What Is Normal?

What is Normal? Lorber’s Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology
In her article Believing is Seeing, Judith Lorber writes of the very fine line between gender and sex. She argues that neither sex nor gender is a pure category of classification. They are more so just a combination of the two of them in the social construction of gender statuses. Her article uses sports and technological competence to show how society transforms physiological differences into gendered social bodies. Lorber’s perspective, “goes beyond the accepted feminist views that gender is a cultural overlay that modifies physiological differences” (Lorber 569), and instead, argues that the physical differences in the male and female bodies are what lead people to behave in ways that fit their category. This is what ultimately causes gendered physical transformation. This paper will use sports, technological competence and basic human nature to examine the idea that society is the cause of gendered people.
Lorber begins her argument with sports and what they have become in society today. She claims that competitive sports are now a business and as a result the, “overall status of women and men athletes is an economic, political, and ideological issue that has less to do with individual physiological capabilities [and more to do] with their social meaning and who defines and profits from them”(572). This is exhibited in the mass media everyday as male athletes are glorified while female athletes are virtually ignored. Not only that, but “assumptions about men’s and women’s bodies and their capacities are crafted in ways that make unequal access and distribution of rewards acceptable” (573). Lorber explains that in media, female athletes are often purposely depicted as fragile or overly sexual while male athletes’ strength, power, and even viciousness are glorified, therefore creating a double standard of rules and treatment. Society uses the media to uphold the idea that woman are and will always be naturally inferior athletes.
In her article, Lorber also makes the claim that in the same way that sports constructs gendered bodies, technology is what constructs gendered skills. Studies conducted on gender differences in, “special and mathematical ability, have found that men have a large advantage in [the] ability to mentally rotate an image, a moderate advantage in […] mathematical performance, and a small advantage in [the] ability to pick a figure out of a field” (574). It has been argued that these advantages help explain why men are the ones known to create, program and market computers, but on the other hand, in the 1940s women were actually the ones hired as computer programmers because “the work seemed to resemble clerical tasks” (575). Even though computer programming back then still demanded complex skills in abstract logic, math, and electrical machinery, the woman would still perform them in their work everyday. It was only when programming was seen as “intellectually demanding” that it became a job desired by men. Therefore, regardless of the fact that skills are assumed to be biologically ‘natural’ to a particular sex, Lorber argues that gendered skills are simply constructed by society. Likewise, she explains that “it is the taken-for-grantedness of such everyday gendered behavior that gives credence to the belief that the widespread differences in what women and men do must come from biology” (575). Lorber uses the example that if a man and woman in a relationship are in a car together, the man will be more likely to drive the car regardless of the fact that the woman may be a better driver or even the owner of the car. She refers to this phenomenon as, “the husband-lousy-driver syndrome” because she believes men will drive cars whether or not they are good drivers because men and machines are supposed to be a “natural” combination. Personally, I have experienced this phenomenon fist hand in almost all of my relationships. The social notion that men are essentially the more prominent drivers was embedded in my head so young that I always took the passenger seat without a second thought because it is simply what feels natural.
In her section “The Paradox of Human Nature,” Lorber argues that “gendered people do not emerge from physiological hormones, but from the exigencies of the social order” (577). Meaning that when people take on the qualities that they are expected to because of their sex, it is more than likely because they are pressured to by society to do so. Furthermore, Lorber mentions that “the moral imperatives of religion and cultural representations reinforce the boundary lines among genders and ensure that what is demanded” (578). What exactly does Lorber mean by this? She is saying that all aspects of society make sure to enforce the same gendered rules and values each sex is expected to follow. Accordingly, they look down upon and punish all those who dare to stray away from the social norms that they put into effect. Therefore, most people will go along with their society’s expectations of gender because the norms “are built into their sense of worth and identity […] as a human being” (578). This proves how society uses gender status to make people believe that society’s way is the only ‘normal way’ to live life whether the people agree with these norms or not.
So the question Lorber asks is, do what people see ultimately affect what they personally believe? As a society, “when we rely on the conventional categories of sex and gender,” do we end up finding exactly what it is we were looking for (578)? This article argues the point that, “whether it is that ‘females’ and ‘males’ are essentially different or that ‘women’ and ‘men’ are essentially the same,” we as a society end up going along with social norms because it is what we are so used to seeing in our everyday lives. Gendered norms give us a sense of identity and without following them, society makes us question who we really are. Biologically men and women are fairly different, but in the end society is the deciding factor when it comes to gendered status and norms.

Work Cited Lorber, Judith. Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology. Sagepub. Web. 9 Sept. 2011
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Cited: Lorber, Judith. Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology. Sagepub. Web. 9 Sept. 2011 .