Is Gender Identity Acquired or Ascribed?

Is gender identity acquired or ascribed? Discuss this question comparing micro and macro sociological perspectives

Introduction

An acquired identity is acquired by an individual in a situation of competition, and it is the result of personal accomplishment and achievements. There is a limited level of relationship of acquired identity with the traditions and customs. While ascribed identity is a tradition-based identity because it has a strong relationship with the cultural factors of society, traditions, and customers of society, the key difference between these statuses of identity is that acquired identity is based on abilities, qualities, and capacities of individuals while ascribed identity is based on tradition, kinship, caste, race, sex, and age. Discrimination and gender inequality are two important issues in modern societies in both the acquired identity and ascribed identity. Different sociological perspectives explained these issues in different ways (Carter, 2014).

Evidence/Discussion

Ascribed identity is an assigned identifies that means that it is neither chosen nor earned. An important point regarding ascribed gender identity is that the practice of giving the status of ascribed gender identity to the individual exists within all societies cross-culturally. The ascribed gender identity is directly linked with ethnic, family origin, race and gender backgrounds. For example, when a person born in a family who is financially stronger and wealthier than that individual is given high ascribed status in the society because of the economic advantages and social networks that are gained being born in that family having more resources compared to others. In contrast to it, the acquired identity is a voluntarily taken social position by individual, based on merit and personal ability. For example, the occupation and profession selected by any individual shows the acquired identity of that individual (Heard, 2015).

Micro and Macro Sociological Perspectives on Gender Identity

The Functionalist Perspective

The Functionalist Perspective is the macro-sociological perspective, and it is based on the fact that stability and solidarity in society are promoted by working together because these perspectives consider society as a complex system. According to this perspective, gender identity is directly linked with the social functions and social structures within that society, institutions, traditions, customs, and norms play a very important role in gender identity. Society according to functionalism perspective is a system of interconnected parts, which by working to together maintain a social equilibrium and state of balance in the whole society. It means that every institution plays a significant role in society, for example family plays a role of socializing and nurturing of children; the cultural knowledge and skills to live in society is provided by the education; the economics make the production and distribution of goods and services, and moral guidance is provided by religion.

This perspective believed that gender identity is ascribed because according to this perspective cohesion or social consensuses are two important factors by which society held together.  According to Emile Durkheim, there are two different forms of social consensus. One of these is mechanical solidarity, in which people of society maintain a similar level of beliefs and values, and they engage themselves in similar types of work. The second form is the organize solidarity in which the members of society are interdependent, but they have different levels of the beliefs and values, and they also engage themselves in different nature of work (Mooney, Knox and Schacht, 2014).  There are two different types of human function of gender identity, one of these is the manifest functions and the second is the latent functions. Manifest functions are apparent and intentional functions while latent functions are not clear and unintentional functions.

This perspective revealed that gender inequalities exist in the society as an effective way for the creation of division of labor or in other words gender inequalities exist as a social system in which specific segments have the responsibility regarding acts of labor. The complementary roles of gender are viewed from this perspective in which it is considered that women have responsibilities in homes while men provide food for their home living, is according to the perspective the gender contributes instability of society (Lumen, 2018).

The Conflict Theory Perspective

The main theme of this sociological perspective is that society or gender identity is characterized by pervasive inequality based on social factors like gender and class. Conflict theory is the macro perspective, and it focuses on the elimination of social inequality to make a social change. According to Marx and Engels, there are two different classes in every society based on means of production. One of these is the bourgeois, which are also known as the ruling class, and the second is the proletariat, which is also known as the working class. An automatic conflict of interest is created between these two groups in society because of this difference a conflict in gender identity of acquired or ascribed created because of the factor that bourgeoisie get the top position in the society in comparison to proletariat or working class. In the context of gender identity, this conflict theory suggested that power and privilege in society are maintained by men that proved that men are dominant gender and women are a subordinate group in society.

In the context of gender identity, this theory pointed out that there are different interests of different groups of society and these interests stem from their diverse social positions in society. People have different views regarding the identity and status of the people in society and social issues because of the reason that they have different interests. Simply, it is identified in the conflict theory that ongoing inequality in society in the context of gender identity is contributed by various parts of society and its focus on consideration of social change for the reduction of inequality in society (Lard Bucket, 2018).

The Interactionism perspective:

The use of symbols and daily interactions reinforce and produce the gender according to this symbolic Interactionism perspective. According to this perspective, the acquired or ascribed gender identity emerges from human interaction with each other. The main theme of this perspective is that gender identity is acquired because of the act shown by people towards each other based on the meanings they have for each other. In this perspective, human behavior is understood by evaluating the critical and important role of symbols in the interaction of people with each other. This sociological perspective is based on the concepts of feminity and masculinity in describing gender identity as acquired or ascribed. In the context of gender identity, this perspective identified the fact that the perception of the individual regarding her or himself is based on how society views her or him.

For example, when the society members perceive an individual as masculine, then that individual will consider himself as masculine.  In simple point, this perspective pointed out that both the women and men are expected to perform their gender to level or point that it is naturalized, and this, the performance is the factor on which the status of gender is based.

The Feminist Perspective:

According to this perspective, gender identity and status is based on the intersection of class, race, and gender. Social identity, in sociology, is considered to occur when some groups of people gained greater privilege, power, and status over other groups because of the differences they have. It is a simple way identified that there are different categories in our society by which the people of different status are categorized. There are different factors by which the gender identity is associated, for example, gender, ability status, religion, ethnicity, class, race, and socioeconomic status. The issue of gender identity is created when differences in gender give more power and privilege to men over women. This theory pointed out that systematic social inequality is contributed by the cultural, social and biological factors like ethnicity, class, and race, the multiple forms of discrimination are created because of the system of interrelated oppression such as sexism or racism (Stets and Burke, 2003).

Conclusion

Every person in this world has an identity which is a fact of being whom, or in other words, identity is what a thing is or what a person is. It is concluded that identity is a way by which individually defines him or how other people think and define you. Acquired and ascribed are two forms of gender identity.  It is concluded that the individual has no control over the ascribed identity traits while acquired identity is that thing which individual do and have control. The environment around us has an impact on gender identity. Different sociological perspectives revealed that there are different factors of two important social issues like gender inequality and discrimination. For example, sociological perspective revealed that to keep balance in society the women work in homes. It is concluded by assessing different sociological perspectives that identity of gender is directly impacted by the perception and influence of other people in our societies.

References

Carter, M.J. (2014) ‘Gender Socialization and Identity Theory’, Social Sciences, vol. 3, no. 2014, May, pp. 242–263.

Heard, A. (2015) What is Identity Anyway? 19 June, [Online].

Lard Bucket (2018) Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology, [Online].

Lumen (2018) Sociological Perspectives on Gender Stratification, [Online].

Mooney, L.A., Knox, D. and Schacht, C. (2014) Understanding Social Problems, 9^th edition, Cengage Learning.

Stets, J.E. and Burke, P.J. (2003) A sociological approach to self and identity, [Online].