MT1 Flashcards
Define gender
Socially constructed interpretation of ones sex (differences)
Are gender differences innate?
No - gender differences based on sex differences but not natural
Define gender identity
An individuals subjective opinion of being masculine/feminine/ambivalent (self)
Define gender stereotype
Socially constructed notion of appropriate behaviors for each sex
Differentiate between gender ID and stereotype
ID - internal, self-belief
Stereotype - social construct
of appropriate behaviors/attitude for individual based on sex
Are gender stereotypes fixed?
Subject to change through time
Does the 2 sex/gender system work?
No - doesn’t account for everyone
Define transgender
An individual who’s gender identity doesn’t match with their biological sex
Define sex
Physical traits that differentiate males and females
What makes someone a male/female? (sex)
XX (f) and XY (m) chromosomes in general - idea is challenged though
Differentiate sex and gender
Sex is biologically defined;gender is socially constructed interpretation of males/females//masc/fem
How different are men and women? (hypothesis)
Similarities exceed differences between men and women
Explain and differentiate between the gender differences and similarities hypothesis
Differences explore differences among sexes
Similarities look for similarities
Similarities > Differences
Gender differences hypothesis leads to ________ trap
Essentialism
What is essentialism?
Belief that gender roles are innate - not social constructs
eg. anatomy is design
What are the 4 ‘biological’ arguments used to exclude women from combat duty? (Peach-GCCP)
Male strength hypothesis
Male aggression hypothesis
Women’s childbearing hypothesis
Male bonding hypothesis
What is the male strength hypothesis? What is its flaw/correction?
Men are inherently stronger than women - so only men should enter combat. Tells women that they can’t fight based on gender difference instead of physical trait - should measure soldier capacity based on strength
What is the male aggression hypothesis? What is wrong with it?
Men are inherently more aggressive than women - based on incomplete studies of primates. Not proven - aggression can potentially be conditioned.
What is the female child bearing hypothesis? (2)
Pregnancy/motherhood debilitates combat effectiveness and logistics. Logistic issue addressed with planning. Women are natural caregivers - should be center of family. Not true - gender roles designate women to be caregivers, not biological factors
What is the male bonding hypothesis? Why is it flawed? (3)
Women deter male-male bonding. Not the case - this ignores bro-sis bonds, shared experiences, and strong leadership
What are 2 myths used to prevent women from entering active combat duty? Briefly describe them.
Male warrior - military is masculine - use male performance as benchmark - women out of place
Female protection - women need to be protected
Why is the idea of a female in war an issue? (Dichotomy - male warrior/female nurturer)
Masc/fem ideas socially constructed - society doesn’t tolerate trait overlap
What are gender displays/codes?
Learned, constructed signals that are distinguished as feminine or masculine
What is the ritualization of subordination?
Women being portrayed as helpless, unaware, weak, positions where they cannot defend themselves (laying down) - sexualized
What are canting postures?
Bent (canted) postures - neck, hips, knee, hands - awkward, off balance positions - signal weakness
How do female athletes interact with gender codes?
Female athletes are symbols of power and success - yet they are portrayed (RoS, canting postures) as weak
What are gender codes/displays of masculinity?
Everything a woman is not - strong, aware, ready to act
How have gender displays of masculinity changed?
Inclusion of awkward, defenseless positions (fem) - balanced by presence of broad, definable muscles (masc) or the addition of women
Where do gender codes come from? What are John Berger’s ideas?
Strong connection to early oil paintings - women something to look at
How is the Guess campaign deconstructed?
Wanted to capture the essence of the 50’s - women were respected but knew their place - use of RoS, canting postures to portray femininity (weakness) - black and white photography
What is the difference between animal models and animal role models?
Models - model for animal behavior to learn biological solutions
Role model - model human behavior to animal behavior
What is the naturalistic fallacy?
Notion that anything natural is good/inevitable.
What is evolution?
Change in gene frequency over time
What is evolution by natural selection?
Change in gene frequency over time due to different environmental pressures
What is differential reproduction? (NS)
Difference in reproductive success - caused by individuals being selected by environment
What is reproductive success?
A count of how many offspring an individual has
What is natural selection?
The process where individuals possessing traits better suited for the environment are more likely to reproduce and pass on selected genes
What are the 4 caveats to natural selection?
No conscious strategizing
Talking about averages
Adaptive behaviors subject to change
Accidents happen
Explain proximate and ultimate triggers/reactions
Proximate - immediate trigger (in the moment)
Ultimate - evolutionary trigger - always concerns reproductive success
Does evolutionary theory predict that there is a lot of differences between males and females?
No - both sexes go through same environmental selection pressures and will have similar traits
What domains are sex differences found?
Mating/reproduction
What are sex limited traits?
Traits found in one sex - more extreme traits usually found in males (sex with higher sexual variation)
Sex limited traits are ______ to produce and ________ to survival.
costly, detrimental
What is sexual selection?
Theory explaining sex differences - sexes respond to reproductive pressures - impacts reproductive success
What are the two mechanisms of sexual selection?
intrasexual competition and intersexual choice
What are 3 ways males compete? (intrasexual competition)
exclude rivals from mates
mate often
mate at night
What is intersexual selection?
Typically female choice in mate selection - they select/prefer specific traits in a mate
Explain the courtship ritual of a sage grouse. Is the inter or intra sexual competition?
Males create audio/visual show for females - female choose mates based on display
intersexual selection
Explain the courtship ritual of a bower bird. Is the inter or intra sexual competition?
Male creates bower - female examines nest
intersexual selection
What do females select for? (hypothesis)
Good genes hypothesis - male traits display good health
What display/ornament/strategy goes with the following animals?
Superb Lyre
Capuchin Monkey
Jumping Spider
Lyre - elaborate tail, able to replicate sounds
Capuchin - drums on tree trunk
Spider - elaborate dance and vibrations
What display/ornament/strategy goes with orange/yellow/blue side blotched lizards? Is there a dominant strategy?
Orange - aggression
Yellow - stealth
Blue - team work
No - All strategies about the same
What is female cryptic choice?
The ability to select sperm to use from different mates
What happens during second mating for female garter snakes? Why do females mate with multiple males?
Female challenges males - selects for stronger male to mate with
Female initial mating is forced - she is still cold when she leaves hibernation and males swarm her - second mating allows female to select for desirable male
Why does the duck male phallus have a complicated shape?
Female ducks oviducts have elaborate shape to avoid contraception with mates she does not prefer
What is so special about the Manakin Bird’s wing bone?
Inner wing has ridge - bone is thicker instead of hollow
Explain parental investment theory
Any investment a parent makes to its offspring AT THE COST of another offspring - finite budget
could be time/sperm/ovum
Do females have maternal instinct given high female investment?
No - link to higher female investment does not mean that female has maternal instinct
What are the reproductive consequences of reproduction differential?
Females have lower reproductive potential than males
Females have ____ reproductive variance, where is male reproductive variance is ______
low;high
What is the principle in sex differences in reproductive success variance called?
Bateman’s Principle
What is so different about Red-necked Phalaropes? (SS)
Females have higher reproductive variance than males
Are limiting factors for reproductive success different for males and females?
Yes - females (food - energy sources) –
males - access to mates
What leads to a differential in reproductive strategies between sexes?
Differential in parental investment
Why would one sex be more picky over a mate of the opposite sex?
Sex with higher parental investment will be more selective - cost of making a mistake is high
What are the findings from the Jamaican dance experiment? (3)
Symmetrical individuals are preferred
Symmetrical males rated higher than symmetrical females
Female evaluator holds stronger preference for symmetrical males; MORE SO than male preference for symmetrical females
_________ in bilateral traits may indicate good health
Symmetry
What is unique about male phalaropes?
Males have higher parental investment
What four facts/studied were examined to evaluate physical aggression?
- studies in young children - aggro capped at 2 and declined
- crime statistics - overwhelmingly majority male
- meta analysis found male aggression reliably large
- studies in animals showed larger male aggression
What can we rule out as a cause of sex differences in physical aggression? What can we rule in? (3)
Out - anger, testosterone
In - males more likely to engage in risky behavior in conflicts with other males
Why can we rule out testosterone as a factor male aggression?
Testosterone levels rise in response of challenge; not because males have high testosterone that they engage in challenges - challenge hypothesis
What is the challenge hypothesis? Does it apply to women?
Testosterone levels rise in anticipation of challenge - winner has higher T levels than loser.
Applies to women as well
What is risky behavior?
Behavior involving cost - framed towards benefit of action
Why are males more likely to undertake risky behaviors than females? Explain in respect to sexual selection.
Males more likely to engage in behavior with huge payoff (ability to reproduce). Huge payoffs inherently have huge risks including physical aggression
What evidence of male-male aggression do we have from our ancestors? What has changed in contemporary society?
Dimorphic size difference - males almost twice as large as women.
Men and women almost same size now - male-male competition through means other than physical aggression
What is the difference between dominance and prestige?
Dominance -the ability to inflict harm to win confrontations - use of force (agonism)
Prestige - the possession of desirable items/traits - attractive to opposite gender (perceived value)
Define agonism
Application of physical force to win confrontations
How do dominance and prestige differ in maintaining social asymmetries?
Dominance uses agonism - force to maintain dominance
Prestige uses deference (submission) to maintain asymmetry
In contemporary society, do prestigious men have higher reproductive success?
In both underdeveloped and developed societies, there is empirical evidence that suggests prestigious men have more reproductive success
Is the infant mortality rate higher or lower for prestigious men? Why is this possible?
Lower - suggests healthier offspring. Prestigious men are likely to have more access resources that enhance fitness
Do women prefer high status men? What are some (4) caveats of this?
In general - high status will increase probability male will be reproductively successful and suggest that female choice and male status move the same direction
Caveats: women may seek more than just status (parental investment, intelligence), we refer to averages, there is cost to social status, social status not permanent
Do women with higher social status have higher reproductive success? What helps explain this relationship?
No - inversely correlated. One factor impacting this is female age at first childbirth - which ties to limiting factor to female reproduction (females have lower reproductive potential)
What is the difference between direct and indirect competition? Which sex is more likely to engage in each?
Direct - use of force - males
Indirect - use of manipulation/social structure to harm target
What are the goals of indirection competition? (2)
Ostracism - exclude target
Derogation - to degrade social status of target, decreasing their relative value
Explain findings from the experiment that pitted young boys and girls to compete for a scarce resource (puppet). (2)
Individualistic competition, males - high risk, high payoff
Alliances, females - low risk, low payoff
Explain a study that displays human female intrasexual competition.
Target (dressed conservatively or provocatively) enters room with 2 subjects (women, paired with friend or stranger). Test subject reaction to target - found that subjects reacted negatively to provocatively dressed target (more so if subjects paired with friends)
Why would it be advantageous to use indirect aggression?
Just as effective as direct, with lower risk - female targets impacted more than male targets
What are the two main physical differences between men and women?
Size and reproductive biology
Differentiate between sex roles and gender roles
Sex - Roles men/women perform are biologically determined
Gender - roles men/women take are culturally created
Explain the biological asymmetry argument
Men and women physically different - thus should have different roles. These roles were thought to be universal.
What are human origin models and what are their 2 hallmarks?
Reconstruct human life in the past - 2 hallmarks include task assignment and different value of tasks
What are the two main fitness benefits incorporated from a grandmother’s help? (Hadza)
Offspring are heavier (healthier), mothers have shorter interbirth intervals
Explain the man-hunter (2) and (tasks, value) and its main criticisms (2)
Man-hunter - men hunt (socially, big game) and have high value, male-female pair bonded
- Big game hunting has low success rate, hunter families typically get small share of catch
- grandmother-grandchild bond important
Explain the woman-gatherer models (task, value) and its implications (2)
Woman gatherer - women gather (high value), male-female pair bonded
- implicates women were first tool users
- gathering set framework for hunting
What do the man-hunter and woman-gatherer models implicate about the division of labor? (2)
Similar tasks (different values); rigid division of labor
If we think a task is a ____ role, it shapes our ideas about society in a different way than if we think a task is a ______ role
sex,gender
Why are the Agta important in understanding gender division of labor? (3)
Overlapping tasks between men and women(hunting, gathering, trading)
Hunting by women (either helping or directly hunting)
Pregnancy/childcare
What are two arguments from the “men as active caregivers” section? How is this possible? (2)
Relative to other apes:
- human offspring are incredibly needy (altricial)
- human females have high fertility
Higher fertility = lower interbirth interval = male help in offspring
How does Gettler (men caregivers) challenge the biological asymmetries argument?
Previously, thought pregnancy was burden assigning women with gender role of child care. Gettler argues child care is burden - thus challenging notion that women are natural caregivers
How do we engender archaeology? (Venus figures - who made them - 4 q’s)
Sex of figurines - female
Wearer of clothes - female
Weaver - female - needed good idea of clothes - likely wearer
Carver - need good understanding of weaving - likely weaver
