ABSTRACT
The claim that gender is socially constructed is broadly accepted, but what this means is controversial and often unclear. The point of saying that a concept or idea is socially constructed will vary depending on context. Social constructionism is generally offered as an alternative to essentialism; both come in different forms. Drawing on the link between thought and practice, Alison Stone explicitly takes up a genealogical approach to the social construction of gender to avoid the pitfalls of an essentialism that assumes there is some feature or features that all women share, by virtue of which they are women. Women are a social kind, that is, the group consists of those who situate themselves within the local practices as women. Feminists have argued that certain mental "disorders" that have been used to diagnose battered women are merely social constructions. There are ideas associated with gender that are "merely" constructions.
