Gender and sexuality

Question 1

o A biological concept focusing on anatomic, genetic and hormonal differences between humans
o Perceived physical differences have resulted in the arbitrary division of humans into two categories:
Binary, mutually exclusive, and opposite groups

Answer 1

Sex

Question 2

o The cultural beliefs, assumptions, and structures around biological sex

o Gender is a social concept referring to the entire array of social patterns, behaviours, and beliefs categorizing men and women (male and female).

Answer 2

Gender

Question 3

o Learned patterns of behaviour that a society expects of men and women
o Masculinity – sets of traits culturally associated with men
o Femininity – sets of traits culturally associated with women
o We learn how to be masculine or feminine and that we should be masculine or feminine

Answer 3

Gender Roles

Question 4

Gender and sex difference mirrors the difference between race and ethnicity.
* Sex and race are based on perceived biological differences.
* Gender and ethnicity are based on social and cultural constructions and distinctions.

British sociologist _____ (b. 1944) was among the first to formally distinguish sex from gender in a sociological way

Answer 4

Ann Oakley

Question 5

o Culturally valued masculine traits
o Strength, assertiveness, aggression, heterosexuality

Answer 5

Hegemonic masculinity

Question 6

o Culturally valued feminine traits
o Attractiveness, caring, supportiveness and availability to men

Answer 6

Emphasized femininity

Question 7

Problematizing the Binary Construction of Sex and Gender

The historical binary construction of sex and gender is questioned by _______ There are many examples of people whose biology of gender question the binary categorization of sex and gender

Answer 7

current theorizing

Question 8

o People born with indistinct genitalia and/or a chromosome combination other than XX or XY

o Cannot be easily categorized as male or female

o Before accurate medical testing, parents often decided on the sex of the child based on the presence of “adequate” male genitalia

o Today, physicians encourage parents to let the child decide when they grow up

Answer 8

Intersex

Question 9

o An umbrella term for people whose gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth

o “Trans” implies that one is in transition
Some trans individuals have no desire to alter their physical bodies while others do
Some individuals prefer to present themselves in a non-gender-specific manner

Answer 9

Transgender

Question 10

o A person whose identity does not prescribe to a particular gender

Answer 10

Non-binary

Question 11

Although it may lead to friction in social interactions, some individuals choose not to adopt a sex-based identity for them or their children.

• ______ refers to this notion of sexual ambiguity, a situation in which it is difficult to tell if a person is male or female.

Learning, understanding, and viewing one another as male and female are social processes.

Answer 11

Androgynous

Question 12

Parents, friends, co-workers, schools, and the media teach us how to perform our gender.

Gender roles are one set of roles that we perform in society, constructed through individuals’ performance in a social situation.

Using _______, the front stage is where we perform expected gender roles, the backstage reveals a different set of expected gender norms.

Answer 12

Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective

Question 13

o A term developed by Judith Butler to capture the idea that gender is created and sustained through interaction with others.

o Labelling individuals as male or female restricts their identity development.

o Pushes us to see gender and sexuality in terms of a continuum.

Answer 13

Performativity

Question 14

Gender socialization begins before birth
* Parents ask doctors to reveal the perceived gender of their baby
* Some have gender reveal parties
Children are given gender specific names, gifts, clothes, and toys Parents interact differently with kids of different genders Household tasks are gendered

Answer 14

Families

Question 15

Gender differences are emphasized
* We are taught that these differences matter
* Gender-specific activities, washrooms, changerooms, gym classes

Answer 15

Education

Question 16

• Boys more likely to receive better instruction in STEM-related courses
• Girls are better supported in art and history courses\
• This gendered focus continues into post-secondary education

Answer 16

Differential classroom treatment and course focus

Question 17

___ are rarely neutral in their depictions of gender
* Clear examples of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity
Advertising is also gendered
* Women are often sexualized and treated as objects
* Men are depicted as strong and capable

Answer 17

Media

Question 18

A set of widespread social beliefs that gender is a binary and that there are “natural” differences between men and women
* i.e. that men are more aggressive, competitive, and rational
* i.e. that women are more passive, supportive, and emotional

Answer 18

The Ideology of Gender

Question 19

o A system of social organization in which men hold power and women are excluded from power
o The ideology of gender justifies patriarchy The father “giving the bride away “or the woman taking her husband’s name are examples of continuing patriarchal ideology Under the colonial Indian Act, “Indian status” was only passed down through male lineage

Answer 19

Patriarchy

Question 20

o Concept developed by Michael Messner
o Refers to how ideas about normal masculinity are harmful to men.
o Men who step outside the norms face a variety of sanctions.
o Men who perform feminine jobs sometimes must deal with their masculinity being questioned.
o Gendered insults and insults about a man’s sexuality might be used to make him feel somehow inferior.

Answer 20

Costs of masculinity

Question 21

o The consequences of socializing men to be unemotional, violent, and sexually aggressive
o Creates harmful attitudes and behaviours
o Affects women through sexual assault and harassment
o Affects men by preventing them from openly expressing emotions, being emotionally supportive, or having meaningful relationships with other men 2

Answer 21

Toxic masculinity

Question 22

see gender differences as natural
They assume that gender differences crate cohesiveness in society
Men play the instrumental role – providing financial stability
Women play the expressive role – bearing and raising children and providing emotional support
Believe that societies with traditional gender roles run more smoothly

Answer 22

Functionalists

Question 23

Sees gender differences as a product of property relations and the class system

Gender inequality linked to the private property system
Industrial revolution forced women into the role of homemakers
Traditional gender roles will change upon the elimination of capitalism

Answer 23

Conflict Theory

Question 24

We learn to embody and perform gender
Gender- appropriate behaviours are rewarded and signs of gender deviance are punished
Gender is something we “do”
Doing gender actively creates differences between gender categories

Answer 24

Symbolic Interactionism

Question 25

_____ argue that gender roles are social constructs
Ideas about the links between gender and sexuality are also culturally constructed The matrix of domination

o Race, ethnicity class and disability intersect with gender making inequality more pronounced

Answer 25

Feminists

Question 26

____ is concerned with equality between men and women.
* Focuses on attaining equality in the political and economic realm through social and cultural change.

Feminist theory focuses on how gender inequality comes about in society and how men and women’s gender roles are created and recreated in society.

Answer 26

Feminism

Question 27

_____ sociologists have carried out much of the critical work on gender theory

____ evolved in a series of “waves,” each distinguished by a different set of objectives

Answer 27

Feminist

Question 28

• Began in the 19th century and was mostly centred in Canada, the US, and the UK.
• Focused on inequalities in the legal and political system in terms of voting rights and rights to own property.

Answer 28

First-wave feminism

Question 29

• Began in the US and spread throughout Europe and Canada.
• Broadened the focus of the movement to include social change beyond political and economic rights.
• Sought change such as equality in the workplace and reproductive rights, and an end to gendered violence.

Answer 29

Second-wave feminism

Question 30

• Developed mostly in the 1990s in response to perceived gaps in a second-wave dominated by white, middle-class women.
• Challenged the essentialist nature of second-wave feminism.
• Seeks change in the cultural arena by challenging gender depictions in the media, for example.
• Still going today.

Answer 30

Third-wave feminism

Question 31

divides the diverse range of feminist theories into the four categories
1. Liberal feminism
2. Essentialist feminism
3. Socialist feminism
4. Postmodern feminism

Answer 31

Beatrice Kachuck

Question 32

Seeks to secure equal rights for women in all phases of public life

• E.g., education, jobs and pay
• It is associated with the fight for pay equity (same salary) for women working in comparable professions as men
• Criticism: reflects mainly the concerns and interests of white, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender Western women
• It is less successful in promoting the interests of women who differ in class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and nationality

Answer 32

Liberal Feminism

Question 33

______ differs by arguing that women and men are essentially different in the way they think

• Men and women have different world views: Men view the world as competition and opposition to others, while women view the world in terms of unity
• Patriarchal society devalues femininity

Answer 33

Essentialist feminism

Question 34

____ three main criticisms of Essentialist Feminism

• It universalizes women, assuming erroneously that all women experience gender alike;
• It confuses natural instincts with strategies that women have devised for coping with the demands of a patriarchal society; and
• It encourages us to see women “as social housekeepers in worlds that men build”

Answer 34

Kachuk

Question 35

Looks at intersections of oppression between class and gender

• Lower and middle/upper-class women have access to different resources and face different struggles

Criticism: “race,” ethnicity, ableism, and sexual orientation get overlooked in the focus on class

Black women in North America face some of the same difficulties of prejudice and stereotyping regardless of class

Answer 35

Socialist Feminism

Question 36

Argues there is no natural basis for identities based on gender, ethnicity, “race” and so on.

• Social-Constructionist perspective
• Opposes essentialist feminism

Answer 36

Postmodernist Feminism

Question 37

Intersectionality is the study of how various dimensions of inequality can combine. Developed by ______ out of her investigations on work and discrimination.

Based on the idea that intersectionality highlights how various dimensions of inequality can intersect with one another.

Answer 37

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

Question 38

Seeing the complicated ways that inequalities intersect is a prime feature of third-wave feminism.

Many factors intersect to shape outcomes for different people.

According to this theory, various statuses interact with each other to create different outcomes.

Answer 38

Intersectionality

Question 39

o The cultural categorization of work (home or public) by gender
o Women have jobs that pay less and have less prestige than jobs assigned to men
o Part of the gender stratification of society that maintains gendered inequalities

Answer 39

Gendered Division of Labour

Question 40

o Job segregation by gender
o Higher paying occupations tend to be male-dominated

Answer 40

Pink ghetto

Question 41

o An invisible barrier that prevents women’s advancement in the labour market

Answer 41

Glass ceiling

Question 42

o Semi-invisible advantages for men in the workplace, especially for men who embody hegemonic masculinity

Answer 42

Glass escalator

Question 43

The social institution of work is highly _____

Over the last 30 years, the participation of women in the labour force has dramatically increased.

This is the result of changing norms about the role of women in the labour market and a greater need for two incomes in families.

Answer 43

Gendered

Question 44

This __________ is coupled with an increase in inequality in terms of:
* What men and women earn
* The types of jobs they have
* The household tasks they do

Answer 44

increased participation

Question 45

There is a gendered wage gap in Canada

In 2020, women earned about 75% of what men earn in the same year Intersectional analysis reveals that the gap is even larger for racialized and disabled women

Answer 45

Workplace in Canada

Question 46

Work is gendered in two main ways:

Answer 46

1. Gender concentration in specific kinds of work
2. Gendered-imbued meaning in the definition of work

Question 47

________ exists in terms of who is employed in certain kinds of work and who is educated for certain kinds of work.

Certain kinds of work are saturated with gendered meaning and terms
* The meaning and terms usually relate to the gendered notion that women are more caring or nurturing.

Answer 47

Gender concentration

Question 48

• When a particular job, profession, or industry becomes dominated by or associated with women.
• A feminized occupation tends to lose prestige, wages, required skill levels, and opportunities for promotion.
• Referred to as “pink collar” jobs.
• E.g., nurses, teachers, secretaries, etc.

Answer 48

The feminization of work

Question 49

o The distribution of household labour is still unequal
o Women do 50% more domestic labour than their male partners

Answer 49

Family and Domestic Inequality

Question 50

Second shift or the double day of labour
* Refers to women who work outside the home for money and inside the home on unpaid, domestic tasks.

*______(1990) referred to this situation as the second shift.
* This imbalance is due to our traditional understandings of gender roles.
* The division of domestic labour in same-sex couples is more equal than it is in heterosexual couples

Answer 50

Arlie Hochschild

Question 51

Women are twice as likely as men to experience severe forms of domestic violence

Indigenous women are 3 times more likely than white women to self-report sexual or physical assault

Answer 51

Gendered violence in Canada

Question 52

A concept developed by Messner to explain how restrictive ideas about masculinity harm men too.

Answer 52

Costs of masculinity

Question 53

Women who work outside the home for money and inside the home on unpaid, domestic tasks.

Answer 53

Double shift (second shift)

Question 54

Equality between men and women and the struggle to attain this equality in multiple realms through social and cultural change.

Answer 54

Feminism

Question 55

When a type of job, profession, or industry becomes dominated or associated with women.

Answer 55

Feminization

Question 56

A social concept referring to the entire array of social patterns we associate with men and women.

Answer 56

Gender

Question 57

One set of roles that we perform in society, constructed through individuals’ performance in a social situation.

Answer 57

Gender roles

Question 58

The study of how various dimensions of inequality can combine.

Answer 58

Intersectionality

Question 59

The idea that gender isn’t a thing per se, but something that is created and sustained through performance.

Answer 59

Performativity

Question 60

A biological identity that is divided into the main categories of male or female.

Answer 60

Sex

Question 61

A person’s sexual identity, expressed in terms of whom a person desires, wants to have sex with, and feels a sense of connectedness with.

Answer 61

Sexual orientation

Question 62

Those feelings of sexual attraction and behaviours related to them.

Answer 62

Sexuality

Question 63

A term used to encompass the variety of different sexual expressions in modern society.

Answer 63

Transgender (or trans) umbrella