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Women's Studies

The social construction of gender begins at a very young age for most people.   Anke Ehrhardt and John Money’s novel, Man and Woman, Boy and Girl, as well as Margaret Andersen’s Thinking About Women, discuss the many things that shape people into two different and distinct sexes.   From the minute one is born, one is presented with a gender-specific name, clothing, and toys; and that is only the beginning.   The social construction of gender is the process by which the expectations of being a girl or a boy are formed and how they are passed on through society.   The social construction basically gives a prescription for how to be either gender; it molds us to be either a boy or a girl.   The ways by which gender is socially constructed come from one’s parents, peers, schools, religious organizations, and other institutions of society.  
One main difference between men and women are obviously the biological differences.   However, biological differences should only establish the male and female sex roles, not necessarily gender roles.   Men have penises.   Men have the ability to have sex with tons of women everyday (although in most cultures that does not exactly happen) and will not get pregnant.   Having sex with many women every day will not slow a man down, sexually.   This makes males the “fast sex.”   Women, though, can get pregnant after even having sex once.   This slows women down enormously, in that a woman will be out of the mating pool for typically three to five years—from the time she’s pregnant until the time she is done nursing. This labels females the “slow sex,” since it takes longer for a woman to get back into the mating pool.   (Evolutionary Psychology, 109)  
Many people believe that the reason females are the ones who should stay home to take care of the children is because of these very biological differences.   People believe that it is just natural for a woman to handle this job.   People think that the woman is the one that is responsible for caring...