Sexuality and Masculinity.

Essay by s0009511University, Bachelor'sB+, June 2003

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"Social constructionism is a general term sometimes applied to theories that emphasise the socially created nature of social life" . Focusing on masculinity, this essay will first discuss the ideas of social constructionism. Secondly, it will focus on how 'masculinities' are constructed socially with the media and its cultural significance in the social constructionism of masculinity. Finally, outline how marriage and monogamy are part of the process.

Commonality of constructionist theories and analyses of social constructionism is concerned with how people assign meaning to their world. Constructionists 'generally' accept that all ways of understanding are products of culture and history, and dependant upon the particular social and economic arrangements prevailing in a culture at a particular time . It is also noted that our current accepted ways of understanding of the world are products not of the objective observation of the world, but of the social processes and interactions, in which people are constantly engaged with each other.

'Negotiated' understandings can take a variety of different forms and we can therefore talk of numerous possible 'social constructions' of the world. However "each construction can invite a different kind of action from human beings, thus some constructions of the world can help maintain some patterns of social action and exclude others" . With this, it is thus acknowledged that different cultures have different social constructs. Social constructionism can be recognised as social knowledge that is acquired through the learning process. This acquired knowledge thus shapes the person's view of the world. Based on Kant , there are four types of knowledge, which moulds a person's "common sense". Common sense refers to the routine knowledge a person has of their everyday world and activities .

1. Synthetic a posteriori

2. Analytic a priori

3. Analytic a posteriori

4. Synthetic a priori...