The Quantitative/Positivist Approach to Socially Constructed Identities

Abstract

To challenge the social dominance of men, feminist theory challenged the assumptions that gender roles were inevitably tied to gender. Instead, feminist theorists argued that masculinity and femininity were social constructs, i.e., that traditionally defined gender roles were the result of historical and cultural forces and not necessarily inherent in being male versus being female. This immediately begs the questions of what other causal forces define gender roles and to what extent individuals can control their self-perceived and manifested social identities, questions which are addressed in other parts of this book.

Written with Gabrielle Filip-Crawford and Allison Varley