Blog 5

In terms of Lorber’s notion of “social construction”, the definition is rooted in the roles and labels that society creates in order to categorize people.  For instance, Lorber deals a lot with gender and the notion that we have constructed roles that males and females must fit into from the moment they are born.  In example, the color blue being for boys and the color pink being for girls.  Without realizing it fully, we, as a society, as labeling different behaviors and beliefs that each different sex should hold and what type of gender that they should fit into.  In the TEDtalk, Sam Killermann stated that “gender is more complex than what we learn as kids”.  He dealt with the concept that gender and biological sex are two separate compartments and that society should not define people by their sex.  I found it interesting that he was able to share a bit of his story and enlighten us about the fact that the way he dresses causes people to ask him if he’s gay a lot of the time.  This really made me stop and ponder upon why we have these stereotypes and the notion that the way that we dress or express ourselves defines our sexuality.  Zimmerman was quick to make the point that sexuality and gender are almost separate entities, as he is not gay but he would describe himself as metrosexual.  Thus, Zimmerman describes that gender expression is “how you present your gender to the world”.  He focuses deeply on the fact that this type of expression cannot be limited into two categories for the copious amount of people that we have on this earth, and even just in this country.  Thus, his call was not for a specific change of action (except the light-hearted request for transgender bathrooms at the end of the film), but rather for a paradigm shift for people. 

            In connection, Hanfler states that “we act toward people, things, and events based upon the meanings we have for them…we actively transform the world into images and concepts, giving it meaning and order” (Hanfler, 23-4).  Thus, it is human tendency to act upon the meaning that we have given others; for instance, when we label a male as a boy, we have certain stereotypes or behaviors that we expect from them as a result of this labeling.  We are made to never question the gender roles that we learn from birth so we look for the correct order of these things in our lives as adults.  This goes directly into another one of Hanfler’s points as it’s stated that, “we learn meanings” (Hanfler, 24).  We learn “initial interpretations of the world” from important people in our lives or from the media and these are the ones that tend to stick (Hanfler, 24).  It takes stepping back and recognizing that a lot of our ideas or behaviors, such as blue and pink labels, are learned and are a creation of society.  Overall, I believe the most potent step in this conversation is to understand the definition of social construction and to open our eyes to where it has gone unnoticed in our lives.  Now, this doesn’t mean that we must change everything we have grown up believing but it does mean that we need to open our eyes and our hearts to the million other people on the planet that may see things a bit differently.