Taroudan- Anthropologists that have studied human cultures share the opinion that gender is the product of culture.
Taroudan- Anthropologists that have studied human cultures share the opinion that gender is the product of culture.
They believe that gender is a matter of social construct that has nothing to do with nature. In other words, we are not born men or women, but we are made one of them, depending on the discourse with which we grew up and the role we play in society. Biology, however, has a decisive say in this matter. In the end, the difference between a man and a woman lies between their thighs, say the biologists. But, this is not all the time true!
I am of the opinion that men and women are made not born. They become what they are because of the different decisive treatments and social discourse they receive. True, there are physiological as well as biological distinctive features, but they are predominated by social roles they are previously taught to play. A woman is perceived to be a woman as long as she abides by the social role she is meant to play within her own community. Any attempts to act out of the framed sphere of her conducts as drawn by the society she belongs to would deprive her of that quality which associates her with women. A man also has to respect those invisible socially predefined norms and roles in order to be seen a man.
If we come to draw the line separating men from women, we would spend quite a long time without coming up with something clear and decisive. Simply because social roles are different from one society to another. What can be seen as manly in a community is likely to be perceived as womanish in another. Articles of clothes, haircuts, types of work and the tone of speech, to name but few, are all social choices that have nothing to do with the nature of neither men nor women. What is regarded a man’s thing can be a woman’s job in a different community.
In Scotland, for men to wear skirts is very normal. In Morocco, for example, wearing a skirt is very womanish. If a man went out wearing a skirt he would surely be looked at debasingly as an effeminate.
Even within the same country you may find certain social roles that distinguish men from women. In the south east of Morocco, some Berber speaking communities consider farm work (like sowing grass for the cattle, milking cows, and bringing water from the spring and collecting firewood) a woman’s job. It would look weird to see a man doing any of the abovementioned works that are culturally attributed to women. By contrast, in no less than 80 kilometers to the north east, Tafilalt in particular, these works are attributed to men. Men are required to perform all these farming tasks. Again, no woman wants to be caught doing what is perceived in her community as men’s job.
In nearly all Moroccan societies, the work attributed to both women and men is believed to be part of their natural role. Any attempt to refuse playing the social role may be regarded as an attempt to escape their natural duty.
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