USC Social Construction of Differences Analytic Memo

Analytic Memo

Please respond to the following prompt:

In the course theme, we explored an apparent contradiction; categories like race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and so on are at once socially constructed and yet every bit as real as a physical force like gravity. Citing scholarly works from your book OR from outside, discuss how these social constructs become real in how people relate to one another. Give clean and concrete examples. Remember, you can’t see gravity, but you can examine and point out its effects, and so it is with these crucial categories by which difference is defined.