The social construction of gender and its implications for female relationships

Abstract

This study investigates the social construction of gender roles in Western societies and its implications for the affective relationships that constitute what it means to be a woman. It addresses the following problem: how does the social construction of the female role in the West, and particularly in Brazil, bear upon women’s affective relationships? This is a qualitative study based on a bibliographic review, with works selected according to historical, sociological, philosophical, and psychological approaches to the theme, prioritizing those published from the mid-twentieth century onwards. The results indicate that colonization, Christianity, and capitalism shaped female subjectivity around the amorous and maternal devices, affecting women’s lives in multiple ways, such as the burden of care. These effects are unevenly distributed according to markers of race and class.