Masculinity, Social Construction of

Debates about the nature of what it means to be a woman or man have existed since humans began recording written language. However, the nature of the conversation about masculinity and femininity evolves and changes at a rapid pace. One explanation for the fluid nature of gendered behaviors comes from social constructionism, or the philosophical view referring to the ways a society builds or creates reality through social interactions. It may help to think of social constructionism as a set of hidden or expressed rules about what we accept as truths in society. More specifically, it is a sociological view that considers how we use language to describe and make meaning in social contexts. For example, a social constructionist might argue that a concept like masculinity only exists because a particular group of people agree that it has specific meaning and significance. Inherent in the theory is that meanings can and often do change over time to reflect different historical, social and cultural influences.

Social constructionism gained popularity in the United States during the 1960s after Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann published The Social Construction of Reality. They argued that most of our everyday knowledge of reality-what we would call common sense-comes from and is maintained through our social interactions. Social constructionism was one of several forces that helped support the Women's (or Feminist) Movement in the United States at that time by challenging long-held assumptions that biological differences between the sexes could be grounds for granting different social and legal rights such as voting or owning property. Since then, the public conversation about what it means to be a man or a woman in modern society has changed and will likely continue to evolve.

One social concept or construct that has generated a great deal of research and theory during the past 30 years is masculinity. Just using the word masculinity in conversation is likely to bring with it a set of assumptions and some level of assumed shared meaning. Early notions of masculinity were rooted in essentialist or deterministic views which suggested that all men are born with a set of characteristics or traits that can be defined and described. For example, an essentialist view of masculinity might argue that aggression is a fixed trait of being born male or at least directly influenced by the presence of different levels of testosterone in men and women. In contrast, a social constructionist view might suggest that men and women vary in their levels of aggression depending on context and social cues. For example, a certain society might accept a parent showing physical aggression to protect his/her child from harm, but not to challenge an unfair school policy at a parent-teacher conference. Although this simple example highlights different views on a concept like aggression, modern social constructions of masculinity are much more complex given the cultural diversity in today's world.