Reyes 1

Alexis Reyes
Professor Corri Ditch
English 113A
30 September 2015
From a Different Perspective
From the beginning I was so sure that gender and sex were the same thing, but Ive come
to learn and realize that they are two completely different things. I went from not knowing the
difference to fully understanding the concept of the two. Learning the true meaning has really
made me open my eyes to look at it through a a different perspective. Gender is a socially
constructed, which means there really is no inherent truth behind gender, its constructed by
social expectations and the performance of gender.
Sex and gender are two completely different elements. Just as Judith Lorber states in her
article Night to His Day The Social Construct of Gender , Gender is so much of the routine
ground of everyday activities that questioning is taken for granted assumptions and
presuppositions is like wondering about whether the sun will come up (Lorber 19). Gender is
nothing more than an everyday routine, we do gender by participating in dressing, acting,
behaving, and performing in either a masculine or feminine way. We do gender with out even
knowing it. Just as Lorber says in her article, Yet gender, like culture is a human production that
depends on everyone constantly doing gender (Lorber 19). This shows how gender really
wouldnt exist without society participating in it. Many of us dont realize how much we affect
the construction and reconstruction of these socially constructed gender roles and gender norms.
Lorber states that Gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction (Lorber

Reyes 2
19). We as people are the ones that hold it all together. We are the creatures by just participating
in these acts.
Gender roles and gender norms have been so much of an everyday thing people seem to
believe that we are born into gender. Lorber says that Gender is so pervasive that in our society
we assume it is bread into our genes(Lorber 19). Many people think that they understand what
gender means but in reality are mistaking it as the same as sex. They think that if youre female
then your gender is female and if your sex says your male then your gender is male. Gender isnt
built into our genes, gender is really what we make of it. Both Ruth Hubbard and Judith Lorber
share the same concept of gender being socially constructed. Ruth Hubbard stated that One
isnt born a woman, one becomes a woman (Hubbard 46). Both Hubbard and Lorber write on
behalf that you arent born into gender, life socially constructs you into a gender. You are born
into a sex, sex is the biology, your physical features. The outer genitalia that separates you from
female and male.
The socially constructed gender norms and gender roles consist of the way males and
females should act upon their sex and gender. Lorber states that Once a childs gender is
evident, others treat those of that gender differently from those in the other, and the children
respond to the different treatment by feeling different and behaving differently. With that being
said from the very beginning they categorize you. When you are being categorized you then fall
into gender norms and gender roles. Hubbard states that they characterize males and females
based upon their sex. Characterize women as weak, over emotional, and at the mercy of our
raging hormones, and that constructs our entire being around the functions of our reproductive
organs (Hubbard 46). Women were already put into a category which were also expected to act
a certain way. Hubbard also states in her article No one has suggested men as walking testicles,

Reyes 3
but again and again women have been looked on as though they were walking ovaries (Hubbard
46). Women have always been treated as non superior to men, always below them. This has been
going on for quite some time but remember we are not reconstruction gender norms and gender
roles.
As a young girl I was brought up to be feminine as many of the other girls that I grew up
with. There was just one girl that was always in an odd place with what she wanted to be
perceived as. My best friend Avery Wallace was born a girl but never dressed like one. Well from
what I knew at the time she didnt dress like a normalgirl. Lober states that Transvesites and
transsexuals carefully construct their gender status by dressing, speaking, walking, gesturing in
the ways prescribed for women or men whichever they want to be taken for- and so does any
normal person (Lorber 20). Avery wanted to known as a boy, she never wanted to be seen or
perceived as anything else other than a boy.
From the very beginning Avery dressed like a little boy, she had cut her hair short and
she would dress as if she was a boy. As little kids we really had no idea that we were doing
gender by saying she was wearing boy clothes and that she was a boy. Not many of the kids
growing up knew she was a girl until she walked into a girls bathroom. Growing up with Avery
wearing clothes of the opposite sex didnt really bother me at all. It all seemed nothing but
normal to me, but to other children it was abnormal. Witnessing Avery grow up has really hit me
hard with people having gender identity issues. I know that by certain age you should already be
identifying yourself into one or the other but some people still have difficulty doing so. As we
grew older and matured I witnessed Averys struggle in finding herself and being accepting to
who she was. She always talked to me about her not feeling herself meaning that she felt she was
a boy trapped in a girls body. With society being so judge mental she had a hard time being

Reyes 4
herself. Gender norms and gender roles were something she struggle with a lot, not conforming
into the way society was created for a young girl. So for a very long time she would dress like a
girly girl just to fit in. She ended up growing her hair long, always wanting to wear dresses, and
wearing pink all the time. thoughts. She was so unhappy with herself that she thought it was best
for her to just escape from it all. Being there for Avery and talking her through how its okay to
be who you feel you should be, that its okay to no be ashamed of how you feel. It really made
her realizes what makes her happy and what she really wants to do. She then decided that she
wanted to further the way she felt into actually going through the process of her sex change.
Through this process she had to go through a massive load of paperwork with her parents and
had to register herself as a gender neutral. This meant that she wasnt able to participate in any
school activities or even go so a public or private school due to the transition.
From Lorbers and Hubbards article I was able to open my eyes to knew things and see
things through a new perspective. Not only did that help me better undertand the diffrences
between sex and gender but it also helped be better understand how society works and how these
gender norms and roles have been socially constructed throughout the years. Constantly created
and re-created. Jus as Lorber states There is no core or bedrock human nature below these
endlessly looping processes of the social production of sex and gender (Lorber 30). Its a
constant repeat of the same things over and over again. Re-constructing and constructing how
society sees things. Everything its changing at a rapid pace just as socially constructed norms
are changing. There really is no inherent truth behind gender, its just the way society had
constructed it through the years.

Reyes 5
Works Cited
Groner Rachael and OHara John F. Composing Gender. Boston, Massachusetts. Leasa
Burton, 2014. Print.
Judith Lorber. Night to His Day:The Social Consruction of Gender Composing
Gender. 2014. Print.
Ruth Hubbard. Rethinking Womens Biology Composing Gender. 2014. Print.