vs. Sex Gender Sex marks the distinction between women and men as a result of their biological, physical, and genetic differences Gender is the social and cultural manifestation of biological sex What is gender? System of classification (Lorber) Masculinity and femininity Individuals become gendered through SAssignment Gender roles are set by convention and other social, economic, political, and cultural forces. Essentialism vs. Social Construction Humans create gender!
Gender categories exist in all known cultures, but the content varies. Some cultures have more than 2. There are multiple things that go into biological sex itself. Some of us are on a continuum of biological sex (pure male, pure female) Kessler- What range is considered normal?
The 2nd way of thinking about gender: Lorber wants us to think about Believing is seeing. You can only make sense of sex as gender. So we already use language, images, and values to make sense of bodies.
How do individuals become gendered?
What is gender? System of classification (Lorber) Masculinity and femininity Individuals become gendered through: SAssignment
-we are born into one biological category or another. Putting babies in a category. -We expect biology to line up with gender.
S Identity
-subjective feeling, sense of yourself as belonging to the category of woman or man.
S Gender Roles
-Appearances, preferences, roles, jobs, cultural expectations of behavior as appropriate for men or women. These vary over time and in diff. cultures
SAscription/attribution STaboos, prohibitions Through these processes, social meaning is layered on to biology. SBut not perfectly -- boundaries often breached.
Keys for thinking about gender: Characteristics or traits that differentiate men and women in our social worldbehavioral, aesthetic Culturally and historically specific social practices Its a relational category (gender is not a synonym for women
Includes value judgments, positive and negative, associated with masculinity and femininity Things other than people can be genderedan outfit, a color (blue/pink), a sport, even animals.
Gender is pervasive We attribute it to inanimate objects and animals Gender is prescriptive: ...what is demanded, what is permitted, and what is tabooed for the people in each gender is well-known and followed by most. (Davies, 1982)
The locker room for visiting football teams at Iowa is pretty in pink. Several professors and students joined the call for the athletic department to do away with the pink showers, carpeting and lockers, a decades-long.. tradition. Critics say the use of pink demeans women, perpetuates offensive stereotypes about women and homosexuality, and puts the university in the ... position of tacitly supporting those messages.
Hello Kitty armband used to punish Thai police The armband is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor. S"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something police macho officers want covering their biceps... Policy is a follow-up to plain armbands, which had no effect on behavior.
Idea of gender creates the very differences it assumes exist:
Believeing I seeing- were looking for it, we find it. We have traits, we have differential socialization of girls and boys all the way from infancy There are social rewards for diff. types of behavior. Lorber- athletes develop their bodies to be certain types (Gymnasts are small)
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (1990) The presuppositions that we make about sexed bodies, about them being one or the other, about the meanings that are said to inhere in them or to follow from being sexed in such a way are suddenly and significantly upset by those examples that fail to comply with the categories that naturalize and stabilize that field of bodies for us within the terms of cultural conventions.
Historical context for Kessler article: Fundamenta l diff between men and women- reproductive organs
Gender is also about inequality The idea that there are innate differences between groups has often been used to justify treating them unequally. Differences are inequalitys post hoc excuse
Beliefs about gender can be used to exclude Katherine switzer- 1st woman to run the Boston Marathon.
Gender creates inequality through Omitting Assumption that humans are male Medical research - Mainly men were tested so many tests and studies used to treat women not helpful because men were tested (Ex: Cardiovascular disease) Crash test dummies - all current crash test dummies are male and are based off of how mens bodies react Mainly men were tested so many tests and studies used to treat women w/ cardiovascular disease are not helpful because men were tested
Devaluing-
Mens activities are valued more highly Medicine as a career Comparable worth- Women get paid less for a particular job title even
though theyre doing the same thing as men. Why are the same tasks not getting paid the same money
To feminize becomes synonymous with weakening. Iowa locker room Significance of dogs, foldable canes in Kudlick
Pathologizing
If maleness is assumed to be normal, femaleness may be viewed as abnormal. Law: reasonable man standard (vs. reasonable woman)Women are often perceived as pathological Womens normal bodies are perceived as sick, disgusting Example: PMS - viewing menstruation through the process of social construction- menstruation is perceived as being gross but it is really just a natural process
Whats the connection?
Gender as difference The idea of gender difference supports inequality (domination)
Key ideas:
Gender as difference o Socially constructed, we attribute meaning to biological difference: males & females masculine & feminine o Just because its socially constructed doesnt mean it isnt real Pervasive Prescriptive Idea creates the difference it assumes exists Gender as inequality/domination o Excluding, Omitting, devaluing, pathologizing