Exam 1 Cheat Sheet

Question 1

Biosocial Approach

Answer 1

Position on Sexual Dimorphism:
- There are two biologically discrete types of people, male and female:
- Sexual dimorphism is true

View of relationship between sex and gender:
- Sex partially produces gender and sets real limits on the expression of gender.

Stance on intersex and transgender:
- Aberrations must be fit into a dimorphic system.

Question 2

Strong Social Constructionist Approach

Answer 2

Position on Sexual Dimorphism:
- There are not two distinct types of people.
- Dimorphism is a claim but not the truth.

View of relationship between sex and gender:
- Gender produces sex; our ideas about gender shape how we make sense of biological reality.

Stance on intersex and transgender:
-Evidence demonstrates that the dimorphic system does not accurately describe realty where sex and gender are concerned.

Question 3

Theory: Sex roles

Answer 3

Level: Individual
Gender-Specific Theory: No

Question 4

Theory: Status characteristics

Answer 4

Level: Interactional
Gender-Specific Theory: No

Question 5

Theory: Doing gender

Answer 5

Level: Interactional
Gender-Specific Theory: Yes

Question 6

Theory: Gendered organizations

Answer 6

Level: Institutional
Gender-Specific Theory: yes

Question 7

Theory: Social networks and homophily

Answer 7

Level: Institutional
Gender-Specific Theory: Yes

Question 8

Theory: Intersectional

Answer 8

Level: Integrative
Gender-Specific Theory: No

Question 9

Theory: Hegemonic masculinity

Answer 9

Level: Integrative
Gender-Specific Theory: Yes

Question 10

Five interrelated processes of gendered organizations theory

Answer 10

• Gendered organizations create divisions along gender lines whether in physical location, power, or behaviors.
• Gendered organization construct symbols or images that can support or oppose these divisions.
• Gendered organizations produce types of interactions that reinforce these divisions and inequality.
• Gendered organizations have an impact on individual identity.
• Gendered organizations both create and reinforce gender in social structures through organizational logic.

Question 11

Liberal Feminism:

Answer 11

• Liberal feminism maintains that gender equality can be achieved through equal civil rights and equal opportunities.
• Inequality between men and women is rooted in institutional differences and the way in the way government treats men and women. Removing barriers to competition will foster equality.
• Influenced first and second wave feminist movement (suffrage and women’s liberation movement).
• Believe in master frame of equal rights.
• More interested in social reforms and achieving equality through social
  liberalism. Interested in reform as an end in itself, not as a stage in the progression towards revolutionary transformation (hooks).

Question 12

Radical Feminism:

Answer 12

• Radical feminism contends that patriarchy is the reason for women’s oppression.
• Believes that fundamental changes to the basic structure of society are needed to achieve gender equality.
• Women and men are fundamentally different. Gender is tool for distributing power and resources.
• Radical feminism attempts to eradicate domination and transform society.
• Critique of liberal feminism is that liberal feminists believe that women can achieve equality with men of their class without challenging and changing the cultural basis of group oppression.
• Interested in challenging the politic of domination through consciousness-raising:
  i. Helps women see the connections between their personal experiences with gender exploitation and a larger sense of the politics and structure of society.

Question 13

Intersectional Feminism:

Answer 13

• Grew out of criticism of separating gender from other statuses.
• Gender does not operate in isolation; rather, gender is linked to race, class, sexual orientation, etc. (i.e., matrix of domination).
• Expectations and practices vary across these categories.
• An individual can be oppressed and privileged

Question 14

Three key features of Queer Theory

Answer 14

• Queer theory is distrustful of categories like sex, gender, and race, pointing to how the categories are always incomplete and can never fully contain the diversity contained within any given category.
• Queer theory suggests that everyone can be queer and that everyone may already be queer because the gender system lets everyone down at some point.
• Queer theory seeks to “queer”, or make strange, all features of social life that are generally considered within the bounds of normality to demonstrate that everything is queer.

Question 15

1. “Gender Outlaws” (Bornstein 1995)
   a. We use physical, behavioral, textual (names), sexual orientation cues to dictate
   gender.
   b. Gender assignment
   c. Gender identity
   d. Gender roles
   e. Gender attribution
2. Postmodernist/postconstructivist influences on queer theory
3. Jagose (from the book Queer Theory 1996), “the political and academic appropriation of
   the term queer over the last several years has marked a shift in the study of sexuality from a focus on supposedly essential categories as gay and lesbian to more fluid or queer notions of sexual identity.”

Question 16

Social Learning Theory:
Gender Specific: No

Answer 16

Overview: We learn behavior through a process of rewards and punishments, Latent learning can take place as a result of the way children tend to imitate those around them, regardless of whether they will be rewarded for that imitation.

Gender Socialization: Rewarding children for engaging in sex- typed behavior consistent with their assigned sex category. Example: crying.

Question 17

Cognitive Development Theory:
Gender Specific: No

Answer 17

Overview: Contradicted social learning theory by emphasizing children’s active role in their own socialization rather than considering them to be passive recipients of socialization. Emphasis on stages of children’s cognitive development.

Gender Socialization: Learn to gender- type, or sex-type, to identify behaviors perceived as appropriate for one sex or gender but not the other. Final stage is gender congruency.

Question 18

Gender Schema Theory:
Gender Specific: Yes

Answer 18

Overview: A schema is a cognitive structure and network of associations that helps to organize an individual’s perception of the world. We assimilate our self-concept.

Gender Socialization: Androcentrism, or the belief that masculinity and what men do in our culture is superior to femininity and what women do. Gender polarization is the way in which behaviors and attitudes viewed as appropriate for men are viewed as inappropriate for women and vice versa. It creates two mutually exclusive scripts.

Question 19

Psychoanalytic Theory:
Gender Specific: Yes

Answer 19

Overview: Socialization is a process, first it occurs in the individual but also the same process socialization re- creates itself across generations. Learn to identify with parent (and people) of same gender. Uses terms like “ego” and” ego boundary.”

Gender Socialization: Women’s morality is structured by the fact that they experience less of a sense of separation between themselves and others in their environment (Carol Gilligan 19820). Psychoanalytic theory reverses the tendency of Freudian theory to normalize masculinity while problematizing femininity.