Final (Until April 28th) Flashcards
Define sex
A biological identity that is based on physical or biological differences and that can be divided into the main categories of male and female.
*based on perceived physical differences
Define gender
A social concept that includes all social patterns associated with being male or female and that ranges from masculine to feminine.
**based on differences that are social and cultural, not biological.
What is meant by “Two-Spirited” people, according to Indigenous people?
people who have both a masculine and feminine spirit.
What does the term: transgender (or trans) umbrella mean?
A term used to encompass the variety of different sexual expressions in modern society.
What are “middle-sex categories”?
The existence of middle-sex categories challenges the male/female binary.
Ex. - “Two-Spirited” people in some Indigenous groups who have both a masculine and feminine spirit.
- Some other societies also have three genders—men, women, and a third group that is variously named.
What are gender roles?
The behaviours and mannerisms that people learn as being appropriate to their respective genders and that are reinforced by cultural norms.
Define the term performativity. Who coined it?
Judith Butler coined it.
A term to describe the repeated rituals that create and sustain gender through performance.
Butler is essentially arguing that we create gender through our ACTIONS and INTERACTIONS.
What are some general claims from Judith Butler?
- that labelling a person as male or female is overly restrictive
- that the accepted and “natural” binary composition of two sexes (the only options being male or female) encourages us to see other dichotomies in categorizing people.
What does the term “costs of masculinity” mean? Who came up with it?
Michael Messner coined this.
The concept that there are rules to masculinity and what men can be and do.
For example:
- masculinity is defined by external success
- men must avoid everything feminine
- expected to be aggressive and show little emotion.
What major institution do we learn to perform gender?
In the education system
Education is highly gendered. For example, we see this:
- through the curriculum
- in the ways that male and female students are differentially streamed and rewarded
- the employment and income results of our degrees.
What does Jessica Streeter argue about gender?
That what we drink reinforces gender norms and practices.
She also claims that women are offered light styles of beer compared to men being offered more “complex” beer.
Takeaways from Michela Musto’s reading on how education influences gender
MAIN TAKEAWAY = that educators’ differential enforcement of school rules by course level contributed to gender-based differences in students’ perceptions of intelligence.
- School processes associate wealthy White boys with exceptionalism, thereby reproducing social inequalities in early adolescence.
^^ brings race and class into question - Teachers are often quicker to discipline girls than boys for running, talking loudly, interrupting, and violating dress codes –> therefore encourages students to dress, speak, and move in differently gendered ways.
- As boys’ behaviour at play is usually unaddressed, playing has an important role in confirming beliefs that boys are inherently stronger, louder, and more authoritative than girls.
In Musto’s study, what did she notice between high-level and lower-level courses in terms of the perceptions of who is smarter in those courses?
- In higher-level courses: students came to perceive boys as exceptionally intelligent
- In lower-level courses: students came to perceive girls as smarter than boys, but not as exceptional. (perceptions were also RACIALIZED with perceiving white students as smarter)
Define feminism in general
The various movements and ideologies that seek to define, confirm, and protect equal political, economic, and social rights for women.
Feminism is sometimes understood as occurring over three waves of activism.
What does feminist theory focus on?
how gender inequality comes about in society and how men and women’s gender roles are created and recreated in society.
What are the 3 waves of feminism?
1st WAVE:
- began in the 19th century mostly countries such as Canada, the US, and the UK
- Was focused on “de jure inequalities” = inequalities that are part of the legal and political system
- EX. for women’s rights to vote & hold property
2nd WAVE:
- began in the US in the early 1960s and spread throughout Europe and Canada.
- this wave broadened the movement beyond legal rights and sought change on a wide range of issues (equality in the workplace and reproductive rights)
- women expanded into new professions like media, sports and military.
- Concerned with violence against women (sexual violence and spousal abuse)
- Successful at making these issues mainstream, getting marital rape laws passed, and establishing rape crisis centres and shelters for women who had been victims of abuse.
3rd WAVE:
- began in the early 1990s and continues to the present day
- Arose as a critique to the previous wave, and this time included a more diverse group of women.
- Many felt that the 2nd wave was controlled by a small group of white middle-class women and that it did not represent the diverse experiences of women from different racial, ethnic, religious, class, and sexual groups
- Moved away from political rights, instead focuses in cultural arenas (ex. challenging gender depictions in the media, sexist language, etc.)
What is liberal feminism?
These feminists argued that discriminatory beliefs limited women’s ability to work outside of the home or to acquire education.
They challenged these types of beliefs specifically in politics and the law –> right to vote, laws to prevent sexual harassment in workplace.
LIBERAL FEMINISTS WORK TO CHANGE THE EXISTING INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEMS TO PROMOTE EQUALITY FOR THE SEXES
What are radical feminists?
They viewed current social institutions as so flawed that they COULD NOT BE REFORMED and, instead, should be ELIMINATED.
They specifically targeted the institutions of the family and church and ideologies that support traditional understandings of sexuality and reproduction.
^^ Ex. they want to decouple sex from marriage (specifically between a man and a woman) and challenge restrictive norms around sexual behaviour.
What are Marxist-socialist feminists?
they question BOTH liberal and radical feminism.
They believe that women cannot experience true liberation in existing institutions (liberal feminism) or through changes in cultural understandings of sex and sexuality alone (radical feminism).
According to Marxist-socialist feminism, the main obstacle for woman’s rights is a CLASS-BASED SOCIETY where the powerful few absorb the wealth created by the many.
CLAIM THAT IT IS CAPITALISM THAT PREVENTS WOMAN’S LIBERATION AND OVERTHROWING CAPITALISM IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.
Liberal, radical and Marxist-socialist feminism have all been critiqued for portraying an image of ____________________.
UNIVERSAL WOMANHOOD
Because not all woman are the same!
Intersectional feminism comes into play that recognizes the different experiences of woman and their rights (characterises the 3rd wave movement)
Who coined the term intersectionality? Describe it.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the term in 1989
the study of how various dimensions of inequality can combine.
Along with most other classical theorists, ____________ has been criticized for being “gender blind”
Karl Marx.
From Marx’s perspective, working-class men and women are both EQUALLY victimized by capitalists and the capitalist system that exploits their labour
^^when of course woman would have very different experiences.
Women (as mothers and wives) keep all family earners (men) and earners-to-be (children) healthy and cared for. They do so at no cost to the capitalist, who later benefits from the surplus value the workers produce.
WOMAN ARE EXPLOITED AT WORK AND AT HOME BY CAPITALISM.
In what ways are sports highly gendered?
- language used in sports is gendered (ex. defencemen or “he throws like a girl.”)
- There are very little top earning athletes in the world (only 2 women on the top 100 sports earner list 2020)
- vast gender inequality even within the same sport in terms of pay
- sports media are still dominated by coverage of male sports
In what ways is the workplace highly gendered?
- gender wage gap (the biggest reason for this is because women tend to work in the 5 C’s, aka lower paying “motherly” jobs)
^^ Ex. construction jobs (more often performed by men) pay better than sales jobs (more often performed by women).