SOCSCI 2115  Much of what we believe about men and

women—even much of what we imagine is

Gender and Society strictly biological—is not naturally occurring
difference that emerges from our male and
Introduction female bodies.
 The high-heeled shoe, it turns out, was a weapon  “Without difference, in other words, there could
of war. be no hierarchy” .
 Power, status, and Masculinity.  Gender is no different in this regard. There is a
 In the 1630s, women started copying how men story to tell about both difference and hierarchy
looked and acted. and it involves both pleasure and pain
 They cut their hair short like men.
 They decorated their dresses with military-style
features, like shoulder ornaments that soldiers
wore

Defining Sex
 The word sex is used to refer to these physical
differences in primary sexual characteristics and
secondary sexual characteristics
 We usually use the words male and female to
refer to sex, but we can also use male-bodied and
female bodied to specify that sex refers to the
body and may not extend to how a person feels
or acts.
 Not everybody fits neatly into one category or the
other

Defining Gender
 refers to the TOTALITY of meanings that are
attached to the sexes within a PARTICULAR social
system (Kramer, 2005).
 refers to social aspects of identity.
 It is the cultural interpretation of femaleness and
maleness.
 So gender isn’t merely biological; it’s cultural.
 It’s the result of a great deal of human effort What are Gender Roles?
guided by shared cultural ideas.  Those spoken and unspoken duties that are
 it’s an outcome of active efforts to produce and assigned to a person based on their sex or
maintain difference gender.
 Gender roles not only vary throughout the globe
Gender symbolism shapes not just our identities and the and over time but also within a particular
ideas in our heads, but workplaces, families, and schools, community.
and our options for navigating through them.  Gender roles are fluid (Historical, Cultural,
Individual variations)
 Symbols matter because they indicate what  However, within specific culture, as one stray
bodily differences mean in practice. from the norms of accepted gender roles,
 This is where distinction comes in. skepticism and devaluing are common
HOW DO WE DO PERFORM GENDER? WHAT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATION?
 These refer to the social expectation that society  “Whom we find attractive”
attaches to gender and their expression  Gender identity pertains to a person’s view of
 for example in speech, demeanor, gesture, him/herself.
posture and dress ( Bruce and Yearley, 2006  sexual orientation refers to sexual object choice
or one’s preference for a sexual partner.
WHAT IS GENDER EXPRESSION? TYPES OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION
 A term used to describe a person’s outward  Heterosexual: Attraction to people of the
appearance or how a person publicly expresses or opposite gender (e.g., men attracted to women).
presents their gender.  Homosexual: Attraction to people of the same
 Characteristics that are commonly gendered gender (e.g., men attracted to men or women to
include clothing, jewelry, and hair length and women).
style; also includes activities, interests, and  Bisexual: Attraction to more than one gender —
mannerisms that are observable. not limited to just male or female.
 Gender expression varies depending on the  Pansexual: Attraction to people regardless of
cultural context and time. gender; gender doesn’t play a role in attraction.
 Consider crying. It is a sign of emotional  Asexual: Little or no sexual attraction to others;
vulnerability in many cultures today, but it used may still experience romantic or emotional
to be sign of heroism in feudal japan. connections.
 General gender expressions Masculinity-acting  Queer: A broad, inclusive term for identities
tough or sporty or being aggressive, dominant, or outside heterosexual and cisgender norms
unemotional
 Femininity- Behaving in a nurturing way, or being WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
gentle.  Sexuality is complex
 Gender nonconformity (GNC)- when you don not  Various factors shaped one’s sexuality
categorized yourself as either masculinity or  Culture and religion play a significant part in the
femininity complexity of the concept of sexuality

WHAT IS GENDER BINARY? IDEAS

 Refers to a structure of understanding wherein  Most of us use the phrase “opposite sexes” when
sex and gender are viewed as consisting of only describing the categories of male and female.
two choices—male/female, masculine/feminine-  It’s a telling phrase.
with nothing in between.  “the fairer sex” and “the second sex”--- a more
 Limited way of categorizing individuals in terms of neutral phrase. “
gender. (Resume, bio data, survey, etc.)  the other sex” and “another sex” ---which leaves
Traditional and Societal thinking open the possibility of more than two.
 But the idea that we are opposite sexes is not
WHAT IS GENDER IDENTITY? completely right either. So, while it’s not perfectly
 The conception of who we are – our innermost correct to say there’s only one sex, neither is it
sense of being a man, a woman, or something perfectly correct to say we’re opposites.
else entirely.  In fact, most of us embrace gender categories in
 How our brain thinks about ourselves as daily life and talk about “men” and “women” as if
gendered beings, and what those genders mean membership in one of these categories says a
to us regardless of what body parts we (or do not) great deal about a person.
possess.  All these phrases rely on the idea that the terms
men and women refer to meaningful categories.
TRANSGENDER - can be simply trans, is a diverse group of  “Biologically speaking, there are many gradations
people who experience gender dysphoria (a discomfort running from female to male. ”
with the relationship between their bodies’ assigned sex  One can argue that spectrum lie at least five
and their gender identity). sexes – and perhaps even more
NONBINARY - outside of or between the binary between
male and female. This also described as genderqueer. “Sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies
GENDER FLUID - without a fixed identity the constraints of even five categories”
CISGENDER - male- and female-bodied people who Medical literature uses the term intersex as a catch-all for
comfortably identify and express themselves as men and 3 major subgroups with some mixture of male and female
women, respectively characteristics.

INTERSEX 3 major subgroups of intersex:

People with androgen insensitivity syndrome are intersex, HERMS- the so-called true hermaphrodites who possess
born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t one testis and one ovary;
fit the typical definitions of female or male. MERMS- the so-called male pseudohermaphrodites who
have testes and some aspects of the female genitalia but
The 10 Percent no ovaries.
 People with intersex bodies are living proof that FERMS- the so-called female pseudohermaphrodites who
not everyone fits into a gender binary that allows have ovaries and some aspects of the male genitalia but
only for opposite sexes. lack testes
 Some intersex conditions are chromosomal.
 While most humans have XX or XY sex INTERSEXUALITY ITSELF IS OLD NEWS
chromosomes, others are XXY, XXXY, XXX, XYY, or  According to Plato, there once were 3 sexes-
X. male, female and hermaphrodite but the third
People born with intersex can be: sex was lost with time.
 XXY (man) can have broader hips and lesser body  The Jewish books of laws (TALMUD and TOSEFTA)
hair. provided regulations for people of ‘ mixed sex ’ .
 Women with only one X can have distinctive  At the end of the Middle ages in Europe,
features. hermaphrodites were compelled to choose their
 The gender binary, however, leaves no room for sex/gender and ‘stick with it’
variety, so sometimes intersex children still
undergo surgery in order to bring their bodies The Mysterious case of Levi Suydam
into line with social expectations, even when In a period, when women were not allowed to vote, being
surgery is medically unnecessary. a true hermaphrodite challenged the rule. However, after
the premature diagnosis, it was discovered that Suydam
THE FIVE SEXES menstruated regularly and had a vaginal opening.
 Why Male and Female are not enough?
 Ann Fausto-Sterling - a Biologist and Historian at John Money
Brown University.  Psychologist of Johns Hopkins University;
 In her article, ‘The Five Sexes, ’ FaustoSterling specialist in the study of congenital sexual organ
challenges the conventional way of categorizing defects.
people as exclusively ‘ male’ or ‘female’ .  He suggested that intersexuals may constitute as
 Fausto-Sterling examined how management of many as four percent of births.
intersexed person is not based solely on biology  One of the known psychologist/sexologist who
but on societal pressures/expectations. believed that a person could be raised different
 Western culture is deeply committed to the idea from his/her biological sex.
that there are only two sexes.
  His most celebrated case, John/Joan, challenges certain things into what we think a male is
his research on sex reassignment. and what a female is
John/Joan Case  Example: Yoga and Gym, Facial and body hair,
 In 1967 John was turned into a girl by doctors at Long hair and short hair, Clothes Color-
Johns Hopkins Hospital. Background: John/Joan coding, How we sit, and how we walk
suffered in an accident (loss his penis) during a  This manipulation within our bodies are
circumcision when he was only 8 months. greatly illustrated by drag queens and drag
 John’s penis was burned during the circumcision, kings, gendered men and women who dress
when the electro-cautery needle (a deviceused to up and behave like the other sex.
seal blood vessels as it cuts) malfunctioned.  Drag queens and kings are excellent examples
Though it is uncertain if it was really a mechanical of how physical characteristics can be
malfunction or doctor’s error. manipulated.
 In December, 1966, the parents of John saw Dr.
John Money on a TV program, promoting the THE BINARY AND EVERYTHING ELSE
Johns Hopkins Hospital as the world’s first Gender SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
Identity Clinic.  An arbitrary but influential shared interpretation
 “He was saying that it could be that babies are of reality.
born neutral and you can change their gender.  Basically, this is the consequence of social
Something told me that I should get in touch with construction. We layer objects with ideas, fold
this Dr. Money. ” -John’s Mother concepts into one another, and build connections
 According to Dr. Money, the primary factor that between them.
determined an intersexual child’s gender identity  Sociologists use “gender” as a verb when talking
was not biological traits but the way that the child about a process. We will sometimes say,
was raised. “gendering” , or we “gender” or are “gendering”
 Dr. John Money was one of the experts who things.
advised the sex reassignment of John. Thus, the  The gender binary also causes us to falsely
surgery was done plus a 12-year program of disconnect masculine ideas from feminine ones,
social, mental and hormonal conditioning. making it harder to form connections between
these ideas
THE 90 PERCENT  Example: Women have small hands and good
 Gender binary doesn’t just that they are coordination, making them ideal for needlework
opposite. allow only two sexes, but it also and sewing, we rarely notice that such
emphasizes Male and female bodies aren’t characteristics would also make them excellent
biologically binary, but it is actually more surgeons
alike than different.
 Even for physical characteristics on which SEEING GENDER
there is a clear gender difference, we see a  GENDER BINARY GLASSES - a pair of lenses that
great deal of overlap separates everything we see into masculine and
 Example: There are hairy women and men feminine categories.
who can’t grow a mustache; men with  This preserves the binary itself. We actively use
breasts and women with flat chests; our glasses, in other words, we gender everything
 Example: women with strong bodies and around us.
broad shoulders and slender men who lifts  Our glasses encourages us to engage in
weight with little result. progressive binary subdivision; the practice
 But because we tend to preserve the binary where we divide and re-divide gender again and
idea, we tend to create an association for again.
  Example: Poodles are seen as a feminine breed of Transphobia - It is the fear and hatred of transgender or
dogs, but only those who are small in sizes. Once transsexual people.
they have turned larger, it is considered to be HETEROSEXISM - The assumption that heterosexuality is
more masculine than feminine. the only normal orientation- thus, denying legal, religious,
 STEREOTYPES - fixed, oversimplified, and and social privileges among the transgendered persons.
distorted ideas about categories of people.
Stereotypes are a natural way for human brains GENDER ISSUES
to work and it may be impossible to rid ourselves REPRESENTATION - The presence/absence in the political
of them. arena of women and transgender continuously create
 CULTURAL COMPETENCE - a familiarity and challenges in the patriarchal system.
facility with how the members of a society DISCRIMINATION - The unequal treatment of individuals
typically think and behave on the basis of their personal characteristics (sex, gender,
age, race, class, etc.)
BLURRED VISION AND BLIND SPOT SUBORDINATION - Describes the secondary position of
SEEING GENDER Our lenses wrap reality, causing us to women (and other genders) vis-à-vis men in society.
dismiss, forget, and misremember the exceptions to the VIOLENCE - There are various forms of violence such as
rule we encounter daily. domestic violence, violence against women (VAW), and
violence brought by military conflicts and war. There are
GENDER SYSTEM some cultural practices which reflect the
 a system of meaning and differentiation, linked to institutionalization of violence. (e.g. female circumcision,
the sexes through social arrangements. foot-binding, wife burning, bride kidnapping, etc.)
 a complex framework that societies use to assign
meaning and roles based on biological sex.
 The gender system encompasses the various
cultural, social, and psychological meanings
attached to being male or female.
 This system differentiates between roles and
behaviors deemed appropriate for males and
females

SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER
 Sociologists take the view that gender is socially
constructed, that is, the differences between
females and males are not based in some
biologically determined truth.
 In other words, social definitions of gender
contribute to the social stratification of society
and smaller social groups within it

STEREOTYPES

ISSUES
Homophobia - The fear and hatred of homosexuality or
gay, lesbian, or bisexual people.
Internalized homophobia may lead to self- hatred, denial
of transgender identities, or attempts to live a
heterosexual life.