Assignment:
Gender Roles And Morality
Many people look at the difference between men and women to be much more then just Biological. Men are generally seen as much stronger and more skilled. Women are looked at as weak and dependent on a men's protection. These different roles and stereotypes are given to men and women not based on their personal strengths and weaknesses but based on whether they are male or female. Many argue whether this is morally right or wrong; men and women obviously have very different opinions, luckily there are many philosophers who offer up theories as too the morality of gender roles.
In Sally Haslanger's Gender and Social Construction: who? What? When? Where? How? It is discussed how gender is not natural it is something that is socially made up. If you look at the argument nature vs. Nurture she is clearly on the nurture side. Being a male is not the same thing as being a man, being a female is not the same thing as being a women, to be male you need to have the psychical body of a male to be a female you need to have the physical body of a female. But to be a man or women is based on society's view of men and women. Sex is not the same thing as gender. Sex is biological, gender is what society attributes to a certain sex.
When looking at transgendered people Haslanger argues that; based on her theory of social construction a biological female, whose actions can be attributed to society's view of a man, has place in the world as a man. But if that person is just looked at as she is biologically then she doesn't fit into society because she has the attributed of a man. Some gender roles do not exist with out social construction such as; a wife, a women cannot be a wife with a husband. The same goes for a man he cannot be a husband without a wife. If the theory of social construction is correct women and men's roles as we know them can change.