Module 9 - Gender Flashcards
Gender definitions
WHO,K+S: The socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a
given society considers appropriate for men and women - the seemingly different sets of actions and behaviours assc with girls and boys, men and women, that a soc deems appropriate
A spectrum of masculine and feminine expressions of self and
cultural symbols that are significant in relation to social power,
labour systems, family systems, and sexuality
Enculteration and Gender
gender is a cultural expression, we learn gender through culture via enculturation
From a young age, children are treated differently and exposed to different activities games and play and therefore expectations - this frames how gender is learned, gender enculturation is not absolute but is powerful
How do we learn how to perform our genders?
We learn how to perform our genders through cultural transmission
* These performances do then make up gender categories.
* Gender categories are not stable, they are fluid and dynamic, just
like all cultural categories.
Deviation from gender codes feel
unnatural,
* Aspects of our gender performance are fluxive, too. They are in motion.
* But they may are governed by a fairly strong set of learned social and cultural
codes
Gender Ideology
otality of ideas about sex, gender, the natures of men and women, including their sexuality, and the
relations between the genders
Biological determinism and gender ideology
the idea that biology determines gendered
behaviour.
Biological determinism
notion that there is a direct
correlation between cultural
characteristics regarding categories
such as gender, race, or class with
biological traits
Ideological messages about gender
embedded throughout our culture
* used as standards of comparison to make judgments about oneself or
others, about who may not fit neatly into these (traditional gender)
categories
* In this way one is “practicing” gender ideology
* gender ideology is internalized as a system of signs, in other words, a
code
Not an abstract concept – something that we do.
It is something that we embody
Gender is
gender perfomativity
something that people practice, Gender is not something that one is, it
is something one does, an act… a “doing”
rather than a “being
Erving Goffman
ociology of everyday life
* social interaction
* the social construction of self
* social organization (framing) of experience
* Attempted to bridge the “agency-and-structure” divide
Goffman + Gender
○ Popular culture reflects and in turn shapes normative ideas about masculinity and femininity
§ As consumers we help define what pop culture is
Intersex
term whose meaning & use is contested
* bodies that possess a combination of what are
commonly considered male and female sex traits
Intersex from a bio-medical perspectivevs Intersex from socio-cultural perspective
bio-medical perspective
* intersexuality viewed primarily as a physical
abnormality requiring medical interventions
socio-cultural
atypical sex does not have to be understood as a
“medical problem”
* idea that social norms can shift to accommodate sex &
gender variance
caste
an explicitly hierarchical social system based on hereditary, endogamous groups, in which each is characterized by a specific status, occupation, mode of Caste: life, and pattern of customary interactions with other such groups
Feminist theoretical perspective
an approach whose central tenet is that all social relations and the knowledge of these relations are gendered; this approach highlights the role of patriarchy in maintaining the oppression of women in society
gender role
the seemingly different sets of actions and behaviors associated with girls and boys, men and women, that a society deems appropriate
hetero-masculinity
the cultural pressure exerted on males to be masculine in traits and heterosexual in orientation or else be viewed as feminine and socially unacceptable
interpretive perspective
an approach that considers the meaning that social actors give to what they and others do
patriarchy
a system of power in society whereby relationships are organized to maintain male supremacy
queer theory
a paradigm that does not lend itself easily to a simple definition or explanation, as it has been conceptualized by those who engage with it in a diversity of ways. While there is no one definition of queer theory, in the broadest sense queer theory is a “theoretical perspective from which to challenge the normative” (Goldman 1996: 170), or a “radical questioning of social and cultural norms, notions of gender, reproductive sexuality, and the family”
trans
“GATE— Global Action for Trans* Equality— defines Trans* as the following: Trans* people includes those people who have a gender identity which is different to the gender assigned at birth and/or those people who feel they have to, prefer to or choose to— whether by clothing, accessories, cosmetics or body modification— present themselves differently to the expectations of the gender role assigned to them at birth. This includes, among many others, transsexual and transgender people, transvestites, travesti, cross dressers, no gender and gender queer people. The term Trans* should be seen as a placeholder for many identities, most of which are specific to local cultures and times in history, describing people who broaden and expand a binary understanding of gender”
