Gender as a Social Construct Questions and Answers

Answer: B

They are gender roles, and they are culturally defined.

Gender roles are the behaviours, interests, attitudes and traits that a society expects of males and females. They differ across cultures and change over time, which shows they are learnt through socialisation rather than fixed by genes.

Gender identity is a person's own sense of being male, female or another gender, not the culture's expectations. Calling either of them 'genetically determined' confuses gender with biological sex.

Answer: A

Both (A) and (R) are false.

There is no innate tendency for girls to be more affected by social and cultural factors; both boys and girls are shaped by socialisation, and differences in how they respond come largely from the different expectations placed on them.

(R) is a gender stereotype: girls are not genetically more sensitive or emotionally weaker than boys. Treating such claims as true reinforces the bias that teachers are expected to challenge.

Answer: A

Both (A) and (R) are false.

Achievement in STEM is not determined by gender. Where gaps appear, they come from stereotypes, expectations and unequal opportunities, not from gender itself, so (A) as a general claim is false.

(R) is a stereotype as well: there is no fixed set of problem-solving strategies used by boys and another by girls. Individual differences within each group are far larger than any difference between them.

Answer: A

The stereotype-breaking examples are A and B, so the answer is A and B.

A stereotype fixes people of one group in a single image, for example that nursing is women's work and that farming is men's work. A male nurse and a female farmer each do work that the stereotype assigns to the other gender, so both break it.

A male pilot fits the common stereotype that flying is a man's job, so it does not break a stereotype. That rules out the option 'B and C'. 'Only A' and 'Only B' each leave out one of the two examples that do.

Answer: D

Her behaviour reflects gender stereotyping.

Sunaina refuses a role only because it belongs to a man. She has absorbed the fixed belief that girls must dress and act only as girls or women, which is a gender stereotype: a fixed idea about what each gender can or should do.

It is not gender discrimination, because nobody is treating her unfairly or denying her an opportunity; she is limiting herself. It is not gender equality, which would let anyone play any role. And it has nothing to do with caste discrimination, since her reason concerns gender, not Ambedkar's caste.

Answer: D

The key marks both (A) and (R) as false. Reason (R) is certainly false; the key's treatment of (A) is the debatable part.

(R) blames girls' genetic makeup for an inability to cope with the middle-school curriculum. Research and the NCERT view of gender give no support to that: differences in classroom participation are explained by socialisation, expectations and the classroom climate, not by girls being less capable. So (R) is false, and options 1 and 2, which need (R) true, are out.

(A) says girls in middle school might often be silent in discussions. Read as a statement that this can happen, it describes a pattern teachers do report, which would make (A) true and give option 3. The key instead treats (A) as the stereotype that girls are silent and marks it false, so it credits option 4. I could not find a source that settles which reading the Board intended, so the answer here is the official key, with that reservation: option 3 is the nearest rival.

Answer: B

An androgynous personality has a balance of what are generally considered masculine and feminine traits.

Sandra Bem used the term for people, of either sex, who show high levels of both traditionally masculine traits (such as assertiveness and independence) and traditionally feminine traits (such as warmth and sensitivity), and can draw on either as the situation requires.

It does not refer only to men with feminine traits, it is not a tendency to arrogance, and an androgynous person is the opposite of one who sticks to stereotypical gender roles.

Answer: D

The exception is tutoring.

Gender roles are learned through socialization: from family, peers and school, from the culture's beliefs and practices, and from the media's images of how men and women behave. These agents shape children's ideas of gender continuously and largely without deliberate instruction.

Tutoring is academic coaching in a subject; it is not one of the recognised agents through which gender roles are acquired.

Answer: D

It articulates gender as a social construct.

The statement says that society, not biology, decides the roles of males and females. That is the meaning of a social construct: gender roles are learned through socialization in the family, school, media and culture, and they differ between societies and change over time.

Calling gender inherent, hereditary or intuitive would mean it is fixed by birth or nature, which contradicts the statement that society determines it.

Answer: A

Paying more attention to boys than girls is an example of gender bias.

Gender bias means treating people unequally because of their gender. A teacher who calls on boys more, gives them more feedback or expects more of them is showing it, often without meaning to, and girls may then participate less and lose confidence.

Gender identity is a person's own sense of being a boy or a girl, gender constancy is the child's understanding that gender stays the same over time, and 'gender relevance' is not a recognised concept in this sense. None describes unequal treatment.