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Introduction SOCIOLOGY to Sociology
Previously on Introduction to Sociology.
Global inequality begs the following questions:
Why has social change been uneven between nations?
Why has the technological modernization of the West been
unevenly adopted by other nations?
Can all societies be modernized?
Theories of Modernization:
From command economies to the free market
The Protestant Ethic
The state theory of modernization
Dependency Theory
World Systems Theory
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:
Gender Inequality
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Common sense definitions
Gender: the meaning we attribute to being male or
female. It applies to both men and women. Gender
is what it means to be masculine or feminine in a
given culture at a given point in time.
Sex: the biological basis of gender. We assume that
sex has only two categories: male and female. We
learn in school that sex is caused or created by
chromosomes, XX for females and XY for males.
The two sexes are assumed to be
Universal (found in all cultures throughout history)
Exhaustive (theres no third sex)
Mutually exclusive (a person cant be both)
Social Construction of Gender
What does this mean?
Changes over time and space
Historical time and over the life course
Varies among cultures
Gender varies by groups and subculturesage,
race, ethnicity
Specific to situations
Qualitative variation (above)kind, type
Quantitative variationmore or less of an
effect, influence
Gender is an organizing principle of social
life. It structures institutions, it shapes how
we act, and it is an attribute or characteristic
of individuals.
Examples??
In every situation, every encounter, gender
matters.
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Intersectionality
Gender varies by groups and subcultures
age, race, ethnicity
Social Construction of Sex
Sex has no meaning without gender
Recent scholarship has shown us that biological sex has no
meaning apart from the social and cultural construction of
gender.
We think that peoples genitalia are the essential sign of gender.
But in our culture we routinely do not see or know each others
genitalia. In practice, gender attribution depends on cultural
genitals. Read signspersons appearance, dress, hair, voice
and make a conclusion that their genitalia match who we believe
they are.
Kids sometimes resist gendering of their bodies. Suggests its
not natural.
Because happens at an early age, it seems natural, subtle or
taken for granted. Bodies are one source of gender difference.
Is sex classification solely a matter of
biology?
Physiological and biological features
commonly associated with males and
females, are affected by social practices.
Social conditioning shapes our biology.
Historically, males and females were allowed the
same exercise opportunities and equal
encouragement to exercise
A number of medical phenomena involving bones
(like osteoporosis) have social causes directly
related to expectations about gender, women's
diet and their exercise opportunities
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Social Construction of Sex (continued)
Our belief in two sexes is not universal
Pre-18th Century: One sex (females are inferior
version)
18th Century: two sexes
1960s: Surgical assigning sex becomes norm
(culture demands it)
1990s: Hermaphrodite liberation movement
(ISNA)
Intersexuals illustrate constructedness of twosex model
Intersex
The case of Caster Semenya: she or he?
Eight female athletes in the last Olympics had XY chromosomes but
were reinstated when it was also determined that they were
physiologically female. (Interestingly, only women are scrutinized for
their biological sex!)
Intersex occurs at a rate of 1 in 2,000 births, yet other recent estimates
range from 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000.
Did you know that Texas marriage laws define their marriage
protection statute by chromosomes and that a female with XY
chromosomes can legally marry her female partner with XX
chromosomes even though the state does not allow same-sex
marriage?
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Kessler and McKenna (1978) challenged the
natural, taken for granted, unquestioned natural
attitude gender, about which has 6 elements:
There are two and only two genders
Dichotomous gender schema is natural
Everyone must be classified as male or female
Membership in a gender category is natural and
occurs without social intervention
Gender cannot vary
Genitals are an essential sign of gender
Deviations from 2 genders is pathological
Kessler and McKenna demonstrated that
gender attribution is key to producing the
natural attitude about gender.
We always attribute genderevery time we
meet someone
When we cannot attribute gender, it
perplexes us.
Gender is an accomplishment and every
person must pass as male or female. Need to
give convincing performances.
Science and/on Gender
The ways scientists and medical students learn about human
reproduction is influenced by the textbooks they use while in
graduate grad school or medical school.
Emily Martins study of scientific and medical school textbooks
demonstrates how scientific knowledge of gender is shaped by
natural attitudes re gender.
Egg and sperm production both valuable but similarities end there.
Female and male reproductive organs also differently represented.
Menstruation is represented as failure if it does not end in conception. Books talk
about menstruation as chaotic, depleting, losing.
Male reproductive physiology talked about as remarkable cell transformation. Why
male sperm production about 100 million per day not wasteful?
Ideas about egg and sperm role in reproduction reflect dominant cultural
images of women and men.
Eggs can be passive or they can be aggressive.
Sperm as receptor not in line with dominant ways of thinking about men.
Sperms action independent of egg.
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Becoming a Gendered Body
Karin Martins study on practices that contribute to the gendering of young kinds bodies (5
preschools, 112 kids, 14 teachers, overwhelmingly white)
Dressing up:
color
leggings/dresses--restrictive
teachers compliments
Formal and relaxed behaviors:
raising hands/sitting down
girls encouraged to have more formal behavior; boys allowed more relaxed behaviors
Controlling voices:
Girls told 3X more often to be quite or repeat something in a nice voice than boys
Boys told to be quiet when in large groups
Girls told to quiet down as individuals
Boys could express their fun more loudly
Bodily instruction:
Girls obey about 80% of the time, boys 48% time
Teachers instruction to boys less substantive
Interaction among kids
by age 5 girls learn not to be too rough.
3 year olds more similar than different.
Sex Ratios and Sex Roles
Causes of unbalanced sex ratios:
Geographical mobility
Female infanticide
Health and diet
Differential life expectancy
War
Sexual practices
Comparing ancient Athens to ancient Sparta
Sex Ratios and Power Dependence
Dyadic Power: the capacity of each member
of a dyad to impose his/her will
Structural Power: the capacity to orchestrate
the systemic interaction within and among
social groups
Testing the sex-ratios and sex-roles theory:
the American experience
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The latest data
Institute of Womens Policy Research, 2008Ratio of womens to
mens median annual earnings in 2008 was 77.1 for f/t year round
workers. Gender wage gap is now 22.9% If part-time workers included
the ratio would be lower as women are more likely than men to work
reduced schedules to do childcare and domestic labor.
Ratio of womens to mens median weekly earnings for f/t workers was
79.9 in 2008, down from a historic high in 2005 of 81.0 percent.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009Women who worked full time in wage
and salary jobs had median usual weekly earnings of $638 in 2008.
This represented 80 percent of men's median weekly earnings ($798).
Earnings of Asian ($753) and white ($654) women were substantially
higher than the earnings of their black ($554) and Hispanic ($501)
counterparts.
Women's-to-men's earnings ratios were higher among blacks (89
percent) and Hispanics (90 percent) than among whites (79 percent)
and Asians (78 percent).
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