Introduction
Gender defines the process of social status making, which are used in the allocation of responsibilities and rights. Because the part of the stratification system ranks different states differently and unequally, gender is the primary building block of the social stratification of different statuses. Sexuality is the person’s capacity for the sexual feeling (Ron). This paper examines gender stratification, sexuality, the way they vary, and their different possibilities.
Social stratification of the gender, the sexuality, and their variations
To be born a female is more than pure biological fact, but a fact that has some social complications (Oneontaeducation).Women are a component of the distinct social groups and characteristics of this group that has been neglected by history does not affect the “nature” of the feminine. The biological sexes are represented, redefined, valued and again are channeled on the different roles in different ways that are culturally dependent. Sex or gender systems are the set of arrangements that the society transforms the sexuality that is biological into the sexuality that is biological into the products of the human activity, where these transformed sexual needs are met (Bridge Development).
We are born female or male but not either feminine or masculine. Femininity is an achievement, an artifice, and a mode of reenacting and enacting the received gender norms that surface as an increased flesh style. There are disciplinary practices that make the body be recognized as feminine, through producing a shape of a particular configuration, movement, posture, and gestures and those that facilitate the display of the given screen of the body as the ornamented surface.
Gender constructions start with the assignment to a given category of the sex based on the appearance of the genitals. From this, babies are then handled and dressed in a way that represents their division as parents avoid being asked whether their baby are either boys or girls (Lorber).
After the gender is evident, these different genders are treated differently, and these children respond to different treatments hence starts feeling, and behaving in a different manner bringing about the variation in their behavior and the way they speak, walk, and even approach situations. After they have been assigned and treated in a particular way that represents a specific gender, they refer themselves as the members of this gender and therefore, the gender group in which they are assigned according to norms and expectations shapes their practices and sexual desires and feelings. Even parenting is gendered with different expectations and standards from the fathers and mothers and different kinds of gender work in different jobs (Reachout.com). The work done is according to the norms where work adults do either as mothers or fathers do which shapes the norms and the expectations from a gender which produces different feelings, relationships skills which may be referred to as masculine or feminine that constitute social construction of the gender.
Female figure styles vary across cultures and overtime, and they are reflections of the cultural preoccupations, and obsessions in poorly understood ways. Power, massiveness, or the abundance in the woman’s body is met with the distaste. The today’s body fashion is small breasted, taut, narrow-hipped, slimness and so on. Heterosexual men are attracted to these women and usually tend to stare at them and often judge them on these bases.
There are increased differences between female and males in posture, gesture, general body comportment and the movement. Females are much restricted in their spatiality and movement manner compared to men. Women are surrounded by the space in their imagination that makes them hesitant to move beyond, which manifests itself through their reluctant to stretch, reach and in extending their body to meet the resistance of the matter in the motion and even in the general style of the movement and their constricted posture. Woman’s space is the enclosure in which she feels comfortably positioned and in which she is confined rather than the field in which the females’ body intentions can be realized freely. However, this norm is violated by the “loose woman,” which can be manifested in her manner of speech, norms, and even in the natural way in which she moves (Oneontaeducation).
There are differences in postures for feminine and masculine; for example, men while waiting for the train sit while expanding to the available space, arms flung out at a given distance from their body, and legs far apart. Women’s on the other hand, place their arms close to the body, toes pointing turned inward or straight ahead, their hands folded in their laps together, and their legs pressed together.
As a structure, gender divides work in economic production and the home, emotional life, organizes sexuality, and legitimates those in authority. In situations where gender is the major constituent of the structured inequality, the gender that is devalued has reduced powers, economic rewards, and prestige than the gender that is valued (Lorber).The importance of gendering at the birth is because individuals experience gender as the social institution, which is the way in which human beings, organizes their lives. The human society relies on the division of labor that is predictable, a designed allocation of the goods that are scarce in nature and the responsibility that is assigned to children and even others who cannot take care of shared values, their systematic transmission to the new members, themselves, games, and themselves and so on. A way of selecting people to handle different tasks is through looking at their talents, competence, and motivations and their achievements, which are demonstrated. On the other hand, gender, ethnicity, a given membership, and the race can also be used as a way of choosing individuals to handle particular tasks (Sexuality and Social Justice ).
In maintaining the gender separation, men and women when doing the same tasks they are spatially segregated when doing the same work and also the different jobs are given different titles and names for example administrative assistant and the executive secretary.
As a part of the stratification system, the gender tends to rank women below men in the similar class and race although women and men could be different they are equal. Different evaluations to an extent are the best practices if creating differences between men and women.
The gender inequality where the women are devalued more than men and the social domination of males constitute the social history and social functions. Gender inequality is not because of the procreation, sex, anatomy, genetic predispositions, hormones or physiology but it is generated and maintained by the social processes that are identifiable and constructed into individual identities and the general social structures purposefully and deliberately. The continuing purpose of the gender as a current and modern way of social institution is aimed at constructing females as a group that is subordinate to men (Lorber). To sum up, as gender is the process, there is an increased room for variation and modification by small groups and individuals and for institutionalized change.
References
Bridge Development. 2014. 2003 2018. <http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/bridge-publications/cutting-edge-packs/gender-and-sexuality>.
Lorber, Judith. ““Night to his Day”: The Social Construction of Gender.” Paradoxes of Gender. 1994.
Oneontaeducation.1994.20032018.<https://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth200/gender.html>.
Reachout.com. 2018. 2003 2018.<https://schools.au.reachout.com/articles/gender-and-sexuality>.
Ron,WillianLttleand.Openbooksbc.2014.2002018.<https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter12-gender-sex-and-sexuality/>.
Sexualityy and Social Justice . 2016. 20 03 2018. <http://spl.ids.ac.uk/sexuality-and-social-justice-toolkit/1-issues-and-debates/what-link-between-sexuality-and-gender>.
