Week 1

Question 1

What is gender?

Answer 1

Gender is a designation of masculine or feminine from a sociocultural standpoint

Question 2

What do we mean when we say that gender is “achieved”?

Answer 2

We mean that gender is the achieved status of an individual through socialization

Question 3

What is sex?

Answer 3

Sex is ascribed at birth as it is determined by an individual’s biology such as genitalia or chromosomal composition

Question 4

How is sex applied?

Answer 4

Sex is applied by way of creating labels for individuals solely based on their biological characteristics

Question 5

How do gender and sex influence each other?

Answer 5

Though the two terms describe different things gender and sex are often used interchangeably and so are confused for one or the other. This in turn has caused society to construct gender expectations based on one’s sex as well as one’s gender expression

Question 6

What do the labels that we ascribe to sex and gender do?

Answer 6

The labels we ascribe to sex and gender provides us with a set of expectations as to how a person should act, how we act towards others, etc. We cannot control how others react to our gender expressions but we can control how we react

Question 7

What is applied when we say that sex determines gender?

Answer 7

This is an application of biological determinism

Question 8

What do we apply when we say that sex is arbitrarily related to gender?

Answer 8

We apply a social construction of gender and sex

Question 9

What do we apply when we say that sex influences gender?

Answer 9

We apply an interactionist framework or a combination of social construction and biological determinism

Question 10

What are sexuality scripts?

Answer 10

Sexuality scripts are behaviours that define how we behave as a sexual being

Question 11

What are the three believed categories of sexuality?

Answer 11

Homosexuality, heterosexuality, and bisexuality

Question 12

How does Marx’s conflict theory help us observe gender?

Answer 12

It helps us observe gender as it allows us to observe relations that are characterized by conflict. This lets us see who dominates whom, power relations, coercion or the impositions of values, change, etc. It also looks at change as a revolutionary idea

Question 13

What does conflict theory ignore?

Answer 13

It ignores cooperative social behaviour

Question 14

How does structural functionalism by Durkheim and Talcott Parsons allow us to view society?

Answer 14

It allows us to identify the independant relations of society, letting us look for the functions that interconnect society such as cohesion in society’s shared values

Question 15

How does structural functionalism view change?

Answer 15

It views change as an evolutionary and adaptive process meant to achieve stability and equilibrium in society

Question 16

What does structural functionalism ignore?

Answer 16

It ignores power, discussing more static and conservative perspectives

Question 17

What is Webber’s symbolic interactionism?

Answer 17

This theory identifies relations characterize by their role taking and negotiation. It looks to identify symbolic meaning, perceptions, expectations, trust and shared meanings. Change is identified as an inherent, ongoing process as it is created through interpersonal interactions

Question 18

What is symbolic interactionism associated with?

Answer 18

It is associated with social constructions as in how we construct our assigned roles, expectations, and perceptions through negotiation of these things with an emphasis on the subjective meaning that individuals create through relationships

Question 19

What is social construction in terms of gender?

Answer 19

Social constructions defines gender as a performance meaning that we all have different roles that we perform, living up to the expectations of society within the feminine gender role, masculine gender role, etc. We perform for society, ourselves, etc. in order to receive expected reactions, perceptions, etc.