I have been thinking a lot recently about social constructs, especially but not exclusively in relation to gender. Firstly I think we need a definition of gender and I am a bit stuck with that. Then we need a definition of social construct. I read a sociology lesson online which gave the following examples of social constructs : money, race, time, gender.
If we take the definition that a social construct is an idea which exists only in the sense that human society and human behaviour give it existence then I fully agree that race is socially constructed. The idea of race is based on artificial categories which we humans defined; however racism, or rather distrust of people who appear different from ourselves, is probably an evolved (and previously valuable) human trait. I would like to distinguish human traits from human behaviour for this discussion. This is difficult – what is behaviour and what is a trait? Behaviours can also be evolved and there is a whole field called evolutionary biology studying that and other things. Anyway, race seems to be a good example of a social construct without any biological nor scientific basis. Skin colour, for example, is a clinal trait which gradually and sometimes abruptly changes over geographical distribution of humans.
What about time? Well I think that minutes and hours are ideas which were invented by humans and are socially constructed but days and years would exist in a certain sense even if there were no humans – these are names we give to natural cycles. So I think that time has elements of social construction but also elements that suggest that it is exists in a much realer sense, outside and independent of our minds.
And money? There are physical representations of money, banknotes for example, but the concept of money would cease to be if humans were to suddenly disappear, although banknotes would not of course. So money as a concept or idea seems to be largely or completely socially constructed.
And gender? I find myself stuck on this one maybe because I am having difficulty finding a satisfactory definition of gender. We know with scientific certainty that biological gender exists. Some people want to call that biological sex. Really these are just words which represent ideas. I remember when paper forms used to ask for date of birth and sex then that later changed to the less ambiguous date of birth and gender as the word sex could mean the act of sex as well as male/female. I also remember when the word transsexual was gradually supplanted by transgender and I remember many years ago someone telling me that her transition was about gender identity not about having sex which is why she personally preferred the word transgender. Nowadays some people say that there is biological sex and gender identity. These are just they way some people use these words and the logical irrelevance of which words are used in which situation is clear to anyone who is multilingual. Anyway, for sure biological sex or biological gender has a very real, non socially constructed existence. Also there are clearly aspects of gender which seem to me to be most likely social constructs, for example the wearing of trousers by men and of skirts by women, or blue for boys and pink for girls. So it seems likely to me that gender is like the concept of time, having aspects of being socially constructed and aspects of not being socially constructed (inherently real biological evolved traits).
Interestingly (at least to me) I can think of another example of something which, like money or race, is purely a social construct. This is an example which I have never heard described as such. The example is the social construct itself. Social constructivism, social constructionism and social constructs would not exist if humans suddenly popped out of existence. These are themselves socially constructed ideas. Another example of a social construct is critical race theory, again existing only as an idea in our heads. I find it interesting that so many people talk about these as if they are universal unchanging truths, rather than as the social constructs that they are. Maybe historians in one hundred years will talk about these ideas as redundant, passing systems of thought which were superseded by other systems of thought. Maybe current identity politics will be of academic interest only and compared to the Hobbes versus Rousseau debate on whether the “noble savage” is indeed noble or inherently immoral. Or maybe these ideas will survive the test of time and continue to be useful ways of thinking about the world. Who knows? For the moment, these are just ideas. They might be true/useful, partly true/useful or false/useless. I really don’t know but I will continue to ponder the topic.
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