To what extent do you agree with Judith Butler's theory that Gender roles are socially constructed? Use example from media research in your response.

Gender is the different biological sex we have in today's society such as males and females and gender refers to how it categories are constructed. Butlers theory argues that he gender roles are he performance and that it is socially constructed, this means society creates their own meanings and expects everyone to follow the norms and values. Primary socialisation is a very important part of life as through primary socialisation which mainly takes place in the house it is the acceptance and learning of a set of norms an values and processes through socialisation, it happened during childhood where a child learns the attitudes and actions as a member of a particular culture. Society interprets through gender toys and colours. An example of this is parents of a young boy might give toys to their child such as trucks, cars and footballs to play or make the do outdoor activities and dress them up in blue. Whereas, the parents of a girl will give her toys such as dolls, read books to her and dress her up in clothes such as dresses and in pink.

However gender roles are not socially constructed. In Parsons view traditional gender roles make the women as the housewife doing the inside housework, socialising the children and the husband is seen as the breadwinner and a strong independent who provides for the family as his wife and children are dependent on him. However in today’s society women are also becoming breadwinners and taking independent role such as providing for the family. McRobbie compares magazines which are aims at women and young teenagers from the 1980 and 1990’s , she researched that over the years women changed their view about their future and started to become more independent, whereas, before they would just accept the role of a housewife and get married. This therefore, gave women an empowering view.

Parents choose to put their children in different colours of clothes such as boys in blue, and girls in pink this is because society is socially constructed and they follow up what society expects them to do. This relates to Butlers theory as society creates their own meaning and wxoects everyone to follow the norms and values as if parents dressed their daughter into blue clothes and gave her toys such as toy cars society will assume that the child is a boy by just looking at her. Judith’s Butler argues that gender roles are socially constructed this is because it depends on the persons own choice and the way they are influenced by society and secondly the media also nowadays the media is a crucial part of peoples live as in secondary socialisation they see norms and values which are expected through schools and media, such as: they would see make-up on girls very common and wearing latest type of clothing will fit them into society this is because they socially construct this meaning and attach it to their values.

As breaking a norm or value will make society react differently to an individual for example if a boy wears a dress with tight clothing’s and tights, members of society will act different towards the person. This involves stereotypes which means a fixed image or idea about a person or a group and labelling them can lead to individuals accepting it as stereotyping their gender as being feminine will encourage them to take it on and accept it as an individual or the individual might reject it by changing the way he/she is dressed. Butler argues that gender is socially constructed and this is due mainly to primary socialisation as that is what everyone learns in a young age. Also some may accept that society is treating them to reject the self-fulfilling prophecy and changing the label that someone has given for example, at school a child might be very lazy and arrogant and the teacher might label them as a failure, some individuals will reject the self-fulfilling prophecy and go against it and prove by working harder, not being lazy and gaining another positive reward rather than negative, whereas some may just accept it and reject it and accept its sub-culture that the person is a failure,

In conclusion, society is socially constructed as young generation is expected to behave by accepting to play with the toys they are given as is automatically enables their gender to be constructed
should behave and by accepting to play with these toys automatically enables their gender to be constructed with what toy they play with and how they respond. In addition, by dividing the way we socially construct genders can be criticized by Judith Butler as she believes that it divides society in to boys and girls.