Gender as a Social Construct or Essentialism View
Gender as a social construct or essentialism view
Module: Critical Management Studies
07/01/2012
Introduction
‘Although the social world of work is inordinately complex the variables of class, race and gender are significantly superordinate in the quest for explanation. Relationships at work are not constructed by the interaction of men and women, workers and bosses, blacks and whites, but by whit male bosses, and by black female workers and by all the other possible permutations of this triangular social construct’ (Grint, 1998:223). As the words, the variables such as class, race and gender can be permutated, which makes the discourses at work complex. Discourses are something about talk, text and practices. For example, language is a kind of discourses and it is significant because it is the medium through that we communicate with the world. People take advantage of multiple discourses to build an identity, and gender is the one among these discourses. On the surface, one of the most ‘ obvious ’ distinctions in our society is that between men and women (Knights and Willmott, 2012). This essay mainly focuses on the masculinity and femininity and managing them in some ways to promote difference and sameness in a particular context so that to prove gender as a social construct according to Pullen and Simpson’s (2009) research about men’s gendered identities in two feminized occupations.
It is necessary to explain the distinction between sex and gender. Sex is usually regarded as biological nature, but of gender as a multiple interpretation of sex (Butler, 1990). Sexual difference is the biological distinction according to male and female chromosomal and hormonal difference. Gender is about the social roles, and behaviors.
This essay will discuss the difference on gender between mainstream theory and critical theory at first. On the one hand, the essentialist view of gender, which overly separate female from male, as the mainstream theory will
Module: Critical Management Studies
07/01/2012
Introduction
‘Although the social world of work is inordinately complex the variables of class, race and gender are significantly superordinate in the quest for explanation. Relationships at work are not constructed by the interaction of men and women, workers and bosses, blacks and whites, but by whit male bosses, and by black female workers and by all the other possible permutations of this triangular social construct’ (Grint, 1998:223). As the words, the variables such as class, race and gender can be permutated, which makes the discourses at work complex. Discourses are something about talk, text and practices. For example, language is a kind of discourses and it is significant because it is the medium through that we communicate with the world. People take advantage of multiple discourses to build an identity, and gender is the one among these discourses. On the surface, one of the most ‘ obvious ’ distinctions in our society is that between men and women (Knights and Willmott, 2012). This essay mainly focuses on the masculinity and femininity and managing them in some ways to promote difference and sameness in a particular context so that to prove gender as a social construct according to Pullen and Simpson’s (2009) research about men’s gendered identities in two feminized occupations.
It is necessary to explain the distinction between sex and gender. Sex is usually regarded as biological nature, but of gender as a multiple interpretation of sex (Butler, 1990). Sexual difference is the biological distinction according to male and female chromosomal and hormonal difference. Gender is about the social roles, and behaviors.
This essay will discuss the difference on gender between mainstream theory and critical theory at first. On the one hand, the essentialist view of gender, which overly separate female from male, as the mainstream theory will