The aim of this essay is to examine the influence of social structures on gender identity. In order to do this, free will and determinism will be explored, along with evolutionary behaviorism, social meaning, and some forms of social structure and their direct influence on gendered behavior.
Identity is the combination of how others experience us and how we experience ourselves. It is a sense of identifying and differentiating with certain groups of people, we have multiple roles and identities within society made up of many components such as age, sex, class, ethnicity and intelligence. More importantly it is the meaning the social world gives to these attributes, which we then internalize as parts of our identity. However the amount of control we have over forming our identities is debatable.
The idea of agency (free will) and structural (determining social influence) is relevant here. …
