Chapter 7 - Gender & Sexuality Flashcards
Where can gender and sexuality be seen at work?
Education, sexual violence, work, family, and in the body
What are sociological perspective on gender and sexuality?
- Question the social assumptions underlying configurations of gender and sexuality
- consider gender and sexuality as structures and experiences
Prior to Smith and other feminist sociologist developing ways to including centre women’s experiences in sociology, Sociology was considered a ____________ discipline
Heterocentric
What does a vantage point enable us to see?
Ourselves, the social institutions around us, and our social world in Waze it include more experiences. It provides an angle to critique the status quo
What characteristics refer to the organs used for reproductions, namely the genitals?
Primary sex characteristics
What characteristics are bodily differences, apart from the genitals, distinguish biologically mature males and females?
Secondary sex characteristics
Why is sexuality very much a cultural and social issue?
Almost any sexual practice shows considerable variation from one society to another
What is the term for some combination of male and female genitals?
Intersexed people
What are individuals who feel being a different sex from their biological sex?
Transsexuals
What critical vantage point challenges fixed notions about human sexuality?
Sexuality
How does the queer theory provide another critical vantage point for challenging fixed notion’s about human sexuality?
draws on the notion “queer” to reclaim a slur and emphasize sexual diversity
The idea of homosexuality as a strategically situated marginal position that provide a new insight into relations of self and others is derived from?
Michael Foucault
What has gender as a vantage point done to expand the sociological study of gender and sexuality?
Development of studies of men in masculinity’s, and gender as a focus of critique underpin studies of racialized understanding of gender and sexuality
What has sexuality as a critical vantage point to challenge the fixed notions about human sexuality found?
Considers sexuality as linked to cultural, economic, political, legal, moral, and ethical phenomena and challenges social construction of sex and sexuality, control of women’s bodies and reproduction, objectification of women
What is the social enactment of how you perceive your sexual identity?
Gender
What refers to biologically base differences, primarily related to chromosomes and reproductive functions?
Sex
Why did sociology challenge ideas about sexuality, sexual identity and orientation?
They were dichotomous (two branches)
What does sociology believe the gender and sexuality should instead be understood as?
Social constructs
- meaning attributed to sexuality, qualities associated with being male or female or created by the way societies organized around gender identities
What two things enforce traditional gender ideologies and practices?
Sexism and homophobia
What is the subordination of one sex, usually female, and the perceived superiority of the other?
Sexism
What refers to a persons preference in terms of sexual partners?
Sexual orientations
What is sexual attraction to the same sex?
Homosexual orientation
What is sexual attraction to both sexes?
Bisexual orientation
What is no sexual attraction to either sex?
Asexual orientation
What is an irrational fear of homosexuality, and an irrational disapproval, In response to differences from the norm?
Homophobia
What is a reason the individuals tend to conform to prescribe gender and sexual norms?
To avoid social sanctions
How to current trends allow for more dynamic relationship between sexual orientation, gender expression, and the gendered/sexed body?
There’s a greater range of challenged and accepted behaviours
What are two general positions on what gives us sexual orientation?
A product of society
- This approach argues that people in any society construct a side of meanings the lots that makes sense of sexuality
a product of biology
- Some studies suggest differences in the size of the hypothalamus and genetics are related to sexual orientation
What theory explains why some promote acceptance and advocacy while other discourage or punish differences in sexual orientation?
Labelling theory
What is one’s personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being male or female?
Gender
What is the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women?
Gender Stratification
What is the problem with labelling anything as being masculine or feminine?
Labelling generally tends to polarize activities, thus polarizing people and their preferences
What do sociologists argue about the construction of gender and sexuality?
It can be reconstructed and changed
In what society is gender considered irrelevant?
Israeli Kibbutzim
What did Margaret Mead find in her research about gender and sexuality?
Men and women behaved very differently in different societies
In the 3 New Guinea societies, what did Mead’s research find?
1) both sexes are feminine
2) both sexes are masculine
3) gender roles are reversible
Which sociologist concluded that gender is determined by culture?
Margaret Mead
Which sociologist’s research found that in most pre-industrial societies:
1) hunting and warfare fall to men
2) domestic duties to women
But beyond this pattern societies show variation in tasks
George Murdock
What is a form of social organization in which males dominate females?
Patriarchy
What is a form of social organization in which females dominate males, although none of these societies have never been known to exist?
Matriarchy
How does language and power influence views of gender and sexuality?
Men have exercised ownership over women and the pronoun “she” is used when describing their possessions
What are words that have been found to have gender biases?
Hysterical - hyster means uterus
Lunatic - Luna means moon
What is the unfair discrimination on the basis of sex, or the belief that one sex is innately superior?
Sexism
What are consequences of sexism for men and women?
Men: need to prove masculinity, expected to be strong and in control
Women: beauty myth, violence against women, lower self-esteem, feminization of poverty
Who found that sexual domination of women is the cornerstone of gender hegemony?
Schippers
Who is the author of gender hegemony?
A Ukrainian researcher
What involves the relation of domination between hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity?
Gender hegemony
What idea considers women’s multiple identities and location in multiple structures of gender and sexuality as well as disability, class and race?
Intersectionality
Which idea has drawn attention to multiple forms of inequality in which gender is embedded?
Intersectionality
How do women’s groups and feminist challenge sexual violence?
Through activism
What have recent issues such as sexual assault on campuses been related to?
Misogynistic (hatred of women) attitudes and practices
How do peer groups reinforce gender differences?
Boys and girls play different kinds of games and learn different styles of moral reasoning from games
What attitudes do male team sports enforce?
Competition, aggression and control, leading to competitive life in business
What attitudes do female peer groups enforce?
Communication through social activities leading to family life
How do curricula in schools reinforce a culture’s gender roles?
Curricula created for left-brain thinkers, teachers tend to praise, punish and give more feedback to boys
How does gender inequality shape experiences at work?
Gender segregation in university leads to gender-segregated jobs, women earn less than men, glass ceiling
In the workplace, what do customs and practices comprise concerning gender and sexuality?
Organizational sexuality (explicit and culturally elaborated rules of behavior to regulate sexual identities at work)
Why do gender divisions domestic labor reflect and reproduce gender inequality?
There’s a gender imbalance in family-based care work, and it comes at personal cost for women. Not taking care for others has negative effects for men
What has been found about the way parents tend to treat male and female children?
They treat them differently from birth
Why are female embryos at risk in highly patriarchal societies?
They want males for children, so females are aborted or killed shortly after birth
What have sociologists found about unpaid household work recently?
Growing number of men using parental leave
What is the influence of mass media on gender and sexuality?
Media, especially television, reinforces a culture’s gender roles
- males are independent and adventurous
- females are dependent and needy
How does advertising effect culture’s gender roles?
Stereotypes are created and reinforced
