Gender & Sexuality Flashcards
Sex vs Gender
Sex: the physical or physiological differences between female, male, and others
Gender: social and cultural distinction that relates to the diversity of femininity and masculinity
- Gender dichotomy and intersex people
Gender Identity: an individual’s sense of being on the spectrum of feminine and masculine
Cisgendered: individuals whose gender identity matches the gender assigned at birth
Transgendered: individuals identifying with a gender that is not assigned to hem at birth
Gender Queer: those who do not identify with conventional gender identity, and many times they identify with neither, both, or variation of female and male genders
Transphobia: discrimination directed towards transgender individual
Dominant Discourse of Gender
Gender Role: society’s concept of how women and men should behave
Hegemonic Masculinity: the normative ideal of dominant masculinity
- strong, shaped like roman gods
Emphasized Femininity: the normative ideal of femininity based on a woman’s compliance with their subordination to men
- good at cooking, cleaning, makeup on 10
Patriarchy, Gender Stereotypes, and Sexism
Patriarchy: set of institutional structures which are based on the belief that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories
Gender Stereotypes: overgeneralization of gender characteristics
Sexism: the prejudiced belief that one sex should bee valued over another
Socialization of Gender
When do we start Gendering our children?
- starts with gender reveal party
Family: first agent of socialization
- feminine chores vs masculine chores
- gendered restrictions
Education: gender segregation
- educational divide - sex education splitting up the sexes
Peer Group: gender nonconformity and isolation
- harsher sanction for boys
Mass Media: typecasting women
- gendered advertisement
Gender Wage Gap
Pink-Collar vs Blue-collar occupation
Blue Collar Occupation
- occupations that associated with men
- difficult for women to get into
- “male” jobs are paid better - mechanics, miners
Pink Collar Occupation
- dental assistants, child care
- 2016 data = 96% of early childhood educators, 92 % of registered nurses, 89 of home support workers, 99% of dental assistant
- 2024 data = when earn 0.84 for every dollar a man makes
it has gone down from 0.89 to 0.84 maybe in 2021
4 Reasons for Gender Gap
- gender discrimination in hiring and salary
- when hired for the same reason, women tend to get less than male counterpart
- women and men are concentrated in positions that were encouraged by the early education of children
- teaching girls to provide majority of emotional labour results in them going into care occupations
- the idea that boys like/ do better at math than girls discourages them from the subject and occupations
- Unequal distribution of unpaid domestic duties among gendera. second shift at home when you leave occupations
-
Devaluation of pink-collar position
- ex. teachers are underpaid - such an important role as children spend most of their developmental years in their care
- uni teachers are more associated with men
Social Stratification and Inequality
Stratification: a system which groups of people experience unequal access to basic, yet highly valuable social resources
- unpaid domestic labour
- women come home and start their second unpaid shift - child rearing
Women do 2x the hours of household work and caring for elderly
5 more hours of child rearing
Structural Functionalism
Structural Functionalism
- public and private sphere
- gendered division of labour
- women were physically strained due to pregnancy and child-reaing
- WW2 and division of labour
- men came home from war and women were expected to return their jobs to men
-
Talcott Parsons
- function of the husband as a breadwinner and the wife as homemaker
- If a woman isn’t doing her responsibilities up to standard and keeping her husband happy and satisfied, he could replace her
Conflict Theory
Conflict Theory
- power relationship and access to social resources
- dominant group oppressing and exploiting the subordinated group
- in order to maintain their power within the system
- dominant group oppressing and exploiting the subordinated group
Friedreich Engels (1820 - 1895)
- owner-worker relationship in setting
- husband owns home and wife’s labour
- double exploitation of women in capitalist system
- not only from society but also from their husband/ within their own homes
Feminist Theory
Feminist Theory
- radical feminism and criticism of family structure in maintaining social inequality
- women as property in the feudal era
- because they bare the brunt of labour in domestic sphere causes them to sacrifice public sphere
- domestic vs public sphere
-
Bifurcated consciousness: the experience of a division between the directly lived, bodily world of women’s lives
- women bringing kids to work was looked down about
- gap between public life and private life
- Matriarchy
Theoretical Perspectives on Gender: Symbol Interactionism
Symbolic Interactionism
- symbolic representation of femininity and masculinity
- evolves over time
- ex. working selfish mothers from 70s (didn’t want to stay home with her children) vs hardworking mothers in present time (praised - she doesn’t want to stay at home)
- GH Cooley and doing gender
- West and Zimmerman’s Doing gender
- how gender came to existence
- gender as a social construct that actively and purposefully surfaces in everyday human interaction
- we participate in gender - I’m behaving or doing or change tone of voice we channel or mimic a gender
Theoretical Perspectives on Gender: Post-Structuralist Theories
Post-Structuralist Theories
- Judith Butler’s Gender Performance
- gender is not something we are but it’s something we do
- our class discussion was about gender performance
- it’s difficult to separate man and woman from the dichotomous viewpoint
- Gender Discourse
- gender and sexuality are socially reconstructed
Sexual Identity
Sexuality
- not that straightforward
sexual identity: our sense of self as a sexual being, our sense of attraction to potential other, our knowledge of our bodies, our sexual history, and our sexual preference
- is subject to change as we change
2SLGBTQ+ Rights in Canada
2SLGBTQ+ Rights in Canada
1841 - criminalization of homosexuality - no clear definitions of homosexuality
1867 - prohibition of sodomy - only vaginal sex
1890 - illegalization of gross indecency between men
1920s - queer subculture and introduction of gay bars
1950s - 1960s - growth of queer subculture as a security risk
1969 - stonewall riot in the US and decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada
1971 - beginning to demand for equal rights through demonstration
1981 - Toronto raid of four bathhouses
1980s - AIDS crisis and stigmatization of gay men
2005 - legalization of gay marriage
- first pride parade was protest to police brutality
Sexuality
- sexual parties are culturally diverse
- sexual norms and values
- influenced by family, education, peers, media, and religion
Sexuality in Canada - less restrictive compared to other places regarding pre-extra-marital sex and homosexuality
- sexual double standard: a concept that prohibits premarital sexual intercourse for women but allows it for men
Alfred Kinsey 1894 - 1956
7 Point Scale (0 - 6)
- Sexuality as a continuum
-homophobia: an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuals
0 - Exclusively heterosexual behaviour
1 - incidental homosexual behaviour
2 - more than incidental homosexual behaviour
3 - equal heterosexual & homosexual behaviour
4 - more than incidental heterosexual behaviour
5 - incidental heterosexual heterosexual behaviour
6 - exclusively homosexual behaviour
