I don’t understand how so many people seem to understand the concept just fine. It sounds oddly complicated to me. The concept to me sounds like collectively concluded delusion or like if society collectively concludes something to be objectively real, that means it’s objectively real. Maybe I’m not understanding correctly?
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Social construct is something that only exists because people have agreed so. The term is often used to dismiss or undermine arguments by suggesting that certain concepts are merely products of societal agreement and not inherent truths but the term itself doesn’t imply anything negative or delusional.
For example, countries and money are both social constructs. There’s no natural borders between countries, they’re made up lines on a map. There’s also no value in a paper bill meaning you can’t eat it, wear it, or benefit from it in any way unless other people agree with you that it has value and that other people are willing to trade for something that’s actually useful.
Race is a good example, it can effect your life experiences profoundly even though we all agree theres zero scientific basis for it
Breakfast food is a great example. Eat pizza for breakfast and people will think you’re a fat slob. Eat tomatoes, cheese, and bread for breakfast and people will think you are a healthy European.
youve got the right idea. it’s something as a society we all kinda agree on that doesn’t exist in nature or on its own. borders, money, religion, language, morality, law, etc ….
I’ll throw another example of a social construct: Pink is for girls, blue is for boys. If you were around in the 90s, you might remember that one. That has lessened a lot in 2023.
Pink wasn’t always considered a feminine color: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/08/pink-wasnt-always-girly/278535/
Fashion as a whole is a social construct. What is considered acceptable in the workplace for example has changed. Jeans and a sweater or a business suit serve the same basic functional purpose, but there was a time when wearing jeans to work was a “faux pas” in certain environments. That was 100% a social construct, the fact that jeans are now acceptable where they weren’t before is also a social construct.
EDIT: Once you go down that rabbit hole, it can really mess with you and feel like nothing is objectively real anymore. Lots of things are social constructs, but are by now so ingrained in a society, that for a member of that society they “just are”.
Society is a social construct. The phrase is too ambiguous to have any real meaning and is used to manipulate people while arguing. “That doesn’t matter it’s a social construct”
Gaslighting.
Typically people talk about social constructs when talking about categorization. When it is said that race is a social construct, it means that lines were drawn around people and determined to be significant to how they are treated. It’s not that differences in skin color or body types did not exist prior to the social construction of race, but that the categories were not well-developed and were not coherent enough to matter at any meaningful social/political/economic scale. The categories of race, however, were created and developed because they began to be politically useful during the time of colonization. Europeans had to justify the violence they brought to different people, and much of it became predicated on the idea that Europeans were the most intelligent/advanced/civilized race and other races – indigenous Americans, black Africans, East Asian groups, and Indian people – needed to have white European values thrust onto them without consent. That the Founding Fathers could say that Black people had no rights was grounded on the work done to draw lines, recategorize people, and justify violence based on these categories. This was a process that took hundreds of years to do, but it’s not like people go and vote on it people just begin discourse which helps solidify certain ideas. It’s like a technology which gives people a “common sense” justification for violence, abuse, and exclusion.
So when we say that race is a social construct, it’s specifically talking about the lines that had to be drawn around people as well as the maintenance of these lines (eg, “one drop” rules, shifting definitions, re-organization after abolition, etc). These categories are “real”, but because they are socially agreed upon ideas and oppression is justified by these categories. Those who seek liberation can do so through a renegotiation of these lines and/or changing how these categories “matter”. For instance, some feminists (especially in the past) view women’s liberation as needing the abolition of gender as a whole – get rid of that system of categorization (different body types would exist, but it would merely be like the difference between blond people and brown-haired people in that it exists but doesn’t really matter). However, many feminists see it important to keep gender as a system of categorization, but make the lines much more fluid and open as well as changing the political implications of these categorizations. This way, you can still be feminine and construct feminine spaces, but without the patriarchal oppression which uses gender as its excuse.
How far you want to take this idea depends on how much fun you want to have. Are electrons “objectively real” or are they just a consequences of a human categorization process within science. If it is the latter, then whatever interacted with the scientific instruments definitely exists (just as different bodies types exist independent of race) but grouping certain interactions together under the umbrella of “electrons” would be a human, social construct. This can make science more flexible, which is good, but makes it harder for scientists to access political authority over things since they can’t just say “it’s objectively real because experiments”.
It’s bad manners to fart loudly in a restaurant. That’s true but not in the same sense that 2 + 2 = 4 is true.
2 + 2 = 4 is a mathematical fact. It cannot be changed even if a majority of people think 2 + 2 = 5. It’s true all by itself, whether or not we agree.
Farting at a restaurant (hey, you did say explain it like you’re five, right?) is only rude because we agree it is. There’s nothing wrong with farting. Nobody is ashamed to fart when they’re eating alone. But it is a social construct that we should act embarrassed when farting aloud in a restaurant.
Games and sports are social constructs. They are not real in any sense except in relationship with human society. Do you consider football real?
How do we, as a society decide, what is and isn’t a sandwich? You see, the idea of a sandwich is also a social construct. Do you think sandwiches are real?
The meanings of words are a social construct. Take the word “apple” in English. It refers to the fruit. Tell me, where does the meaning of the word apple derive from? I don’t mean the etymology, I mean, through what mechanism do the collections of frequencies that make up the spoken word “apple” gain functional meaning? They gain meaning from a common, shared understanding that those sounds that form “apple” actually mean the fruit. Absent the existence of society or anyone to perceive those sounds, they have no such meaning. They’re just a bunch of frequencies and amplitudes that air happens to vibrate at.
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