Social Construction

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Pages: 3

All individuals are impacted by social construction, classification, and essentialism in one way or another, whether it is recognized or not. However, classifications and socially constructed norms or expectations vary in each society. As a result of social construction, the ideas that are constructed by the general American society can be vastly different from those of a smaller community such as a church or family unit. Growing up, I personally did not pay much attention to how society classified me, because I did not necessarily experience any harm or any significant benefits as a result of how I was classified. However, There are definitely certain expectations that my church, family, and community that I grew up in have socially constructed for me and other young women like me.
Gender classification is probably one of the most notable ways that I have been
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The essence projected behind this is a lack of ability to think logically and the associated characteristics projected are that math and science are too advanced for women to comprehend and they will not be as successful as men. As a result of this, society often times does not encourage women to pursue degrees in these fields that men are believed to be more suitable for. In my personal experience, I resisted this belief and enrolled in a high level engineering and design based class in my high school. Being a primarily male class, many of the students thought that I would not do well in the course, which was likely influenced by socially constructed beliefs. I thrived in the course and actually completed my assignments ahead of the rest of the class. This shows that essential beliefs, although socially constructed, are stereotypes and do not accurately reflect the abilities of those they are projected