Gender & Society

Sex vs Gender
Gender Roles

Sex • Some maybe rigid

Biological Dimension
- chromosomes
- hormones
- reproductive parts
- physical
Relatively fixed at birth
Universal
Gender
Socio-cultural construction
Learned
- gender of rearing
- gender identity
- gender role
Variable across age and time
Variable across culture
Shifting and fluid
- Refers to the socially constructed
characteristics of women and men –
such as norms, roles and
relationships of and between groups
of women and men. It varies from
society to society and can be
changed.
• Some are more flexible
• Stereotypes of roles of women
and men
These roles are prescribed as ideal
or appropriate behavior for a person
of that specific gender.
- gender roles are social construct.
When we attempt to assign strengths
and weaknesses to either gender, we
literally cut our potential as the
human race in half.
Heeled shoes
• High heeled shoes,
unanimously considered
feminine in western society.
• But this was initially designed
for upper class men to use
when hunting or horseback.
• Through the years the high
heeled shoes of men became
shorter and fatter while it
became thinner and higher
and is now associated with
being “feminine”
• There is nothing intrinsically
feminine about the high heeled
shoes. Social norms have
made it so.
Rate of incidence of Rape in Phil.
• In 2013, PNP’s annual report
based on Directorate for
Investigation and Detective
Management (DIDM) data
 tallied as much as 7,409
reported rape incidents, or
one every 72 minutes.
• In the past 15 years, three
out of four rape incidents
reported to the PNP WCPC
involved child victims.
- women victims = 14,296
- children victims = 44,034
Abusive cultural practices
• Child brides
• Circumcision – both male
and female (FGM)
• Breast ironing
• Acid throwing, eve teasing
• Stoning to death
• Defense of honor
Engendering Jobs
Key messages
• Gender inequality is a major
part of global jobs challenge.
Appropriate responses require
levelling the playing field and
creating the types of jibs that
can empower women.
• Reducing gender gaps in the
world of work can yield big
development pay offs. These
extend beyond benefits to the
women themselves, including
spillover effects on children,
enhanced poverty reduction,
catalyzing business productivity
and broader social cohesion.
Facts about Gender at work
Key messages
• Gender gaps in the world of
work arise in multiple forms,
including types of jobs, firms
and farming; earnings and
rates of participation
• Women and men sort into
different types of economic
activity, including different
occupations, sectors, industries
and types of firms.
• Women consistently earn less
than men
• Women’s labor for
participation globally has
stagnated.
Engendering Jobs
Key messages
• Government can play a critical
role in leveling the playing field
for women’s economic
opportunities.
• Sound job strategies to reduce
gender inequality in the world
of work star with careful
country-level diagnostics to
understand local priorities and
key constraints to women’s
work.
• To private sector is the largest
source of jobs and therefore
essential to engage for equality
in the world of work.
• Significant data and
knowledge gaps pose major
challenges to evidence-based
policy-making and need to be
addressed
Why study gender?
• Gender is an important human
variable
• Women and men show a wide
range of variations within and
between genders
• People react differently to men
and women
• Women are less visible than
men in many important areas
 Gender Analysis
We need to conceptualize gender as
a social structure, to better analyze
the ways In which gender is
embedded in the individual,
interactional and institutional
dimensions of our society.
Context and Social Location
• Human beings are historical
agents located in time, place,
and culture. All ideas are
geographically located
• Our interpretations are marked
by our social locations:
• Class – based – through
male/woman’s eyes
• Gender -based – indigenous
perspectives
• Ethnic – based – indigenous
perspectives
• Sexual orientation – based –
heterosexual, LGBTQ and more
• Faith – or humanistic based –
islam, buddhist, Christian and
other faiths/atheist, pagan,
scientology, new age
movements
• Note: honesty with our universal
claims (validity and limits)
• Danger: exclusivistic,
hegemonic, judgemental,
single meta narrative
Existential Restlessness
• Augustine’s interpretation of
this eros was seen as the
proper one: “you have made
us for yourself, lord and our
hearts are restless until they
rest in you”
• And so we should ask
ourselves the question: what
kind of lovers are we?
• Are we still fired into life by a
madness which lets us
understand insatiability of our
hearts as a call to infinite love?
• Do we still see ourselves as
pursuing each other,
embracing each other, and
loving each other aginst the
horizon of the infinite?
Fire – metaphor
• We come into this world with
insatiable desires, huge talents,
boundless energy and
grandiose dreams.
• Like a god or goddess, we’d
like to drink up the planet, taste
every wine and know every
experience; but in all this
desire and potential, we, all of
us eventually find ourselves in
a very limited, circumscribed
place and situation.
Sex is power - Foucault
• Sexuality, then isn’t something
that power represses, but a
great conduit of power.
• We think of sexuality as our
essence as the thing that
makes us what we are, when
in fact it is just a social
construct that makes us easier
to control
Traditional Gender Stereotypes
Feminine Masculine
Not Aggressive
aggressive Independent
Dependent Not easily
Easily influenced
influenced Dominant
Submissive Active
Passive Wordly
Home- Not easily
oriented hurt
Easily hurt emotionally
emotionally Decisive
 Indecisive
Talkative
Not at all
talkative
Gender as a Social Construct
Gentle Tough Gender roles are deep-seated in the
Sensitive to Less culture as well as belief and value
others sensitive to systems of the society. Pervasive
feelings others
Very feelings social control further reinforce,
desirous of Not very maintain and sanction the gender
security desirous of roles.
Cries a lot security All of us need to be conscious of our
Emotional rarely cries
Verbal Logical beliefs and assumptions as these
Kind Analytical often impede the attainment of our full
Tactful Cruel potential as human beings and of
Nurturing Blunt those for which are responsible.
Not nurturing
Then, what is GAD?
Gender Role Socialization • GAD is about recognizing that
gender biases impede
Learning of gender roles begin in the development because:
early stages of childhood, They prevent people from
attaining their full potentials
As an outcome:
(which will enable them to
Male gender-roles become effective contributors
to development)
And
But why focus more on women?
Female gender-roles develop
First, women are half of country’s
Traditional gender Roles Divide Men and population. As such, they
Women • are half of the producers of
economic goods and services
Deny women to public world of:
But
Work
Achievement • they are in the invisible and
marginalized sector or the so-
Power called non money economy
❖ bearing and rising
Independence children
Deny men access to: ❖ domestic and unpaid
economic labor
The nurturant – other oriented world ❖ subsistence agriculture
of domestic life.
second, they are already in the
Emotive money economy
• Informal sector
Therefore, traditional gender roles • Wage employment
limit the psychological social • Trading
potentials of human beings.
But, in being so, they experience a lot
of hardships
• Their rights, responsibilities and
• Multiple roles
• Violence and sexual
harassment
• Lack of protection
• Exploitation
• Poor skills
• Discrimination
Third, women have unique stakes
roles and insights to share in order to
attain development objectives such
as in:
• Sustaining the environment
• Managing population growth
Imparting values that have profound
progress and economic development.
Gender Awareness
Is the ability to identify and respond
to problems arising from gender
inequality and discrimination.
Gender equity
• Fairness of treatment for
women and men to their
respective needs.
• May include equal treatment or
treatment that is different but
considered equivalent in terms
of rights, benefits, obligations
and opportunities.
Gender Equality
• Both women and men are free
to develop their personal
abilities and make choices
without the limitations set by
stereotypes rigid gender roles
and prejudices
• Different behavior, aspirations
and needs of women and men
are considered, valued and
favored equally.
opportunities will not defend on
whether they were born female
o male
Gender equality implies that
the interests, needs and
priorities of both women and
men are taken into
consideration – recognizing the
diversity of different groups of
women and men. Equality
between women and men is
seen both as a human rights
issue and as a precondition for
and indicator of sustainable
people-centered development.
To be Gender responsive
• To realize that social
norms have led to
differences in the roles
and expectations of
women and men,
resulting in
discriminatory practices
against women and
men, especially women.
• To believe that human
relationships should be
guided by the principles
of equality, equity and
active non-discrimination
in all spheres of
interaction.
• To work for the eventual
elimination of these
sources of discrimination
in the home. The
workplace, the
community and society
as a whole
Basic Principle of gender
equality
• Belief in the full dignity of
human beings
 -nI am proud of myself. I
am not an object.
• Belief in human freedom
(informed consent)
-nI am a subject. I
choose, I decide what is
best for me
- No one possesses me
• Belief in the giftedness of
human life
- My life is a gift, I am not
an accident.
• Belief in the uniqueness
of the human person
- I am unique. I am
different from others
• Respect for personal
conscience
- I follow my conscience
- No one can force me to
act against my
conscience.
Core messages
Stop – gender stereotypes in
behavior and expectations
Look – out for the real needs and the
security from violence of girls/boys
and women/men
Listen – to what girls/boys,
women/men have to say
Respect – children’s rights and
women rights according to law
Recognize – equally the contribution
of women and men to social change
Value – all human beings fairly and
in the same way
Love – all human beings
Effects of gender construction on women and
men
Issues
Choice of a child
- a preference for sons in some
Asian countries has been well
documented for centuries
Chinese culture – One child policy
• The bloodline passes through the
male side.
• Women also "marry out", joining
their husband's families and looking
after their in-laws, not their own
parents.
• For a long time, a son was the
pension. Having a girl was wasteful..
- for some cultures, males are
preferred because of the issue of
dowry
Times are changing
• More women are employable in
factories. They are more careful and
less troublesome
• Couples are transferring to city
centers where there is an opening of
new ideas and less pressure from
extended families
• Parents are now depending on
their daughters and prefer daughters
because they now take care of their
parents.
On 29 October 2015, Xinhua
reported the change in the
existing law to a two-child
policy citing a statement from
the Communist Party of China.
The new policy allowing
Chinese couples to have two
children was proposed in order
to help address the aging issue
in China.
Preference for a male child is
manifested in several aspects in
subtle ways:
Privileging of male.
Visibility of male
Home
Good food are reserved for the men.
In fact in some cultures, women only
eat what men left behind.
Privileging of men was evident in
Education. It is one of the leading
institutions that teaches and bolsters
gender inequalities
• Since the 18th century, education
was reserved for the upper-class
boys and men
• Many of the Victorian opponents of
women’s education believed that
women could not withstand and
would not wish to subject themselves
to the rigors of higher education.
• Before the 1970s very few women
had the opportunity to obtain good
education. They were likely to be
admitted in law and medical schools.
They were also not allowed to
participate in school athletics.
In Religion, men are highly visible
and women were invisible.
• Daughter 560 times Son 3,420 times
• Mother 345 times Father 1,685 times
• She 760 times He 7,500 times
• Her 1,260 times Him/His 9,900 times
• There are 1,426 names mentioned
in the Bible
1,315 Male names & 111 Female names
Media
• Usually shows sons in
family setting
• If more than one child is
presented usually the
eldest child is male
On woman Leadership
Stereotypical roles of women prevent
society from training and trusting
them to handle leadership positions
• Emotional
• Weak
• Indecisive
• Soft
• Only for the home
• Lack authority
How are stereotypes perpetuated
• Limited activities of girls
games played by girld prevent
them from exploring and
taking risk
• Over protection of girls
• Higher leadership position are
given to boys in schools
• Exposures and out of school
activities are more open to
boys (no need fot chaperones,
prevents sexual harassments
• Textbook materials reflect the
dominance of the male
History
Historical events – criteria for
chronicling events based on war
Heros are usually men
Gender issues
Problems that women and men
experience as a result of societies
definitions and expectations about
feminine and masculine roles, rights
and capacities.
• Problems that stem from the
way women and men have
been Socially constructed.
• commonly shared experiences
brought about by structural or
societal causes
• recognized as undesirable
and unjust
• Have to do with gender
inequality with practices that
marginalized discriminate and
violate womens rights.
Gender issues pertain to
beliefs, ideas, behavior,
systems and other factors that
block people’s capacity to do
and to be.
Gender issues affect
everybody, men or women,
rich or poor, young or old, etc.
in all spheres of life.
They affect men
Gender biases against men
• Inherently aggressive and
violent
• Don’t feel pain or incapable of
experiencing human emotions
• Inherently compulsive in their
sexuality
• Don’t need closeness,
reassurance and attention
But they affect women more
Sexuality
Sexuality includes our gender identity
(the core sense that we are female or
male) sexuality includes gender roles
(the idea of how we should behave
as a man or woman) 4. Sexuality
includes our sexual orientation
(heterosexual homosexual or
bisexual)
Childhood
• Body parts are not named
correctly
- start to teach kids not to
know and understand the body
- start to put malice on
sexuality
• Little girls, pinching the vagina
• For little boys, comparing size
of the penis
• Songs that have sexual
meanings
• Behaviours of modesty are
taught
- sitting properly
- smiling instead of laughing
boisterously
• Modeling starts
- little girls who would want to
be ms. Universe and little boys
who want to mr. universe
- Little girls and boys who
would like to be sexy dancers
and macho dancers
– Little girls who dress up like
adults wearing sexy clothes
and heeled shoes, wearing
make-up and nail polish
– Sexual harassment practices
of older people
• Whistling at women and
calling women “sexy” or “Ms.
Beautiful”
• Start getting pre occupied with
attracting boys
• Start playing “House”
School
• Consciousness on sexuality is
heightened especially during
adolescent stage
• Experimentation is done
especially if the changes in the
body is not explained well by
family or parents
– Might end up in unwanted
pregnancies
– HIV – AIDS contraction
Male Gaze Theory
• audience is forced to regard the
action and characters of a text
through the perspective of a
heterosexual man
• the camera lingers on the
curves of the female body, and
events which occur to women are
presented largely in the context of
a man's reaction to these events
• the male gaze relegates women
to the status of objects --
objectification of women
• this is the male gaze in
capitalist advertising
• Women learn to see themselves
(& other women) as men see
them - through male gaze
– sexually objectify themselves
– can only get pleasure by
identifying with the male point of
view (see self as desirable)
– ‘feminine’ means being
beautiful, sexually available, and
caring for self should be focused
on bodily appearance
Implications of Media
Representations of Gender
• Fostering unrealistic and limited
gender ideals
– Most men are not as strong, bold,
and successful as males on the
screen.
Few women are as slender,
gorgeous, and well dressed as stars
and models (whose photographs are
airbrushed and retouched to create
their artificial beauty).
If one is not sexy, she becomes the
butt of jokes
• Pathologizing the Human Body
– Because sex sells products, sexual
& erotic images are the most
prominent characteristic presented in
advertising.
– Advertising is increasingly
objectifying men (w/c accounts for
the rise in men’s weight training &
cosmetic surgery).
Commodification of Women’s Bodies
• abuse, use and dispose of women
as objects
• unrealistic and presentation of
images of women and men
• violence is glorified
• media can be very titillating
Media Content
Depictions of relationships between
men and women emphasize
traditional roles and normalize
violence against women.
Sexism
• sexualizing women’s bodies
• vulnerable to sexual violence
Another Problem
• When women too are reluctant to
speak out and they carry on a social
stigma, they participate in the cycle of
discrimination
• They later on raise the children with
the same paradigm
• This results in the distorted images
of men and women.
Strategies for Gender Fair Education
• Gender equity – set of behaviors
and knowledge that permits
educators to recognize inequality in
educational opportunities, to carry out
specific interventions that constitute
equal education treatment, and to
ensure equal educational outcomes
(Sanders 1997)
Some steps to take
• Policies and programs maybe in
place in aiding young women’s self
esteem, encouraging the to explore
non traditional fields and confronting
old stereotypes.
• Future teachers must be taught
how to teach gender equity.
• Materials such as books, research
projects and student coursework on
gender equity need to be accessible.
• Equal share of resources
School
•Textbooks, displays and assessment
papers be scrutinized for sexist
images
•Courses to be non-sexist
•Involve parents and citizens from
the diversity on the communit
•Develop equitable curriculum,
extracurricular activities and student
services
•Join schools, employers and
communities that provide
opportunities for prejudice reduction,
celebrating diversity
Reconstructing Media
It’s All About Womanity A female
Empowerment Campaign from
Summit Media and Kalakasan
• Released in 2003-04
• Made up of 13 print ads printed in 8
publications of Summit Media
Objectives of the Campaign
• Recreate women’s images
– uplift women’s dignity and self
esteem
– help them fight for their rights
BRAIN
If you want to get the real feel of a
woman, get intimate with this organ
Gender sensitivity
SEEING – women and men, what
they actually do, rather than relying
onassumptions
HEARING – women and men, their
needs, priorities and perspectives
COUNTING – the value of women’s
work
RESPECTING – full dignity of women
and men
CARING – about women and men
and what happen to them
• Not a war of the sexes
• Not an anti-male stance
• Both women and men are victims,
although women are affected more
than men.
• In practically all cultures women
have a lower status than men.
• renaming and reimaging wo/men
relationships to bring about mutuality
and partnership
Constructed Masculinity
Men's relationships are characterized
by at least these things:
• That men's friendships with other
men tend to revolve around particular
tasks, so they have qualifying labels:
"a work friend," "drinking friend," and
so forth. Work as one of the pillars of
male identity.
• That men are more self-disclosing
to women than to other men, and
that they tend to rely upon women to
be interpreters of their relationships
and interior lives.
• That for men sex seems the
supreme intimacy, and the notion of
loving someone as an adult peer
seems to imply a sexual relationship.
Sex as another pillar of male identity.
• That because they relate
competitively
to them, fathers have a difficult time
disclosing themselves emotionally
and vulnerably to their sons.
• That men use humor as a guise for
intimacy and often as a defense
against it.
• And that our culture gives men little
guidance and few models
concerning adult intimacy without
genital sexual involvement.
Underneath all explanations for
men's difficulty in friendship I
believe there lies one pervasive
and haunting theme: Fear
➢Fear of vulnerability.
➢Fear of our emotions.
➢ Fear of being uncovered, found
out. So my fear leads to my desire to
control—to be in control of situations,
to be in control of my feelings, to be
in control of my relationships.
➢No one will really know my
weakness and my vulnerability.
➢ No one will really know my doubts.
➢No one will really know that I am
not the producer and achiever I seem
to be. Therein lies my real terror.
The fragility of constructed
masculinity
• Masculinity is power. Not as
biological but ideological- it exists
within gendered relationships.
Maleness is equated with masculinity.
• There is no struggle to be male.
The presence of a penis and testicles
is all it takes.
• But there is so much insecurity
about masculinity. male social
construction.pptx
Man’s violence against himself
• Continual conscious and
unconscious blocking and denial of
passivity and all the emotions and
feelings men associate with passivity-
fear, pain, sadness, embarrassment is
a denial of who we are.
• Men become pressure cookers.
• This whole range of emotions is
directed at oneself in the form of
guilt, self-hate and various negative
behaviors.
Violence against other men
• Relations between men whether at
the individual or state level are
relations of power. Power as the third
pillar of male identity.
• Most men feel the presence of
violence in their lives (i.e.. brutal
fathers, boys fighting). All other men
are my potential humiliators, enemies
and competitors.
• Male institutions and clubs meant
to mediate activity and passivity.
• This is exclusively heterosexual –
boys internalized the culture’s
definition of “normal.” The possessor
of a penis, therefore strong and hard,
not soft, not weak, not passive.
• To deviate is to arouse “castration
anxiety.”
Men violence against women
• Violence as an expression of the
fragility of masculinity combined with
men’s power.
• Activity as aggression is part of the
masculine gender definition.(ie.male
domination of the household )
• dualism – men’s violence are a
dynamic affirmation of a masculinity
that can only exists as distinguished
from femininity – power exercised to
cope with one’s negative self-image
and feelings of powerlessness.
Four ways of seeing our body-
sexual system
1. Essentialistic: My body or my
biology is my destiny. ie. sex,
procreation, motherhood,
men’s body-instrument.
2. Historical: My body is historical-
evolving. I am a work-in-
progress.
3. Constructed: My body is
“always-already” a socio-
cultural constructed text.
- Queer is by definition whatever is
at odds with the normal, the
legitimate, the dominant. There is
nothing in particular to which it
necessarily refers.
- It is an identity without an
essence.
- 'Queer' then, demarcates not a
positivity but a positionality vis-à-
vis the normative.
Queer View
• The logic of the sexual
order is so deeply
embedded the most
standard accounts of
sexuality and morality
• Queer aims not just at
toleration or equal status
but at challenging those
institutions and accounts. ie.
homophobia and
heterosexism
Gender relations are fundamentally
structural relations of the social
order and symbolic meanings of
discourses (religious, traditions,
culture).