Custom essay writing service

Buy essay on What Does Gender Have to Do with Society

Basically, gender and society are closely intertwined since they produce a mutual impact on each other. On the one hand, the gender may be viewed as a biological factor that influences behavior of individuals, while on the other hand, gender roles are, to a significant extent, determined by social influences, namely by stereotypes and biases that exist in society.
The biological approach may be viewed as traditional one because it attempts to explain the difference that exists between sexes by purely biological factors (Messner, 1998). Basically, the biological perspective on psychology and sex implies that sex differences are determined by three groups of factors, including sexing of bodies, sex differences in the brain and biological correlates of behavior (Somerville, 1992). The latter is mainly determined by the former two factors.
Speaking about gender and society in biological terms, it is necessary to point out that this approach primarily singles out the existing physical differences between male and female bodies. To put it more precisely, the supporters of this approach argue that male and female differs considerably in their body construction (Archer, 2000). This means that male and female have physical features which are typical uniquely for each sex. Among these physical features they name genitals, anthropologic difference between male and female, such as average height, physical strength, etc. In such a way, biological psychology stands on the ground that male and female are physically different and have different physical opportunities that, to a significant extent, defines their behavior which turns to be typical to their sex and depends on their physical capabilities.buy essay
At the same time, along obvious, external, physical features due to which males and females are distinguished, there are more profound differences, which are hidden from a human eye but which effect may be even stronger than the effect of external, physical differences. In fact, males and females have a different balance of hormones (Bonvillain, 1995). In this respect, it should be said that even though all humans have the similar set of hormones but their balance may differ that actually, according to biological psychologists, defines the difference between males and females. The same may be said about the set of chromosome since males traditionally have ‘XY’ while females two ‘X’ pairs of chromosomes (Hardisty, 1999).
Moreover, biological psychology stands on the ground that the difference may be traced even in one of the most important organs of human body, the brain. Such difference actually determines the difference in behavior of males and females. For instance, biological psychology admits the existence of brain lateralization between males and females, which determine the significant difference in behavior and abilities of males and females. To put it more precisely, it is a scientifically proved fact that right and left hemispheres of human brain are specialized on different cognitive functions. The left hemisphere is responsible for language while the right for visuo-spatial and mathematical functioning (Bonvillain, 1995). In this respect, biological psychologists point out that males and females have difference in the development or domination of hemispheres. For instance, the left hemisphere is dominating in females brain while the right one in males brain.
As a result, due to the existence of numerous physiological or biological differences in the body sexing, brain, hormone balance and genes combination the behavior of males and females differ considerably so that males and females may be more successful in different spheres.
At the same time, it is possible to view gender and society from evolutionary perspective which is based on the idea that the difference between males and females is basically determined by the evolution of humans as one of the species (Shortt, 1998). At the same time it is worthy of mention that evolutionary psychology basically refers to the behavioral differences between males and females (Arriaga & Foshee, 2004) though genetic factors, heritage and, therefore physical changes that occurred to humans, both males and females, are also important to this approach.