Gender and sex

Question 1

Explain the theory of essentialism

Answer 1

• A thing must have its core assets in order to be a thing
• At its core is a set of attributes or attribute make an object or substance what it fundamentally is)
• The notion that there are certain attribtues that a man or woman must innately have that makes them a man or woman such as that men are naturally more competitive and agressive whereas women are more caring, nuturing and emotional
• It stems on the idea of naturality, that these qualities are naturally possessed
• Identity becomes fixed, immutable, this can exclude or label abnormal that don’t match that view, who don’t have those essential attributes or don’t display the necessary ones, so to be transgender or intersex would to be abnormal or ill
• not necessarily based on social conditioning, but naturally how things are, naturally because women are more nurturing they are more suited to domestic duties and because men are more competitive to the social world

Question 2

Explain the theory of social constructivism

Answer 2

• Argues that gener is a socially constructed category that seeks to structrue and order social life
• It rejects essentialism that gender and gender roles are instinctively natural but rather socially constructed, nothing is fixed in nature but rather evolves with the changes of society
• There is a socialised compliance with gender norms rather than a natural manifestation of them
• Gender may include your biological sex but it also might not
• Gender markers (such as one’s name, clothing and toys) socialise us into our expected gender roles, society treats us according to what they think we are, as a result they have different expectations of their behaviours

Question 3

Explain the difference between the public and private spheres

Answer 3

• Private spheres consist of what happens in your intimate micro environment in your home whereas public spheres consist of instiutions in broader society such as healthcare and education
• To enter a private sphere one must be specifically invited (state not welcome) whereas public spheres are accessible to all (state has a powerful right to participate)
• The distinction between the two can be real, metaphysical and relational. Real such as Parliament house compared to your home, metaphorical opnions and ideas v personal discussion and relational citizen and politican v mother and child
• the law is always present everywhere, however historically it has been seen as uncomfortable for the law to be present in the private sphere and for law enforcement to interfer in domestic disputes, however, now it is seen as an in issue/crime against the state
• there is a tension between rights to privacy and freedom from state interference and the implications of safety of women
• our laws are designed to function and work in the public sphere so it is a challenge to get them into the private sphere
• Rule of thumb: State v Rhodes, husband was found innocent on beating his wife because he had the right to whip her with a stick no larger than his thumb
• Marriage involves a right of privacy and the government cannot legislate on such matters, as was established by Griswold v Connecticut 1965

Question 4

Key stats on the dominance of men

Answer 4

• 2007 82.5% of the world’s parliamentarians were men
• 5/200 CEOs of the top businesses listed on the Aus stock exchange were women
• 10/500 CEOs of international corporations listed in Fortune magazines ‘Global 500’ were women
• Women consist of 2% of the top business leadership around the world, in other words men compose 98% of that leadership
• Mid-2007 US there was a prison population of $1.59 million of which 92.8% were men
• there has never been a female head of government in Russia, China, US, France, Japan etc. and only one in Aus, Germany, India and Indonesia
• Every Secretary-General of the UN and every head of the World Bank has been a man

Question 5

Explain men’s homosocial groups in perpetuating masculinity

Answer 5

• men collectively reproduce patriarchal relations, they validate and permit other men into the realm of manhood
• closely linked to hegemonic masculinity
• the heterosexual achievement of picking up women is seen as a form of masculine currrency, sexting images become a visual representation of one’s success, it is the ultimate validation of one’s social status

Question 6

Explain men’s homosocial groups in declining homophobia

Answer 6

• Anderson concludes that homosocial groups can create a decline in cultural homophobia and homohysteria wherein men are freer than ever to express emotional intimacy adn physical expressions of that relationship with one another (this is derived from Anderson’s inclsuive masculinity theory)
• Emerging is the notion of bromance, more than heterosexual boundary blurring but also a relationship in which individuals have the liberty to express fear, weakness, uncertainity or affection for other men

Question 7

Explain the notion of panoptic and this in relation to self-policing

Answer 7

• Panoptic view is the idea that every individual is being watched by society, it enforces the notion of self-surveillance because one doesn’t know necessarily if they are being watched or not and so they behave as if they are always being watched
• French philospher Michel Foucault encapsulates the notion of the panoptic, in a patriarchal society, a panoptical male resides within the consciousness of most women, they stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgement
• Jeremy Bentham’s design for panopticon is a model prison which has a circular structure at the center where each inmate feels as if they are always being watched, it is to induce a state of conscious and permenant visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power, each becomes his own jailer –> introduces the notion of self-policing
• there is a perpetual self-surveillance

Question 8

Explain what docile bodies are

Answer 8

• Individuals that have been subjected to and conformed to the norms, this isn’t necessarily a negative concept but it just aligns with social roles and behaviours such as in the environment of a classroom, students are docile bodies because they are under the authority of the teacher and therefore have to act accordingly
• It links to agency and social structures, someone who is under control/authority
• Self-policing puts one into a category of docile bodies
• Also note that just because one benefits from a structure doesn’t mean that they aren’t docile
• The production of docile bodies requries an uniterrupted coercion to be directed to the very processes of bodily activity

Question 9

Outline the difference between sex and gender

Answer 9

• Sex refers to the biological and physiological characterisitcs that define men and women
• Gender however refers to the roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women, it is more so an expression or presentation of oneself
• Sex: male and female
• Gender: masculine and feminine
• Gender must be understood as a social structure, not an expression of biology or a fixed dichotomy in human life, it is a pattern of our social arrangements and in the everyday activities or practices which those arrangements govern

Question 10

List the key authors/figures

Answer 10

• Jeremy Bentham: designer of the Panopticon model prison
• Michel Foucault: introduced the notion of docile bodies and the panoptic institution that creates perpetual self-surviellance
• Sandra Lee Bartky: Foucault, Femininity and the modernisation of patriarchal power
• Roberts, Ravn, Maloney and Ralph: navigating the tensions of normative masculinity: homosocial dynamics in Australian Young Men’s Discussions fo Sexting Practices

Question 11

Explain the relevance of patriarchy and inequalities

Answer 11

• Gender is a major stratification of how resources, freedoms and status are distributed
• Genders are unequal, globally and generally we live in a patriarchal society where women are often disadvantaged