mentally strong. As a result, mental and physical weaknesses are attributes reserved for the feminine gender, while strength is reserved for the masculine gender (Julie and Smith 155). Whenever men display weak mental and emotional composures like crying, they are criticized by the society as possessing feminine qualities. In this case, the performance of displaying weak emotions is used to construct the feminine gender, while performances related to display of strong emotional and ph ysical attributes is used to construct the masculine gender. Therefore, categorization of masculinity and femininity has less to do with biological sexuality, and more to do with social and cultural contexts. Undeniably, media plays a significant role in construction of gender in societies today. For example,