Gramajo 1

Royer Gramajo
Professor Ditch
English 113A 3:30 pm

Sex vs Gender Construction

A conversation about sex and gender construction can go on for hours and
hours. Its just like a battle between them. People can talk about the past of it and the
future of it. Some will argue about how gender construction is created but what they
wont understand is that gender construction is constructed through human
interaction/socialization. Other people will think sex and gender mean the same thing. It
comes to an end that it depends on everyones own definition of sex and gender
construction since there are many of them. Based on the sex of the child, parents
assign gender to the child based on their cultures or way of parenting. Now that I
mentioned parenting, Parenting is the main way to spread this battle.
In what ways can gender construction be constructed through human
interaction/socialization? In the article, Night to His Day by Judith Lorber, the author
gives examples of people constructing gender. One example is Today, on the subway,
I saw a well-dressed man with a year-old child in a stroller.(19) In todays generation
you rarely will see a man with a year-old in a stroller. Usually women are the ones who
are supposed to be doing that job. Some men wont do that because they may feel
weird about it or know that other people will take the wrong idea of them. I was walking
back from the park with my friends one day and I noticed a man giving his baby a baby

Gramajo 2

bottle of milk. My friends immediately started commenting on that and saying negative
things. It came to my mind how this generation has a different look on how parents are
parenting their childs.
"Male" and "female" are sex categories. From the birth of a child, parents are
obligatory to raise their child the way they want them to be raised. One is either born a
male or female so parents have the option to keep it that way or raise their child
differently. Some parents wont have preference whether they want their baby to be a
boy or a girl when others do.
"Masculine" and "feminine" are gender categories. When you think of a
masculine you automatically think of a strong big man. When you think of a feminine
you think of a normal women. At the beginning of a babys birth parents tend to treat
their child according to these categories. If its a masculine parents will buy them
everything involving masculine and not feminine.
For example my friends mom gave birth to her baby a few months ago and she
had a baby girl. When I went to go visit her, her babys room was decorated with pure
girl stuff. Im talking about the color pink, dolls, girl toys, and girl clothes. She was
parenting her baby to become the sex she is and not to become the opposite sex.
Maybe in the past parents werent really paying attention in how they were treating they
babies, but Ive noticed in the present that many of the parents are treating their babies
the way they want them to be treated and not the way their baby will want to get treated.
Homosexuals and straight people are the results of a parents parenting skills. In
my opinion through human interaction people can become homosexuals or straight
people. If a parent treats and listens to everything the baby wants and how they want to

Gramajo 3

be treated, the parent might become confused of the babys sex later as the baby gets
older. For example, a parent gives birth to a baby boy and the boy is not into boys stuff.
The baby might not be into cars, trucks, the color blue, or sports. Then the parent will be
start to get confused and wont know what to do and perhaps might start buying the
baby boy girl stuffs. As the baby gets older, the child wont remember how their parents
treated him so he will be comfortable with his new sex and start living his life. In my
opinion that is the way some homosexuals became homosexuals. It all comes down to
parenting and human interaction.
Throughout the years parenting has changed so much that people let their kids
assign their own sex. I may not know how it was years ago but Im sure the change
has been dramatically. Parenting is the main way to spread this change. In many
cultures parents decide what sex they want their child to be. For example, in my culture
parents arent okay with their kids wanting to be the opposite sex, so what they do is
that they create gender through human interaction and through parenting at the
beginning of their birth.
I had a friend of mine whose parents were starting to notice something strange in
his son so what the parents did was to obligatory make the brother become the sex he
supposed to be. Im not saying my culture is against homosexuals but what Im trying to
say is that there are people out there who take parenting seriously and they wont be
okay with their child to be a different sex.
If you ask a parent what sex their child is they will describe them to you using
gender stereotypes. Some gender stereotypes for a boy are described as tall, athletic,
and serious. Whereas girls are described to be small and pretty. Gender now a days

Gramajo 4

has a different meaning than it did back then. Like the examples I gave previously about
the man with the stroller and the man I saw on my way home giving the baby a baby
bottle, these examples are a way of gender being change in years. People will see the
wrong side of a man when a man will do things like that. When in reality all they are
doing is parenting and being a good father. According to todays generation society and
culture create gender roles. Society creates gender roles because people tend to pay
more attention to society than to the practices of before. Where in some cultures they
maintain their practices and keep following them when it comes to parenting and gender
roles.
In the article From Women, Men, and Society. By Renzetti and Curran, it states
that However, she also found that the mothers of girls were more sensitive to their
children, while the mothers of boys were more restrictive of their children. (78) This
statement is talking about how a mother will treat their child differently. From what I see
parents usually treat girls better than boys. Girls may be better behaved than boys
because their mothers expect them to be and theyre taught better. Usually boys are the
ones who are the more energetic and sneakier than girls.
To conclude this sex vs gender battle I just want to recap the main points. Based
on the sex of a child parents assign gender to their child, accordingly on their way of
parenting or based on cultural norms. Gender is created by us (people). The main way
this change has occurred is by parenting. Parents tend to change their way of parenting
and start to treat their kids the way the kids want to be treated. In the end, sex and
gender have two different meanings and people have to see it that way. Sex is what
defines you from birth and gender is the way people assign it either male or female.

Gramajo 5

Works Cited

Lorber,Judith. Night to His Day (19)

Renzetti, Curran. From Women, Men, and Society. (78)