Unit 1: Foundations Flashcards
What is gender?
Gender is:
- learned, taught and reinforced
- collaborative (societal agreement)
- something we do, not “have” (performative)
- asymmetrical
- ideological
- relative in time and space
What is gender ideology?
Gender ideology is the set of beliefs that govern people’s participation in the gender order, and by which they explain and justify that participation
(Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013)
Gender vs Sex
Sex is a matter of bodily attributes:
- roughly dimorphic
- difficult to assign a binary definition based on biological criteria (endocrinal, hormonal, chromosomal, etc) given extensive variation
- often presumed biological, but dialectical with gender (Kiesling, 2015: 25)
In other words, biological observations inform the discussion on gender and social constructs based around gender inform the interpretations of new biological findings
Gender vs Sex
Gender is a social construct:
- learned, enforced and socialized by cultural norms
- different expressions of masculinity and femininity on a spectrum
- internalized “rules” and “norms” about gender are performed on a daily basis
- gender is something we do; it constitutes a performtive expression of social ideologies (West and Zimmerman 1987; Butler 1990)
Role of Socialization
Children are explicity and implicitly taught, and often coerced, into how behave like or do their gender:
“If a little girl ‘talks rough’ like a boy, she will normally be ostracized, scolded or made fun of. In this way society, in the form of a child’s parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place” (Lakoff 1973)
Gender-Exclusive Differences
- encoded at the level of formal grammar
- distinction in who uses which form
- typically categorical
- most commonly divided into an exclusively male form and an exclusively female form
- relatively rare cross-linguistically
Gender-Exclusive Differences (EX)
Example: historically, deaf education in Ireland was segregated by gender; as a result: categorically different signs for women and men
- eg: female form for ‘girl’ vs male form for ‘girl’
Gender-Preferential Differences
- statistical tendency in the use of a term or form by one group over another
- a form used more frequently by women, non-binary people, etc
- not categorical—its more a question of who tends to display a linguistic behaviour more or less
- very common cross-linguistically
Gender-Preferential Stereotypes
Gender-preferential differences are often exaggerated, taken to be preferential forms and, especially when used by women, become pejorative stereotypes on language use
Stereotypes: not necessarily lies, but rather exaggerations or manipulations of the truth with an agenda
Stereotypes & the “Hall of Mirrors”
Hall of Mirrors: “an impresison of robust findings” (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2013)
Results of studies combined with a popular belief in a positive result, which lead to a perception of seemingly strong evidence despite only modest or contradictory results
This perceived result is then incorporated into ideologies on language and gender
“Hall of Mirrors” Example
Cross-linguistic stereotypes on women talking all the time while men listen all the time:
- “women’s tongues are like lambs’ tails—they are never still” (English)
- “if you have missed some news, ask the cloistered” (Algerian Arabic)
- “where there are women and geese there’s noise” (Japanese)
Reality:
James and Drakich (1993) : reviewed 63 studies examining amount of talk by American men and women—only 2 studies found that women talk more
Language, Gender and Prestige
Differences in evaluating men’s and women’s speech comes from the type of capital based on which different groups are socially evaluated (Eckert 1989):
Men’s status:
- accomplishments, possessions, institutional status; (material capital)
- what they do/have
Women’s status:
- overall character; symbolic capital
- who they are/appear to be
*Note: both men and women accumulate symbolic capital, but this form is the only kind that women can accumulate without consequences
