. Last tended to <ahref='https://code.incremental.social/thepaperpilot/pages/commit/2aaad90cb50d1f4b566a6062074c4abc02529445'title='Tue Nov 12 08:35:33 2024 -0600'><timeclass='dt-updated'datetime='Tue Nov 12 08:35:33 2024 -0600'>2024-11-12</time></a>
.</span></p><hr><details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><ahref="/garden/anarchism/index.md">Anarchism</a><ahref="/garden/gender/index.md">Gender</a><ahref="/garden/gerrymandering/index.md">Gerrymandering</a><ahref="/garden/objectivity/index.md">Objectivity</a><ahref="/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/index.md">Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism</a><ahref="/garden/scientific-constructivism/index.md">Scientific Constructivism</a><ahref="/garden/trans-athletes-in-sports/index.md">Trans athletes in sports</a></details><p>Social constructs are concepts with social definitions. Having a "social definition" really just means its some concept or property some group of peoples (or even animals) has prescribed meaning to. You know of and use these all the time throughout your life, and have likely identified some common ones like gender or class. As we'll discuss, however, there are far, far many more social constructs than the ones commonly referred to as such. It should be noted that while these concepts are essentially "made up", in the sense that they are arbitrary distinctions created by imperfect beings, that does not make them "not real". They exist and are typically created for a reason, often convenience. However, those reasons can be analyzed and determined to be more harmful than useful. This article's goal is to discuss and encourage analyzing social constructs, to better identify them and determine their utility and impact on society. Furthermore that it's possible to change or even destroy these constructs, and it's our social duty to do so when appropriate.</p><p>With a definition for social constructs as a concept established, how would you go about defining a specific social construct? Well that's tricky, due to social constructs' nature. It's useful to define words using either <ahref="/garden/prescriptivism-vs-descriptivism/">Prescriptivism or Descriptivism</a>, but social constructs are much too ephemeral and complex to truly be defined using either approach. How would you attempt to make a complete, non-simplified definition of gender, for example? Gender has an impact on all parts of society, with gender roles shaping our entire lives and society and it interacts with various other similarly complicated constructs like class or family. All of this makes these concepts so complex that many incredibly smart people will spend their entire lives just writing about a single construct. While useful, these papers are obviously not the way we are typically introduced to constructs, or how we gain an understanding of them within a complex network of constructs.</p><p>Kids effectively "learn" the definitions of social constructs via exposure to them. They don't need to be explicitly outlined, at least not wholly, but rather experienced and lived. Kids observe people performing their gender roles, recognize their family and duties within it, calculate their age by counting the number of birthdays they've had, etc. Humans are powerful at recognizing patterns and through that naturally build an understanding, piece by piece, for all these constructs and how they interact, even if they couldn't formally define any of them. They'll go on to follow the unstated rules of these constructs, reinforcing them and teaching them by demonstration to following generations.</p><p>These constructs form a complex web, where any specific construct is only useful in the context of the web it is both a part of and dependent on. For example, knowing what a "bakery" is depends on the concept of a store, which depends on the concept of a building, and which depends on the concept of a structure. And this is just one path we could've taken - we could've alternatively explored bread or employees or shopping, and so on.</p><p>Ultimately, constructs are supposed to be useful. They allow us to communicate, understand, and exist within our society. One without any constructs would be impossible to do anything in. But these constructs
