It is important to point out at the onset of this essay the clear bias to a binary perspective on gender in the question itself, it presupposes and acts within a hegemonic heteronormative paradigm. This essay will show and work from a more expanded definition of gender by stating how it directly impacts ‘becoming’ in a contemporary society. Discussing key societal functions such as heteronormativity and its impact, socialisation and its agencies, and social norms, values, and beliefs, it will demonstrate their continued reinforcement and evolution. It will also make the point that these functions may not only reinforce but also produce gender (our becoming), using key catalysts that shape their identities, by employing a variety of sociological sources. This essay will conclude that all these elements work together to shape us, not simply into men and women but rather ourselves.

Western approaches to gender tend to have a bias of gender binary, as demonstrated by De Beauvoir in The Second Sex (2010), often unconsciously accepted as normal, correct, and supported with scientific evidence. This view of male and female infiltrates most values, norms, and institutions, also known as hegemonic heteronormativity, which in turn impact our daily interactions as human beings and shape the paradigm in which we function and ‘become’. Our understanding of who we are and how we see others can be produced by key areas such as medical practice, research, legislation, and by extension education. Accepting discourses of heteronormativity as the standard directly influences how a society teaches, relates to, and legislates its members. “Cisgender heteronormative interpretations assume that sex and gender are perfectly aligned, and that opposite-sex attraction is the norm; it ignores or stigmatizes divergence from these expectations.” (Geist et al. 2017, P.2). Heterosexuality’s impact on non-sexual social paradigms blurs the line between sex and gender linking them inextricably. As Judith Butler points out, “The regulation of gender has always been part of the work of heterosexist normativity.” (Butler, 2004, P.186). A well publicised example of this was the case of David Reimer. After a botched circumcision David was seen as an opportunity to prove that gender was something that could be nurtured rather than natural and was raised a girl. At the age of 14 he was made aware of his born gender identity and immediately began performing as male rather than his ‘nurtured’ female identity, unfortunately David committed suicide several years later as a consequence of his reassignment. Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary this binary approach to gender reassignment during infancy is still practiced today with many doctors strongly suggesting that parents choose a gender for intersex children within the first year of their life (Gender Revolution: A Journey With Katie Couric, 2017).  This moral panic that ensues when the ‘real’ sex is not identifiable displays a heteronormative view of gender that is inherent in our scientific and therefore cultural paradigm, shaping our response to our own, and others, gender performance. The lack of gender diversity within research creates an unvaried and one dimensional picture of general population samples.  “Similar to race and class, gender and sexuality are complex and multidimensional.” (Geist et al, 2017, p.9). A more complex approach to data analysis and research across multiple disciplines would generate an accurate understanding of human behavior and how we ‘become’ or allow others to ‘be’.

From an early age the nuclear family is responsible for the shaping, mentoring, and installation of norms, values, and beliefs in children through primary socialisation. In turn producing the perfectly controlled environment to teach gender and the societally expected performance of it. When reflecting on her own experience in a heteronormative society Betsy Lucal stated the following, “If the two-and-only-two gender system is to be maintained, participants must be involved in policing the categories and their attendant identities and spaces.” (Lucal, 1999, p.793). As explained by his Structuration Theory Giddens (1979, PP.69-70) surmises that people validate and reinforce the structure of society by living within its parameters and can change it by ignoring, modifying, or replacing rules. There is an ingrained fear of the consequences associated with operating outside the norms of societal culture this in turn informs everyday actions and responses to others during our “performance of gender” (J. Butler, 1998, p.519). In their paper on Doing and Undoing Risk Nygren, Öhman and Olofsson (2017) state, “Risk is part of the normative power that maintains hegemonic structures of society through people’s everyday actions.” Consciously or unconsciously parents shape their home environments to protect their children from the risk that comes with operating outside of the “frame of hegemonic heteronormativity.” (Nygren et al. 2017, p.428) the repercussions of which can be seen during secondary socialisation whether this is at school, work, or peer groups. The simple example set by teachers, as pointed out by Epstein and Johnson (1998), show that ‘radical drag’ like men’s suits on women is never seen, “ Conventionally gendered dress is, then, an aspect of the ‘neutrality’ of teacher dress.” (Epstein and Johnson, 1998, p.115). This secondary space is where hegemonic discourses are introduced, re-affirmed or challenged through peer discussion, media, and publically sanctioned adult behavior as shown through the teachers example or the emphasis on how boys should behave in an athletic environment (W. P. Williams & J. Littlefield, 2018; G. Gerdin, 2017). 

Consequently, as the individual’s social experience widens outside of the childhood home they begin to perform their gender within set regulations that are reinforced through norms, values, and beliefs. If we accept that gender is performed then it follows that, “all gendered behaviour is a matter of the internalization of social expectations.” (M. Evans, 2003, P.57). This essay has already touched on the inherent risk that operating outside the “frame of hegemonic heteronormativity” (Nygren et al. 2017,p.428) is fraught with but why does that risk exist? Our behaviour within society operates within certain parameters, which we reinforce by regulating our own, and others, behaviour. Judith Butler saw this as central to ‘gender regulation’. When examining Butlers work Evans surmises that, “Butler would argue that gender differentiation is central to social organization and a major form of differential access to social power.” (Evans, 2003, P.59). Hegemonic ideas are those that are dominant or reflect the interests of a powerful group in society; by reflecting, performing, and enforcing those norms, values, and beliefs the individual becomes an accepted part of a cohesive society. Max Weber believed that values form behaviour and are defined by the current social structure. Although, in order to more accurately understand how we become in current society, more agency should be ascribed to the individual. Giddens Structuation Theory gives space for the ‘duality of structures’ (Giddens, 1979, P.69) allowing them to shape us but at the same time create them. This explains the shift on previously static ideas of gender and sexuality but also why heteronormative views are still widely practiced in contemporary society.

In conclusion, while there is an increasingly public display of varied gender performance today, “Research continues to rely primarily on taken-for-granted heteronormative and cisnormative understandings of sex and gender” (Geist et al, 2017, P.1). The idea of what is normal and acceptable is shaped by what society studies, recognises, and gives power to, reinforcing this at every stage of life. Primary and secondary socialisation, the discourses we produce and reiterate, are all shaped by cultural norms, values, and beliefs. The fear of operating outside of those normative cultural bounds socialises our behaviour. A focus on a binary gender perspective “obscure(‘s) the rich variation in how people experience their own sense of gender and sexuality, as well as how others perceive it.” (Geist et al, 2017, P.1).  It is clear that society shapes and impacts what we ‘become’ but it is also clear that there is an opportunity to widen the scope of what it means to ‘be’ in contemporary society today. 

Bibliography:

Butler, J. (1988) ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal, 40(4), pp. 519-531.

Available at: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3207893 . 

(Accessed: 26/11/2018) 

De Beauvouir, S. (2010) The Second Sex. London: Vintage Random House

Epstien, D. and Johnson, R. (1998) Schooling Sexualities. Buckingham: Open University Press

Evans, M. (2003) Gender and Social Theory. Buckingham: Open University Press

Geist, C., Reynolds, M.M.,Gaytán, M.S. (2017) ‘Unfinished Business: Distangeling Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Sociological Research on Gender Stratification’, Sociology Compass, 11(4), pp. 1-16.

Gerdin, G. (2017) ‘It’s not like you are less of a man just because you don’t play rugby’—boys’ problematisation of gender during secondary school physical education lessons in New Zealand’, Sport, Education and Society, 22(8), pp. 890-904. 

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2015.1112781 

(Accessed: 26/11/2018) 

Gender Revolution: A Journey With Katie Couric (2017) [TV]. Directed by Anon. National Geographic, 06 February.

Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problem in Social Theory: Action, Structure and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press

Lucal, B. (1999) ‘What it means to be gendered me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System’, Gender & Society, 13(6), pp.781-797.

Nygren, K.G., Öhman, S., Olofsson, A. (2017) ‘Doing and undoing risk: the mutual constitution of risk and heteronormativity in contemporary society’, Journal of Risk Research, 20(3), pp.418-432.

Williams, W.P. & Littlefield, J (2018) ‘Peer socialisation: brand-related bullying in the school classroom’, Journal of Marketing Management, 34(11-12), pp. 989-1014. 

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2018.1513056 

(Accesed 26/11/2018)

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