Chapter 8 - Gender

Question 1

Feminism

Answer 1

A consciousness-raising movement to get people to understand that gender is an organizing principle of life. The underlying belief is that women and men should be accorded equal opportunities and respect.

Question 2

Sex

Answer 2

The biological differences that distinguish makes from females.

Question 3

Sexuality

Answer 3

Desire, sexual preference, sexual identity, and behavior.

Question 4

Gender

Answer 4

A social position, the set of social arrangements that are built around normative sex categories.

Question 5

Essentialism

Answer 5

A line of thought that explains social phenomena in terms of natural ones.

Question 6

Biological determinism

Answer 6

A line of thought that explain social behavior in terms of who you are in the natural world.

Question 7

Hegemonic masculinity

Answer 7

The condition in which men are dominant and privileged, and the dominance and privilege is invisible.

Question 8

Gender roles

Answer 8

Sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one’s status as a male or female.

Question 9

Patriarchy

Answer 9

A nearly universal system involving the subordination of femininity to masculinity.

Question 10

Structural functionalism

Answer 10

Theoretical tradition claiming that every society has certain structures (the family, the division of labor, or gender) that exist in order to fulfill some set of necessary functions (reproduction of the species, production of goods, etc.)

Question 11

Sex role theory

Answer 11

Talcott Parsons’s theory that men and women perform their sex roles as breadwinners and wives/mothers, respectively, because the nuclear family is the ideal arrangement in modern societies, fulfilling the function of reproducing workers.