Ch. 4. Gender

Question 1

Gender

Answer 1

GENDER – The belief that there are two distinct types of people in the world, males, and females, and that there are social meanings attached to those categories.

• Gender is SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED – ​a concept created and modified over time and across cultures to produce a certain account of reality.
  
  • Whether GENDER has legitimacy due to the underlying biological reality based on sex is less important than what we believe in that underlying reality.
    
    • If we believe gender is real, then our beliefs make it real through our actions and assumptions.
      
      • EX: When a baby is born and placed into the male sex category and a blue hat is put on his head, everyone will treat him in a particular way based on belief in the underlying reality of gender. Because of the way we treat this blue-hatted baby, he probably will, in fact, grow up to be masculine, making our belief in his gender become reality.
• The way we think about ourselves and the way we are treated in the world is shaped by the sex category we are assigned at birth.

INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH: A sociological approach that examines how gender as a social category intersects with other social statuses such as race, class, and sexuality.

SEXUAL DIMORPHISM – our belief that there are two distinct types of people in the world—males and females—is just a belief, called sexual dimorphism

INTERSEX –those born with anatomical or genetic ambiguity about their biological sex.

• There are not just two kinds of bodies but a continuum of different kinds.
  
  • The wide biological variability that exists is too complex to be summarized in just two categories, suggesting that sex categories are socially constructed just as gender is.

TRANSGENDER – The gender identity differs from the gender they were assigned at birth – reveal another aspect of gender as socially constructed

CISGENDER – Describes individuals whose gender identities match the categories they were assigned at birth.

Fa’aFaFine – People who identify themselves as a third gender in Samoan society.

Question 2

Gender inequality

Answer 2

GENDER INEQUALITY – meanings assigned to sex and gender as social categories create disparities in resources such as income, power, and status.

• According to the text, every time we make a distinction, an inequality is already implied.
  
  • following that logic, if gender distinctions always imply gender inequality, then gender itself is the social problem.
    
    • Keep these two perspectives and their implications in mind
• Some men and women who label themselves feminists point to the ways in which the demands of masculinity damage men, even as it may benefit them in other ways.
  
  • Masculinity leads men to engage in risk-taking behaviors that can put their lives and health in danger.
  • For these reasons, most scholars and activists who consider gender a social problem see it as a social problem for women and men.

Question 3

Perspectives on Gender inequality

Answer 3

Structural Functionalist: Sex role theory assumes that different sex roles for men and women are functional for society.

• Men and women are taught that they had to act differently from other.
  
  • Ex) Men are taught to be goal- and task-oriented and women are taught to be more expressive and oriented toward interactions with other people

Symbolic Interactionism: While functionalism works at a macro level, symbolic interactionism works on a micro-level. It looks at the details of social interactions and group life.

Conflict Theory: Emphasizes the importance of struggles over power and resources in society. Socialist feminism argues that the best way to understand gender relations is to see women as an oppressed social class.

Question 4

Social Role

Answer 4

A set of expectations attached to a particular status or position in society

Question 5

Sex Role

Answer 5

The set of expectations attached to a particular gender, male or female

Question 6

Doing Gender

Answer 6

Doing gender is the idea that gender, rather than being an innate quality of individuals, is a psychologically ingrained social construct that surfaces in everyday interactions

Question 7

Radical feminism

Answer 7

Sees patriarchy and male dominance as the root of the problem in the conflict over power and resources

Question 8

Liberal feminism

Answer 8

Believe that how institutions such as the government treat men vs women is the root of the conflict

Question 9

Looking at Gender on Campus and Beyond

Answer 9

Anything that is “different” may be subject to inequality.

• Columbia University, in part because of its relationship with all-women Barnard College, was the last of the Ivy League universities to admit women as undergraduates—in 1983!
• Nationwide, 57% of bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women and women have outnumbered men on college campuses for the past few decades.

Question 10

The Gender Binary

Answer 10

TITLE IX – guaranteed the ability of girls and women to participate in sports at school in 1972.

• States “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
• over the past 25 years, women’s sports have been almost completely excluded from coverage
• The division of sports by gender is based on our social beliefs about gender difference as much as any underlying differences in sports abilities.
• Our assumptions about differences between women and men shape the sports available to each group (baseball vs. softball), the rules of the game (different rules for men’s and women’s basketball, tennis, and lacrosse), and even the equipment used (as in men’s and women’s gymnastics).
• 1 in 2,000 infants are born with an intersex trait.
  
  • Female athletes whose gender was challenged made public the problematic history of “GENDER TESTING” in sports.
    
    • Men disguised as women resulted in required medical inspections (dubbed “nude parades”), in which female athletes (but not male athletes) had to allow a doctor to examine their genitalia before they could be certified to compete
    • More recently, gender testing of female athletes has focused on testosterone levels.
  • Intersex refers to being born with some combination of traits, like chromosomes, genitalia, and internal sex organs, that we usually expect to be all male or all female.
• Another way we can observe gender itself as a social problem would be to consider transgender individuals’ experiences entering single-gender spaces and institutions:
  
  • such as when a female-to-male (FTM) transgender student seeks to enroll in a women’s college or a transgender woman (MTF) chooses to use the locker room that matches her gender identity.
  • The shape of the genitals is often portrayed as defining the person’s “TRUE GENDER”

DETERMINING GENDER – the variety of ways we place someone in a gender category

• in mixed-gender spaces and situations that are NOT defined as sexual, people often accept someone as the gender they say they are.

GENDER PANICS – Gender panics reveal a double standard at work in determining gender: Gender is policed in women’s spaces but not in men’s, often on the basis of stereotypes of men as sexually aggressive and women as vulnerable.

• When people are suddenly concerned about someone else’s gender – usually because that person’s gender conflict’s with another person’s sensitivities or beliefs.

BATHROOM BILLS – laws that require individuals to use the bathroom of the sex on their birth certificate, regardless of their current gender claim.

• Support for these bills is spurred by panics about cisgender men “pretending” to be trans in order to gain access to women’s bathrooms and assault them.
• The exact same arguments about bathrooms have occurred for decades in response to panics about racial integration, women’s rights, and gay rights.

Question 11

Gender Gap in STEM

Answer 11

STEM – Certain areas of education and work, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, show significant gender imbalances.

• Women earn less than 20% of undergraduate degrees in physics, engineering, and computer science,
  
  • but over 50% of undergraduate degrees in biosciences and social sciences.
• Given how much our brains grow and change throughout our lives in response to the world around us, it is just as likely that observed differences in men’s and women’s brains are actually a result of gender inequality, not a cause
• In Malaysia, computer science is seen as a female-dominated field
• At the high school level, the proportion of boys and girls in science courses is evening out
• Studies have shown that girls express less interest in learning math and science and lower confidence and assessments of their skills, even among high achievers. BUT WHY?
  
  • Answer: Social and cultural influences:
    
    • stereotypes that math = male
    • lack of support or encouragement from family, friends, and teachers
    • lack of role models or mentors
      
      • …have all been shown to contribute to girls’ lower interest in math and science

Question 12

Gender, Work, and Family

Answer 12

GENDER, WORK, and FAMILY –

GENDER WAGE GAP – Why do women earn less than men on average?

• Women earn 19% less than men on average in the US.
• Some of the explanations are that:
  
  • women and men have different levels of education
  • different fields of study
  • occupations are segregated by sex, meaning that men and women are actually doing different kinds of work
  • the work done associated with women is valued less than that associated with men (nurses vs. doctors, or administrative assistant vs. executive)
  • women accept lower salaries and are less likely to negotiate for higher pay
  • women are penalized for being mothers. – MOTHERHOOD PENALTY: Mothers earn less than both men and women without children. mothers make less than nonmothers, while fathers are more likely to benefit from a “daddy bonus”
  • Male-dominated occupations have higher pay on average than female-dominated occupations at similar skill levels.
• MOMMY WARS between working and stay-at-home mothers, or women with high-power, high-paying careers who “opt-out” of the workforce because they want to spend more time with their children.
  
  • Sometimes, the value placed on career success contradicts deeply held beliefs about gender.
    
    • EX: the expectation that women should take care of children and the home.
  • In the United States, 70% of women with children under the age of 18 are in the labor force.
  • African American women have historically had little choice but to integrate work and motherhood out of economic necessity.
  • Black women make 35% less than white men, while black men make 27% less than white men.
• FAMILY WAGE paid to middle-class white men that allowed their wives to stay home was not extended to African American men.
  
  • And African American women were explicitly excluded from government programs supporting widows and single mothers (Glenn, 2002).
  • Based on this history of constraints, women of color have developed ideals of motherhood that do include working outside the home.
• Cultural ideals about work and motherhood, national laws and policies, company practices, and negotiations within individual families all influence what choices are available.
  
  • EX: the United States is one of the only countries in the world that does NOT guarantee paid maternity leave.
    
    • Unlike many other wealthy countries, the United States does NOT offer state-subsidized child care,
    • many women find that they work a “SECOND SHIFT” of domestic work after their paid workday.

Question 13

Glass Escalator

Answer 13

GLASS ESCALATOR– invisible pressure foor MEN to move up in professions dominated by women.

• EX: Nursing

GENDERED RACISM – racism specific to gender.

• EX: Racial stereotypes, images, and beliefs in gendered ideals, caused the mostly white colleagues of black male nurses to perceive them as dangerous and threatening in a way white male nurses did not encounter.
• EX: ​while patients often mistake white male nurses for doctors, a black male nurse is more likely to find himself mistaken for a janitor.
  
  • demonstrates the importance of an intersectional approach to the examination of gender—that is, an approach that takes into consideration the many identities we occupy that overlap with gender and interact in complex ways.

Question 14

Gender Inequality in Global Perspective

Answer 14

How does the United States stack up to the rest of the world when it comes to women’s education, employment, and health?

• The United States ranked 43rd out of 188 countries.
  
  • Women in the US experience very high maternal mortality rates and hold a low proportion of elected offices compared to similar countries.
  • women and girls perform much more unpaid labor, like child care and cleaning.
• Around the world, women live longer than men but are also sicker.
  
  • The United States, average life expectancy is 81.6 years for women and 76.9 years for men.
  • Canada it is 84.1 years for women and 80.2 for men.
  • Nigeria, women’s life expectancy is 55.6 years and men’s is 53.4 years.
• 35% of women worldwide have experienced sexual or intimate partner violence.

Question 15

Structural Functionalism - Gender Inequality

Answer 15

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM – emphasizes the relatively smooth functioning of society – Gender exists internally to individuals as a set of norms and expectations. I.e. gender is NOT a Social construction.

• Gender is defined by Family
• The metaphor of society as an organism and each of its social institutions as an organ in a body.

SEX-ROLE THEORY – assumes that different sex roles for women and men are functional for society.

• SOCIAL ROLE, a set of expectations attached to a particular status or position, such as white or black, man or woman, gay or straight.
• SEX ROLE is a set of expectations attached to a particular sex category.
  
  • ​Functionalist sociologists such as Talcott Parsons have explained these differences in terms of instrumental versus expressive roles (Parsons & Bales, 1955).
    
    • INSTRUMENTAL – or goal- and task-oriented.
      
      • Men are taught to be Instrumental.
    • EXPRESSIVE – oriented toward their interactions with other people.
      
      • Women are taught to be Expressive.
• Functional Theorists see this division of labor as functional for society because women who work outside the home and men who want to stay home and take care of their children create dysfunction for society.

GENDER INEQUALITY INDEX is calculated based on three dimensions:

• Reproductive Health
• Empowerment
• Labor Market

And five indicators:

• Maternal mortality
• Adolescent fertility
• Parliamentary representation
• Educational attainment
• Labor force participation

Policy Implications of Structural Functionalism – Sex role theory presumes that a functional family unit is one that consists of a man who fulfills an instrumental role and a woman who occupies an expressive role.

• Policies encourage the centrality of the nuclear family—husband, wife, and children
• Policies that promote the “nuclear family” are Structural Functionalist.
  
  • ​According to a Structural Functionalist – a family unit composed of a male provider, a female caregiver, and their children is the most beneficial for society.

Question 16

Symbolic Interactionism -Gender Inequality

Answer 16

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM – (micro-level) – It looks at the details of social interaction and group life rather than at the big picture of how larger structures in society fit together.

• Sees Gender is an INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE – where we are each playing our part in our gender roles.
• In the world of symbolic interactionism, everything is a symbol, including the way you wear your hair, the way you sit, your facial expressions, the words you choose, and your inflection, as well as whether you look at me or not while you speak – all of these elements come together as part of society’s depiction of one gender role or another.
  
  • Crucial to understanding social life from a symbolic interactionist perspective is understanding the meanings we give to all these things
    
    • ​EX: If you wear your hair long or short, there is a meaning associated with that.
• Says Gender roles are the result of Social Construction.

DOING GENDER THEORY – claims gender is a performance created and reinforced through individuals’ interactions.

• Doing Gender Theory’s key insights is that it is our constant performance of gender that leads us to believe that gender has some deeper underlying reality.
  
  • From this perspective, sex and gender consist only of our performances.
    
    • The Perceived Differences Are Not Real
• Says that gender is not a set of internalized norms for behavior, as suggested by sex role theory. Rather, gender is an interactive performance we are all constantly staging, playing our parts as one gender or another, through our interactions with others.
• ETHNOMETHODOLOGY – the study of folkways and the meaning and operation of what at first appear to be very mundane and taken-for-granted aspects of social life
  
  • A sociological approach that seeks to uncover the taken-for-granted assumptions that lie behind the basic stuff of social life and interaction.
• ACCOUNTABILITY: relates to Doing Gender Theory refers to whether the audience for our performance understands our actions as we have intended for them to be understood
• Policy Implications of Symbolic Interactionism – argue that gender inequality becomes part of our performances of gender, largely through ALLOCATION – the way decisions get made about who does what, who gets what.
  
  • ​In other words, society determines the meaning of the symbols that make up the definition of Gender and that also assigns each gender levels of resources and respect.
    
    • EX: Doing Gender Perspective assumes a widespread and deeply held belief in our society that women are both different from and inferior to men.
• This shapes the way in which women are held accountable for gender, especially when it comes to allocation and even in something as simple as a routine conversation.
  
  • EX: Two people in conversation usually change topics collaboratively, but sometimes one person does it alone – usually men who ‘accomplish gender’ in conversation by changing the topic, producing a ‘performance’ of masculinity by controlling the conversation.
    
    • from the doing gender perspective, this is an issue of allocation, controlling what two people will talk about.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

• Though doing gender theory emphasizes the importance of social interaction to the construction of gender, the best solution to solve gender inequality from this theoretical perspective is to target the level of organizations and institutions.
  
  • This is because if one person decides not to perform his or her gender role, then they don’t usually call into question the validity of society’s (i.e. the larger institutional) definition of gender. Instead, they see the individual as flawed because they’re “not acting” like their societally defined gender.
    
    • EX: If as a woman I stop performing an accountable version of femininity, most people will assume something is wrong with me, not with the way gender is structured in my society.
• Doing gender theory suggests that organizations and institutions should restructure in ways that put less pressure on women and men to perform gender.

Question 17

Conflict Theory – Gender Inequality

Answer 17

CONFLICT THEORY and GENDER INEQUALITY – Conflict theory draws our attention to the importance of struggles over power and resources in society – Sees Women as an oppressed social class.

• SOCIAL FEMINIST – see “Women” as an oppressed social class. GENDER INEQUALITY, however, is different from SOCIAL CLASS INEQUALITY in that almost all women live intimately with their oppressors at the SAME level of Social Class.
• The United States has a high level of social class segregation;
• most people live, work, and socialize with people in their own social class.
• Social class segregation creates social inequality by concentrating resources geographically
• Even if women are socially segregated within their own households, (as happens in some countries, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia), they still live with their male relatives. So though socialist feminists may argue that women are an oppressed social class, they are a unique kind of social class.

RADICAL FEMINISM – borrows from conflict theory the central idea of groups in conflict over power and resources – see PATRIARCHY, or male dominance, as the root of the problem.

• Patriarchal societies are designed in ways that quite explicitly favor men over women.
• patriarchal societies are characterized by ANDROCENTRISM, the belief that masculinity and what men do are superior to femininity and what women do.

LIBERAL FEMINISM – gender inequality is rooted in the ways institutions such as government treat men and women.

• When these institutions limit women’s opportunities to compete with men in economic and political arenas, they create inequality.

Policy Implications of Conflict Theory –

• Liberal Feminist Perspective, the best way to reduce gender inequality is to reduce the barriers that stand in the way of women’s advancement.
• Radical Feminist Perspective gender inequality is explained by the prevalence of patriarchy as a defining characteristic of society. Thus merely changing a few laws here and there will not rid us of gender inequality. Instead, any effort to reduce gender inequality must involve a fairly radical restructuring of society—not just government but also educational institutions, religious institutions, the family, the media, work, and so on.
• Consciousness-Raising is a process intended to help women see the connections between their personal experiences with gender exploitation and the larger structure and politics of society.
  
  • EX: People must understand that sexual harassment is a fundamental and inevitable product of a patriarchal society.
  • Consciousness-raising is at the core of the popular feminist slogan “The personal is political.”
• laws against sexual harassment and legislation aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence are part of the legacy of radical feminist organizing.
  
  • Radical feminists argued that because gender permeates all aspects of society, including the family, what happens inside the family home has very important public implications.

Question 18

Queer Theory: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Gender

Answer 18

QUEER THEORY – Distrusts ALL categories of identity and METANARRATIVES and is now a movement targeted toward more than gay rights.

• METANARRATIVE – any attempt at a comprehensive and universal explanation of some phenomenon.
  • The problem with metanarratives is that they inevitably leave some people at the margins or attempt to force their experiences into the grand story being told.
  • Metanarratives as claims to knowledge have power implications for those who don’t fit.
    
    • EX: If I define what it means to be a man in a certain way and you don’t fit that definition, you’re not as likely to receive the privileges that go along with being defined as a man.
• Draws on both the social constructionist aspect of doing gender theory and the society-wide approach of radical feminism
• ​CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING – A radical feminist social movement technique designed to help women make connections between the personal and the political in their lives. “The Personal is Political”.

Three basic features of queer theory:

1. Queer theory is distrustful of categories.
   
   • Uses the term “Queer” (despite its derogatory background) as a way to disrupt conceptions of what is normal.
2. Suggests that everyone can be, and in fact already is, queer.
   
   • In other words, none of us fit in precisely to the categories defined by society.
   • Think of these identity categories as always open and fluid.
   • The ways categories of gender and sexuality are constructed affect all of us, regardless of where we fall within those categories.
3. Attempts to “queer” many features of academic and social life that are generally considered within the bounds of normality.
   
   • Not just a theory of gender and sexuality, but also a broad and far-reaching social theory
   • Queer theory is just as concerned with studying heterosexuality as it is with studying homosexuality, and with investigating how sexual practices permeate all aspects of society.

• Queer Studies, the object of study is society itself, not just sexuality.