Gender and Identity Discussion

THE DISCUSSION 

The theory of Social Constructionism is  most applicable in helping us to understand how gender and sexuality is  socially constructed.  In your textbook it states it is a way of  understanding social reality that is influenced by our thinking which is  then reinforced by our interactions with others in our environment.  It  also helps us to better discuss the social order that contributes to  why we believe and/or engage with sexuality the way we do (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016).  For  example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2015) confirmed interviews  with over 150,000 people ages 12 and up that reported being raped and/or  sexually assaulted in 2014.  If we ask an age old question “why does  rape occur” what kinds of responses can you imagine different people  saying?  Why might people respond they way they do?  The different  responses to that question and the various reasons why they respond they  way they do are reflections of the social constructions of gender and  sexuality.  Ideally, think about what this knowledge means in light of  working against issues such as sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual  discrimination.

After having read the required materials for this week and watched the documentary address the following questions:

Select two locations in the documentary and briefly discuss how gender is viewed in those two cultures (in other words what are the prevailing views about gender based on each location).

Using social constructionist theory as your framework, briefly, discuss the ways in which culturally prevailing views about gender impact healthy development of individuals living in the two locations you identified in the first question?

As based on your observations of the documentary, highlight one piece of information you already knew and one piece of information you learned about the topic of gender and/or sexuality as a whole.How and in what ways does this information shift your thinking and why? 

*Be sure to cite your discussion with your textbook and an outside scholarly source and provide references.

Zastrow, C., & Kirst-Ashman, K. (2015). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gyoq6tdlsE