SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

GLOSSARY of KEY CONCEPTS and TERMS

• SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM: A theory that reality is created through social interaction. A social constructionist theory of gender asserts that GENDER itself is a social construct; it is learned as opposed to being innate or natural.

• an INTERSECTIONAL LENS: allows us to see how, for instance, racism and sexism or classism and heterosexism are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice (Crenshaw 2016).

• SEX: anatomical sex; the physical make up of the body based on primary and secondary characteristics. (sometimes referred to as Sex Assigned at Birth (or SAAB). (male, female, intersex) (Genderbread person handout)

• GENDER IDENTITY: social roles, norms/expectations and personality traits that shape a person’s psychological [or internal] sense of their gender (woman, man, trans, gender queer, non binary, etc) (Genderbread person handout)

• GENDER EXPRESSION: the ways we present ourselves—hairstyles, clothing, grooming, make up, non verbals (masculine, feminine, androgynous, fluid, etc (Genderbread person handout)

• DOING GENDER: the process of creating and reinforcing gender through interactions in particular social settings.

• HETERONORMATIVITY: the assumption that heterosexuality is the “normal” and preferred sexual orientation (Bobel & Kwan 2019,7).

• COMPULSORY HETEROSEXUALITY: the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and ENFORCED by patriarchal and heteronormative society

• PATRIARCHY: a social system in which men hold primary power and exert control in most spheres of society

• MEDICALIZATION: refers to the massive transformation in the last century of Western society to define life experiences in terms of health and illness. Increased medicalization is problematic because it blurs the line between ‘normal’ and ‘ ‘disorder.’ McKellar, 2019, 103).

• MISOGYNY: hatred, aversion to, and/or prejudice against women

• COLORISM: prejudice or discrimination especially within a racial or ethnic group favoring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin

• CULTURE of CONCEALMENT: coined by investigative journalist and author of The Curse: The Last Unmentionable Taboo, Karen Houppert (2000, 197): the culturally bound contexts of menstrual shame, silence, and secrecy.

• ISLAMOPHOBIA: dislike of and/or prejudice against Islam or Muslims

• FAT PHOBIA: an intense, even pathological fear of fatness

• INTERSEX: an umbrella term that refers to people who have one or more of a range of variations in SEX characteristics that fall outside the traditional conception of male or female bodies (InterACT 2017, as qtd in Bobel & Kwan2019, 7)

• SOMATIC SOCIETY: where major political and moral problems are expressed through the conduit of the human body (Turner 1996, 6, as qtd in Bobel & Kwan 2019, 7)

• CISNORMATIVITY: the assumption that all, or almost all, individuals are CISGENDER**. (Bobel & Kwan 2019, 7)

• **CISENDER: the designation for people whose gender identity corresponds with the SEX they were assigned at birth (Bobel & Kwan 2019, 7)

• EMPHASIZED FEMININTY: a form of femininity defined around subordination and accommodation of the interests of men (Connell 1987, as qtd in Bobel & Kwan 2019, 1)

• HEGEMONIC** MASCULINITY: a dominant construction of masculinity that creates behavioral expectations for boys and men; it subordinates other expressions of masculinity and legitimizes men’s subordination of women (Bobel & Kwan 2019, 7)

• **HEGEMONIC: the quality of a dominant group exerting social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence

• EMBODIED** RESISTANCE: material or discursive acts that oppose hegemonic** norms, customs, and conventions about the body in a given context (Bobel & Kwan 2019, 3) EMBODIED RESISTANCE is ANTI-NORMATIVE**

• **EMBODIED: possessing or existing in bodily form.
• BODY PROJECTS: manipulating and reconstructing their bodies to align with their sense of self; [something] that should be worked at and accomplished as part of an individual’s self-identity (Shilling 2033, 4 as qtd in Bobel & Kwan 2019, 3) Think of this as acts of altering the body in some way (dieting, surgery, make up, shaving, etc)

• BODYWORK: the production of the body through work or sport or other environments (from Gimlin 2007, as cited in Haltom 2019, 202). Think of this as engaging in certain BEHAVIORS to signal identity (like acting ‘manly’ in a traditionally feminized sport like twirling or figure skating).
• TRANSGRESSIVE BLACK FEMININITY: a self-aware and situated performance that takes center stage despite the risk of being disparaged by the controlling image of the “aggressive, loud, rude and pushy” Black woman (Collins, 2004, 123, as qtd in Sears and Craig 2019, 121)

• IMPLICIT BIAS: thinking and/or acting with prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so; the tendency for stereotype-confirming thoughts to pass spontaneously through our minds

• ABJECT: (of something bad) experienced or present to the maximum degree. [e.g. the menstruating body is considered ABJECT]

• **NORMATIVE: establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm, especially of behavior.

• **CORPOREAL: relating to a person’s body, especially as opposed to their spirit; having a body

• **CORPOREAL CONTAINMENT: disciplining the body to conform to societal expectations, often involving limiting or disciplining the self in some way to fit in, be seen as respectable, legitimate acceptable and/or deserving of dignity

• ADULTIFICATION: the process in which youth are prematurely and inappropriately exposed to adult knowledge and expected to perform adult roles and responsibilities and in turn, held to adult standards of behavior

• LATINX: a gender-neutral or nonbinary term which refers to people of Latin American origin, descent, or heritage

• NATURALIZED: when a body norm, for instance, is ‘naturalized,’ it enters a state of feeling ‘natural’– unquestionable, inevitable, and even desirable so much so that the fact of it being a social construction fades from view. Now, the norm seems ‘natural’; preferring ‘fair’ skin or hairless, for example, is beyond question. It just IS.