Quotes & Sayings About Social Constructs

All right, let's consider some history here. I see a number of girls are wearing pants. This used to be frowned upon. In 1938, Helen Hulick was jailed for wearing slacks -- put behind bars.

Do you think society should have the right to jail or punish you for what you choose to wear? — Svetlana Chmakova

What does freedom mean if we accept the fundamental premise that humans are social beings, raised in certain social and historical contexts and belonging to particular communities that shape their desires and understandings of the world? — Lila Abu-Lughod

What I was pointing to was that, yeah, blackness is a fiction; whiteness is a fiction. When we live according to these categories, we're living within a fiction. Of course, it's a fiction with very real consequences. — Jess Row

Femininity and masculinity are social constructs. Female and male are biological. We don't have to learn to be men or women but we do have to learn to be ladies and gentlemen. — Rita Mae Brown

Because of the power that we have given money: The government would rather have taxpayers who do not vote, than voters who do not pay tax. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

One strong idea being put forth these days (...) is that women should above all be given choice. (...) But this "right to choose" whether or not we provide for ourselves has contributed mightily to the female achievement gap. Because they have the social option to stay home, women can - and often do - back off from assuming responsibility for themselves. (...) There is something wrong with this. (...) We want so desperately to believe that we do not have to be responsible for our own welfare. — Colette Dowling

The rich are poor without the poor's acknowledgment of money. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I see walking bombs on the street
Hearts not beating, but ticking — Henry Rollins

The men her girlfriends dated were too often angry and muttering about oppression. One of the reasons she took to Skeet later in life was that he never went to that place; he believed with a firm positivity that he didn't need to waste time resenting real or imagined social constructs because he would always be ahead of them. The individual, not the people, was responsible for success or failure. — Jeff Hobbs

Leaders are not modest, and more importantly, the extensive social science research on narcissism, self-promotion, and similar constructs shows that these qualities and behaviors are useful for getting hired, achieving promotions, keeping one's job, and obtaining a higher salary. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

As a cultural-intellectual power and a moral ideal, collectivism died in World War II. If we are still rolling in its direction, it is only by the inertia of a void and the momentum of disintegration. A social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children stamping their foot and shrieking: "I want it now is through." — Ayn Rand

Most people kept to themselves, content with their computers, iPads, cellphones and the filtered, touch-free cybersphere that had replaced the simple arts of introduction and conversation. No one wanted to talk to you, and you were expected to not want to talk to them. At least not outside the social constructs set aside for such purposes. — James N. Cook

If nature really acknowledged the so-called women's month, the entire month would have been period-pains-free. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Sweden is an open, liberal, secular and democratic country. We strive towards achieving equality; we are forward-looking and refuse to be pulled back by social constructs such as religion. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. — Judith Butler

Dating isn't a natural need; it is a social want. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I think that music has always been restricted to media. The LP is an antiquated form, and the CD is now an antiquated form, and there's no sense grieving. Music is forever, there will always be songs. It's exciting that we're not limited to the media any more. I don't hold a precious view of my work, that it exists outside of social constructs or the confines of a platform. — Sufjan Stevens

Bodies are not only biological phenomena but also complex social creations onto which meanings have been variously composed and imposed according to time and space. — Katrina Karkazis

Cell phones, like the other social media constructs of our time, encourage the collecting of so-called friends and contacts similar to how my grandmother used to collect teacups and put them on display in her china cabinet. Only now, the teacups are people, and the china cabinet is Facebook. — Penny Reid

It is a truly radical experience for a clergyperson to admit that their beliefs, and the faith that they have long articulated, have lost their meaning. It is more than the dark night of the soul; it is the utter abandonment of a worldview that, after thorough study, reflection, and lived experience, fails to withstand critique both intellectually and emotionally. It is a revelation that uncomfortably exposes the internal architecture of self-delusion and the social and religious constructs that buttress these imaginative ideologies. It is a journey that all members of the Clergy Project have taken, myself included. — Catherine Dunphy

Marriage and dating are man-made ideologies; if having a lover was a prerequisite to living, we'd all be born in pairs; as couples. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

People want to think of economics as a natural science, like physics, with the comforting reliability of simple-to-understand theories like F=MA. Unfortunately, it isn't. Economics is a social science, and the so-called theories are really social and moral constructs. — Nick Hanauer

Open text is one of a pair of terms popularized by Eco to refer to kinds of interpretative interactions between text and reader. An open text, unlike a closed one such as a work of popular fiction, is not aimed at a specific reader in a specific social context. It is also open in that its theme, structure and language are more complex, less explicit, more "open-ended": what other critics as Barthes in reception theory would call "Indeterminate". The open text constructs the model of its own reader as part of its structural strategy. — Katie Wales

For example, the call for equal rights has perverted into "let's all be the same." Male and female biological differences are discounted, because "male" and "female" are considered "outdated social constructs," and while that is partially true, the social construct stance becomes clear reductionism when it totally discounts clear differences in male and female biology (i.e., androgyny is not the same as equality). — Gudjon Bergmann

Parsons argued that medicine was a social institution that regulated social deviance through the provision of medical diagnoses for nonconforming behavior. Medicine was, in this understanding, engaged in social control. — Sheila Jeffreys

It's the invention of clothes, not nature, that made "private parts" private. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Marriage is the commodification of affection, copulation, and, reproduction. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Using money in one's attempt to put an end to poverty is like using a border in one's attempt to put an end to xenophobia. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

If working-hours were natural, then employed men would only get erections between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. ... during the week. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana