Doing Gender: Construction of Young Gender Identities in Pakistan

Hazir Ullah, Prof. Johar Ali & Busra Ahmad

ABSTRACT
Engagement of Young girls and boys with the social world is an issue of academic interest
across a number of societies. Thus to understand and unearth this phenomenon, this
paper is an attempt to explore how young boys and girls in Pakistan engage with the
social world (schooling, family, and leisure) and whether their engagement overturns or
resists key regulations and normative expectations for girls and boys. The paper, thus,
highlights how gendered socialization, both in the family and school, regulates and
perpetuates the gendered social order of Pakistani society. The paper also focuses on how
an individual’s class location profoundly influences one’s belief about and experience of
gender. To undertake this study, stratified random sampling technique was employed and
a sample size 220 students of class 9 and 10 (aged 15-16) was taken. The data
conclusively reflects that children construct themselves as gendered beings and develop
gender identities that carry immediate and cumulative effects as they learn and perform
their gendered place in the social world.
Keywords: Feminist, gender order, gender identities, gendered socialization, social
constructionism.