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Social Construction of Relationship Norm ( Results for Romance Movies)

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n this picture we can see that they're all romance movies/shows. If you pay close attention you will notice that in most covers for the movies it's all a male and a female. There is no cover with male and male or female and female. Which ties into Jonathan Ned's "The Invention of Heterosexuality" that the social norm for relationships to be strictly  male and female and nothing else. I chose this picture to highlight that although we are in a time and place where homosexual relationships are legal and a lot more common we have let society make heterosexual relationships the norm. We the people build these ideas that same sex relationships are wrong but it's very much real and just as valid as any other relationship. We are the ones that socially construct everything in the world. There is a constant reinforcement of heteronormativity but why ? Why have we made it the social norm ? heterosexuality being the norm is a social construct along with the social construct of sex and gender.

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Social Construction of whats expected in male and females 

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In this picture of my parents you can see on the left my mom is taller than my dad by a fair few inches but that doesn’t define him or make him any less of a “man”. As stated by Emily Martin in the egg and the sperm society has expectations of masculinity and femininity which in this situation with my parents it is typically seen as a norm for the male in the relationship to be taller and bigger in size than his partner to state their masculine traits, but we can see that my dad does fall on the shorter side compared to my mom. Although this situation my parents are in society would typically deem this as unusual or see them as “not a good fit” but in some cases social norms aren’t always correct as my dad may be shorter than my mom that doesn’t mean he’s not a “man” he still provides, puts food on the table, and keeps a roof over his family which in a right mind this is all that should matter to determine masculinity.

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Tequila/Beer is manly and anything else is feminine 

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In this picture you can see on one side a can of beer and a bottle of dark liquor while on the other you see a bottle of red wine. The beer and liquor are my dad's selection of alcoholic beverages while my moms choice is the wine, this seems to be a standard selection in most households and in general. These selections of a male consuming beer and liquor while women prefer wine correlate to Don H. Zimmerman's " Doing Gender" as it is deemed a social norm for a gender to prefer a specific drink that is associated with their gender identity. From a social perspective drinking beer or liquor is seen as a norm for a male as that is what has been normalized over time because drinking wine which is considered to be more feminine is seen as non masculine. On a normal occurrence after work and all his duties for the day are completed my dad like to sit and watch tv with a beer or two as a small reward, and even if beer is not the best tasting or appealing drink compared to others over time the act of a male selecting beer as their preferred drink of choice this behavior enforced a social norm that makes this selection seem "right" or "normal" for a man and that makes this part of their gender identity.

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Girls are nice and organized boys are messy 

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In this picture you see two different areas in a store, the boy clothes and the girl clothes. We can see that the girls' side is much more organized having everything properly folded and put together while on the boys' side it's just a complete disaster, this tells us that girls have a more organized norm compared to boys which ties into Don H. Zimmerman's " Doing Gender". This claim of girls not being as messy as boys ties into this article because on a daily a girl's behavior is to be organized, clean, and respectful to an area while boys are much messier and have a tendency to let a mom or significant other take care of their mess and pick up after them because it is what is seen as socially normal. These attributes to both sides construct their gender identity and follow through with social norms of girls being the best and organized gender while the boys are messy and don't have to worry about being neat since they have someone who takes care of that for them. On a social viewpoint it is seen as fine or acceptable for a boy to be messy since that's what's going to be expected from them as it's in their nature while girls are held to a higher standard with cleanliness, these are all attributes that are associated with their gender identity from social norms

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I chose this photo of my boyfriend holding 2 gift I gave him. I gave him flowers and a hand drawn painting. I chose this picture to speak on the concept of social construction of what's considered the norm for men and women. You would assume that this picture is him handing me (his girlfriend) the 2 gifts because he's the man and as the man you're supposed to be the provider and not the receiver. But who made that the rule ? This idea was socially constructed. Men never receive gifts like this because it's not "manly" or messes with masculinity. In "The Egg and the Sperm" Martin argues that scientific descriptions of human reproduction often frame the roles of eggs and sperm in ways that mirror traditional gender roles, with eggs portrayed as passive and nurturing, and sperm depicted as active and competitive. This narrative, reflects and reinforces societal expectations of femininity and masculinity. With gender comes certain norms and stereotypes that we are supposed to live up to, but I use this picture to go against the idea that men don't always have to be the givers and women don't always have to be the receivers. All these gender norms and stereotypes are socially constructed.

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West, C., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1987). Doing gender. Gender & society, 1(2), 125-151.

Katz, J. (2007). The invention of heterosexuality. University of Chicago Press.

Lorber, J. (2018). The social construction of gender. In Inequality in the 21st Century (pp. 347-352). Routledge.

Martin, E. (2014). The egg and the sperm: how science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles. In Situated lives (pp. 85-98). Routledge.