Gender, Sexuality and Inequality Flashcards
Define sex.
– historically been classified as referring to biological aspects of male and female people; intersex
Define gender.
– traditionally been understood as social
- set of behaviors, presentations that are associated w/ specific gender
- masculinity, femininity
What is masculinity/femininity?
- depends on what we define these two as
- – changes over time and vary w/ different cultures
- associate masculinity w/ maleness
- associate feminity w/ femaleness
- -> must consider the fact that these aren’t static and change over time which is how we know this is constructed
- associate feminity w/ femaleness
what is gender transgression?
– crossing the lin of your expected gender behaviors/performance
T or F, people can choose not to align with femaleness and maleness
True; more than 2 genders exist
What is gender identity?
– when this is brought up in our generation as apart of the dominant group we tend to automatically think of the marginalized group
– may also be much more removed
– call also refer to how male or female you feel
Define Sexual orientation.
– not same as gender identity although they overlap
– it is who we want to have sex with
– who someone wants to have sex with has nothing to do w/ how they identity in terms of gender
- what this tells us is how we choose to talk about sexual orientation
- -> not necessarily something people choose but something people are born into
- what this tells us is how we choose to talk about sexual orientation
Why isn’t there much data on non binary individuals?
– due to continual forcing of binariness
ex: in surveys do you identify as male or female
– this then makes it difficult to see the varying gender inequalities that aren’t man or woman
Describe the differences in political representation when it comes to gender.
- 51% female (U.S. pop)
- a quarter of women in congress
- 20% in Senate
- 0% president
- WOC even more unerrepresented
- -> 9% representation in congress
Describe the wage gap.
- 80 cents to the dollar
- not a difference in amount of hours
- this is in reference to full time
What is occupation sex differentiation?
- men and women going into diff types of jobs
- gendered really early on in life – due to socialization and more
- there is this layering that work is paid based on who and how that job is being performed
- —-> we find that for women it is lower
T or F, w/in occupation there is wage inequality
True; in entry level occupations that are similar for men and women –> they make roughly the same
--> can be interpreted as wage gap not existing
T or F, growth of income is greater for men than women
True
What are the key reasons for divergence of income?
– informal social networks tend to be sex-segregated
- -> male group tends to include the supervisors/importatn people making decisions
- -> they have more connections to the top people
–> if you are a woman you are perceived as being split between work and family even if you don;t have any familial responsibilities
Describe the the different roles men and women play in the family/marriage. (also unpaid labor)
– in heterosexual marriages women do more unpaid household stuff than men do, even though men are much more involved in hands on childcare stuff
- household labor/ unpaid labor is very gendered still
- -> early 20th century women were doing 7 times that of men
- -> now it’s been cut down to 2 times that of men
- on difference in the unpaid labor is the quantity of labor being done
- quality of unpaid labor also plays a role
- -> stark difference btwn the diff. types of household/unpaid labor
- quality of unpaid labor also plays a role
What are the two characteristics of how the differences in unpaid labor play out.
- men’s –> occasional, seasonal unpaid labor
- women’s –> daily unpaid labor
men’s hosuehold labor –> delayed, scheduled
women’s hosuehold labor –> instant
T or F, unpaid/household labor can interrupt/yank women out of their work like
- days are more interrupted
- more likely to move work like around
- evidence: when women have a child their income takes a hit forever; whereas for men their income tends to grow bc their behavior is diff
Why do these gender differences persist?
– we have assigned a gendered meaning to tool that are apart of the toolkits that people come w/
———-> socialization: modifying/manipulating that which is already there
What about aggression when it comes to gendered differences/socialization?
- mapping out aggression levels find out there’s a gap —–> 25% diff
- ——> 75% of gap is not being explained by testosterone
- ——> meaning it’s both natural and socialized
Define gender socialization.
– being expected to peform or uphold expectations that are assigned that specific gender
– ex: shifting the ways inwhich we treat men and women & even baby boys and girls
- ——-> we do this from the very beginning
ex: asking people what they had when they have a baby to know hot to move accordingly
How do we interact with the socialization of children?
– boys are allowed to roam and explore more where as girls are more restricted, protected and helped
—> in those formative years –> girls are getting the message that they can’t do things by themselves –> plays a large role later on in life
T or F, socialized in a way where we learn more and more about ourselves by virtue of socialization
True; although gender is socially constructed it becomes apart of you; socialization argues that gender is something that you become apart of; it becomes you
What is the doing gender approach?
– contrasts w/ socialization in that it says gender is a performance not actually apart of who you are
– property of interaction
- Key concepts:
- –> sex, sex category, gender
gender: repertoire of behaviors, performance
sex: whatever your sex is biologically
sex category: any cues that you give off or what others pickup as to what sex you are
——-> in order to see which script you’re going to activate
——-> secondary sex characteristics are apart of the cues we use to put people in diff. sex categories
Why does doing gender persist from this particular perspective?
– when people tend to activate a specific script repeatedly it becomes a normal thing
ex: that's just how men are
– we usually don;t break the rules, meaning that the rules aren’t normally visible –> we don’t even know that we’re behaving in ways that are specific to our gender
– gender is a property of interaction
– symbolic interactionsim –> we perform gender
