GENDER, POLITICS AND

SOCIETY
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 LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER

1.1. Why should we study the study of gender?

When the first studies of “sociology of women” the courses were taught by men, but women
started to be studied (TO AVOID THE STUDY OF THE SOCIAL WORLD FROM MEN’S
PERSPECTIVE). However, they were biased by a men’s perspective. These studies started to
study and see other identities: “masculinities and femininities”: they started to study the
forms/ways to be a man or woman and they started to give name to these masculinities and
femininities, where some of them were more admitted than others (“hegemonic masculinity”).

The study of gender started to realize that this study was only established in the relation
between others, so that gender only happened or exist in between social relations
(domination/subordination). Hence, gender does not occur alone in the social vacuum, it is
relational.

- There isn’t a unanimous approach to the study of gender, therefore there are
different approaches when we study gender (behavioral (individual), interactional
(gender only happens when two or more people interact), institutional (it’s biased, and
it favors men or women)).
- This study of gender isn’t complete since it is an ongoing process, it is still changing
and there are new discussions that are coming to this field. There are new changes
over time.
- The category of gender isn’t also homogeneous, but it is clear that it is related to
other social categories like race, ethnicity, class, etc. Since it isn’t homogeneous, we
could say that men and women do not share the same experiences and interests…
gender skepticism:
→ If gender is not a homogeneous category… men/women do not share common
interests and/or some experiences…
→ Then… it becomes impossible to draw general conclusions from the study of
such a “category” (men/women).
→ However, this skepticism is rejected by some scholars first by what is called the
“Overgeneralization problem”.
→ And second, because gender remains a central organizing principle of modern
life in virtually every culture. The idea of this social distinction remains in every
part of the world, and every culture.

1.2. Gender Definitions

There’s a minimal definition of gender that goes like: “psychological, social, and cultural
aspects of maleness and femaleness” (Kessler and McKenna 1978:7). However, there are some
problems with this definition:

- They are assuming that the part of biology is not related to gender, that’s why they
don’t mention it. Biological/cultural differences cannot be clearly separated.
- This definition is also not considering other aspects that are linked to gender
(individual characteristics: biological and or personality traits).

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Therefore, gender’s definition is something that it is on the works:

- Gender is a “system of social practices”; this system creates and maintains gender
distinctions and it “organizes relations of inequality on the basis of (these
distinctions).” Ridgeway and Smith-Lovin (1999: 192), Wharton (2005).
- Gender also involves the creation of both differences and inequalities.
- This is an evolving definition; it isn’t something that its closed. We can add or change
this definition as we are studying it.
- The key of the definition are social practices.
- 3 features of Wharton “working” definition:
1. Process, not fixed: “doing”, not merely “expressed” gender.
2. Social, not individual: system, interactions, multilevel.
3. Organizes/produces/reproduces inequality: although is under debate, gender is an
important principle/dimension upon which social resources/roles are distributed.

The big difference between them is that the minimal definition does not consider the system,
unlike the working definition. In the minimal definition, gender is given and does not consider
that gender produces inequality. The working definition considers social features and gender
inequality whilst the other doesn’t.

1.3. Gender frameworks

There are 3 main frameworks for the study of Gender, where the (sociological) action is related
to social practices that produce gender.

1. Individual level: biological, traits, personalities, emotions, etc.

o E.g.: Socialization (what it is to be a men/woman).
2. Social interaction: contextual, social relations.
o E.g.: Gender only happens with social expectations and social categorization.
3. Structural approach: most social institution are “Gendered”.
o Institutions are “rules” and are not gender neutral.
o E.g.: sports, work, education, religion, family, legal system, marriage,
parenthood, etc.

1.4. Does gender matter?

- From the frameworks:

o It shapes identities and behavior of the individuals.
o It shapes social interactions.
o It shapes organizations and institutions.

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R. 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER, WHARTON 2005
• Sociology (and the social sciences) offers the most useful vantage points from which
this topic, gender, can be understood.
• I believe that the most useful sociological knowledge is produced collectively, through
dialogue and debate, rather than in self-contained isolation. Sociological knowledge is
not complete, seamless, or monolithic, however. Rather, like all knowledge grounded
in the practices of science, this knowledge is incomplete, contingent, and often
inconsistent.
• Reforming sociology was seen to require adding women to the sociological mix. What
Smith (1974) called the “add women and stir approach”.
• That gender itself is relational: Understanding what women are or can be thus requires
attention to what men are or can be.
• While gender, race and ethnicity, and social class are analytically separate, as aspects
of lived experience, they are highly intertwined.
• In gender the natural (i.e., biological, physiological, or genetic) and the social cannot
be cleanly separated.
• Gender is a working definition: a “system of social practices”; this system creates and
maintains gender distinctions and it “organizes relations of inequality on the basis of
[these distinctions].” In this view, gender involves the creation of both differences and
inequalities.
→ gender is enacted or “done,” not merely expressed.
→ is not simply a characteristic of individuals, but occurs at all levels of the social
structure.
→ A principle of social organization, gender is one critical dimension upon which
social resources are distributed.
→ this definition of gender refers to its importance in organizing relations of
inequality.
• 3 FRAMEWORKS:
A) Individualist: resides in individuals – their personalities, traits, emotions, etc.
The social practice most closely associated with this framework is socialization.
B) Interactional: gender is created through social interaction and is inherently
contextual in its impact. This implies that gender cannot be reduced to an
identity or set of personality traits.
C) Institutional: gender is embedded in the structures and practices of
organizations and social institutions, which appear on the surface to be
gender-neutral.
• Gender is a multilevel system whose effects can be seen at all levels of social life.
• The perspectives themselves cannot be judged as “true” or “false.” They emphasize
different domains of social life and each alerts students of gender to the ways that
gender operates in that domain.
• Gender matters because it shapes
→ the identities and behavioral dispositions of individuals.
→ Social interaction, requires sex categorization.
→ Organizes social institutions, “rules” that constitute some area of social life.

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 LESSON 2: INDIVIDUAL FRAMEWORKS, THE GENDERED PERSON

2.1. The Gendered Person

From an individualistic perspective, gender is “something” that individuals possess as a part of

themselves and that accompanies them as they move through life. This perspective is the most
widely shared of the three frameworks (individual, interaction, institutional).

It is something that distinguished in terms of “masculinity” and/or “femininity”, and in terms

of more particular qualities or characteristics. One of the main debates of this is the one
between sex v gender.

2. 2. Sex v Gender debate

If it is a debate over a term, what is at stake? That we are far from an agreement:

- For most people in our society, sex and gender are the same thing.
- Society perceives stable, permanent, and clear differences between men and women.
- These differences could be seen as biological (structurally distinguishable) or social
(Breedlove, 1994; Wharton, 2005) which is the core of the debate.

The idea that sex marks a distinction between two physically and genetically discrete
categories of people is called sexual dimorphism. It claims that sex divides completely and
clearly different groups; this distinction usually relies on “biological features” like genitalia, sex
chromosomes, reproductive system… but is this “biological difference” clear?

→ Biological shared features (same number of legs, arms, eyes …).

→ Not shared features (chromosomal differences, external and internal sexual structures,
hormonal production).

Around the 2% of the population cannot be easily categorized: sex chromosomes, external
genitalia, and/or the internal reproductive system do not fit the standard for males or females.
They are intersexed individuals:

- Intersexuals have helped to reveal that there are social processes that shape
assignment to and/or construction of a sex category, like surgery.
- The process through which social meanings are attached to biological sex is called sex
assignment / sex category:
➢ Is guided, at least in part, by socially agreed upon criteria for identifying sex,
such as external genitalia.
➢ It is the process, occurring at birth or even prenatally, by which people are
identified as male or female (their sex category).

The commonly accepted link gender and genitals has been studied as the beliefs of a “natural
attitude towards gender”. Most common beliefs:

- There are only two genders.

- Gender is invariant.
- Genitals are the essential signs of gender.
- The male/female dichotomy is natural.

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 - Being masculine or feminine is not a matter of choice.
- All individuals can (and must) be classified as masculine or feminine (Hawkesworth,
1997).
➢ But by raising the possibility that genitals are not definitive evidence of one’s
maleness or femaleness, intersexuals are challenging “the natural attitude”.

There are two positions regarding the sex v gender debate, and in both, people are gendered:
either socially and or biologically:

1. Social perspective:
→ First we have social understandings of what men and women are, or should
be, and then we perceive sex differences (Kessler and McKenna, 1978).
→ “Biological, psychological, and social differences do not lead to our seeing of
two genders. Our seeing of two genders leads to the discovery of biological,
psychological, and social differences” (1978: 163).
→ People rely on other “markers” to assign sex category: markers of sex category
depend heavily on cultural circumstances and thus vary widely across time,
place, and social group.

IMPLICATIONS:
• If there is no definitive objective feature that distinguishes human beings, then
sex cannot be conceived without gender.
• Gender is the basis for distinctions based on sex. Differences exist indeed, but
they are social constructions.
• Social explanation for an individual feature.
• The goal is to explain the “belief” on a two-naturally-gendered world.

2. Biosocial perspective, where biology sets the limits to social influences, then there is
limited interaction:
→ Treat sex as objectively, identifiable “real” distinctions between males and
females that are rooted in human physiology, anatomy, and genetics.
→ These distinctions become the raw material from which gender is constructed.
→ This view would not necessarily deny that assignment to sex categories
reflects socially agreed-upon rules… but there is a clear distinction between
sex and gender, arguing that sex limits the construction of gender.

IMPLICATIONS:
• Sex as objectively, identifiable “real” distinctions between males and females.
• Rooted in human physiology, anatomy, and genetics.
• Raw material (distinctions) from which gender is constructed: they don’t deny
that sex categories are social agreements.
• One of the goals is to identify biological, genetic, or evolutionary contributions
to male and female behaviors and characteristics.

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2.3. Gender as behavior (how it is expressed)

It was there before the term gender came out. Tradition of study of “sex differences” from
sociology and psychology (e.g.: “the psychology of sex differences” Maccoby and Jacklin,
1974). To confirm this approach, and try to differentiate gender, questions were made:

- Are women more empathic than men? Do men tend to take more risks than women?
- Study of intellectual capabilities:
• Verbal and math skills.
• Social behaviors: aggressiveness.
- Study of differences. But, in any case, if sex differences are found, they represent
average differences between the sexes, not categorical distinctions. To see if the
differences are meaningful, we need to evaluate the magnitude (size of those
differences) and stability (consistency of those differences).
- Results: differences between women and men were fewer and of less magnitude than
many had assumed.
- What was objective? challenging negative cultural stereotypes about women through
empirical research.

Magnitude (size of differences)

- How important should be the difference to clearly state gender differentiation? Size
matters: degree of overlap in the scores (85%, 65%, 55%).
- It is important to assess the difference as poor measurement leads to two types of
bias:
1. Tendency to exaggerate differences (opposite sex): “alpha bias”.
2. Tendency to minimize differences (differences are trivial): “beta bias”.

Stability (consistency of differences)

- Differences should stand across different samples (age, race, ethnicity, time, social
class etc.).
- Has improved since the 70s with statistical software and meta-analysis (comparison of
data from different studies).
- To identify the reasons behind the results, vary: disentangling those having to do with
sex difference from those having to do with other.
- It is important to assess consistency because:
- Tell if a particular trait or behavioral disposition is linked with a particular sex,
rather than with another social category, setting, or time period.
- Also, fuel new debates about the existence and persistence of sex differences.

Why is the study of those differences important? Because underlying these debates there are
broader issues of gender inequality.

If research showed that the two groups were not really very different, according to this logic, it
would be more difficult for societies to defend gender inequality. Women in particular have
been excluded from such domains as politics and employment on the basis of their differences
from men.

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2.4. Gender as a Process (how it is produced)

How and when people become aware of gender? 2 approaches:

1. Differences are “hard-wired” (rooted in biological development)

a. Epigenetic: both genes and environment determine the structure and function
of brain cells and thus the behavior of the organism.
b. Evolutionary: males and females will be the same or similar in all those
domains in which the sexes have faced the same or similar adaptive problems
(Buss, 1995).

2. Differences are a consequence of coping with social roles.

In which domains do women and men face different adaptive problems?

- Sexual selection: “the causal process of the evolution of characteristics on the basis of
reproductive advantage, as opposed to survival advantage” (Buss, 1995).
- Inter and intra sex competition specific for each sex: unique challenges, the way each
sex confronts these sex-specific challenges leads to sex differences in sexuality and
mating.

However there has been criticism for the high amounts of variation among individuals and
societies in those kinds of behavior.

Gender Socialization

The gender socialization are processes through which individuals take on gendered qualities
and characteristics and acquire a sense of self. Through socialization people learn what their
society expects of them as males or females. Components:

- Target > individual who encounters the social world though interactions with parents
and caretakers.
- Agent > the individuals, groups, and organizations who pass on cultural information.

How does it work? By 3 main theories: social learning, cognitive development, and
Identification theory.

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R. 2. THE GENDERED PERSON, WHARTON 2005
• Gender roles are the patterns of behaviors, attitudes, and values that are considered
appropriate for individuals based on their biological sex.
• Gender identity is an individual's sense of themselves as male or female, and is largely
formed by socialization.
• Gender socialization is the process by which individuals learn and internalize gender
roles through social interaction with family, peers, media, and other social institutions.
• Gender role stereotypes are the widely held beliefs and expectations about how men
and women should behave, based on their biological sex.
• Gender stratification refers to the unequal distribution of resources, power, and
opportunities between men and women.
• Gender inequality can be analyzed at the individual, interactional, and institutional
levels.
• The social constructionist perspective views gender as a socially constructed category
that is produced and reproduced through social interactions.
• The biological perspective views gender as primarily determined by biological sex
differences.
• The interactionist perspective views gender as a product of both biological and social
factors, and emphasizes the importance of ongoing interactions between individuals
and their environment.
• Social learning theory proposes that individuals learn gender roles through
observation, imitation, and reinforcement.
• Cognitive development theory suggests that gender identity is acquired through a
series of cognitive stages, in which children come to understand gender as a stable and
enduring category.
• Socialization agents such as parents, peers, and media play an important role in the
development of gender identity and gender roles.
• Gender socialization varies across cultures and historical periods, and can be
influenced by factors such as religion, politics, and economic conditions.
• Gender role strain refers to the stress and tension that individuals experience when
they are unable to conform to traditional gender roles.
• Gender identity disorder, now known as gender dysphoria, is a condition in which
individuals experience a mismatch between their gender identity and biological sex.
• Transgender individuals may face discrimination, harassment, and violence as a result
of their gender identity.
• The feminist perspective views gender inequality as a result of the historical and
ongoing subordination of women by men.
• Intersectionality theory emphasizes the ways in which gender intersects with other
social categories, such as race, class, and sexuality, to produce complex and
intersecting forms of oppression and privilege.

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 LESSON 3: GENDER SOCIALIZATION

3.1. Introduction: Gender Socialization

How do we learn how to be feminine/masculine? How do society’s messages about

appropriate (gender) behaviors are transmitted? By socialization.

Socialization it is said to be “processes through which individuals take on gendered qualities

and characteristics and acquire a sense of self” (Wharton, 2005:35). Through socialization
people learn what their society expects of them as males or females. Then, people are held
accountable for these behaviors (what is appropriate for them depending on their gender).

There are two components on this gender socialization:

- Target > individual who encounters the social world through interactions with parents
and caretakers (newborn). Experience other people and themselves.
- Agent > the individuals, groups, and organizations who pass on cultural information
(parents).

But how does it work? By three major theories: social learning, cognitive development (general
learning theories), and the identification theory (specific theory to explain gender
socialization).

1. Gender socialization theory: Social learning (general)

- No need to be intentional on targets (experience and observation of consequences
of behavior) nor from agents.
- Gender-typed behavior: different responses depending upon whether the person
engaging in the behavior is female or male.
- Future reactions to same situations (“boys don’t cry”).
- Criticism to social learning theory:
→ Target is that passive? > research suggests that children are more actively
involved in their own socialization than social learning theorists
acknowledge.

2. Gender socialization theory: Cognitive development (general)

- Study of how people internalize gender meanings from the outside world then use
those meanings to construct an identity consistent with them.
- They do a connection between “membership” to some sex category > meanings
attached to that membership > individual behavior.
- More active role of individuals during gender socialization: focus on the ways that
children actively seek to understand themselves and their worlds.
- Comes from a wider theory in psychology: Piaget’s principles of cognitive
development, and others (Kohlberg, 1996; Bem, 1983/1993).
- Becoming a gendered person is part of a more general psychological process of
cognitive maturation, where Gender works as other important cognitive skills
(most important).

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 Cognitive development’s mechanism:
→ Once individuals are labeled themselves as gendered
→ And recognize this as a stable feature,
→ They are motivated to seek out gender-appropriate behaviors.
→ Then they give greater value to gender-appropriate, which in turn
reinforces positively gendered behaviors.
- Criticism to this approach:
→ Gender only takes places after individuals are labeled.
→ Why is it gender and no other person’s characteristic their most important
cognitive organizing principle?
- New developments within the cognitive approach: Gender Schema Theory
→ Not just a cognitive skill: gender is part of identities and personalities.
Through this process people acquire traits and personalities that are
consistent with their understandings of themselves as male or female >
“gendered personalities”.
→ “it is also a way of looking at reality that produces and reproduces those
traits during a lifetime of self-construction” (Bem, 1993: 154).
→ Social world provides material to construct gender identities which in turn
guide perception and actions.
→ Two features of gender schemes (in American society)
I. Gender polarization: belief that what is acceptable or appropriate
for females is not acceptable or appropriate for males (and vice
versa) and that anyone who deviates from these standards is
unnatural or immoral (“opposite sex”).
II. Androcentrism: belief that males and masculinity are superior to
females and femininity, and that males and masculinity are the
standard or the norm.
• Individuals not only internalize that males and females are
extremely different, but also the belief that maleness and
masculinity are more desirable and high valued.
• From Bem’s perspective androcentrism damages both men
and women: “crossing the gender boundary has a more
negative cultural meaning for men than it has for women –
which means, in turn, that male gender-boundary-crossers are
much more culturally stigmatized than female gender-
boundary-crossers.” (Bem, 1993: 149-50).
- Do these Gender Schemes exist? Why do we use them? Children (and adults) use
gender (cognitive) schemes to make sense of the social world, to organize and
process information from the environment.
- Social categorization is inherent to cognitive development, and it is a feature
performed by the individuals > they are actives in the process of socialization.
- Becoming gendered it’s not only to learn what is expected as male/female, so, to
become “gender schematic”.
- Social learning and cognitive are not exclusive: social learning theory attends more
to the ways that parents and others respond to children, while cognitive theories
focus on children efforts to make sense of the world around them.

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3. Gender socialization theory: Identification theory (specific)
- Concerned explicitly with gender identities and sexuality.
- Disagrees that gender-appropriate behavior is learned through reinforcement or
imitation, or reflects an intent to behave in a particular way.
- Comes from different theory in psychology > psychoanalysis (Freud).
→ Unconscious psychological processes: gender (some aspects) one of them.
- Gender identity is formed during early childhood as children develop emotional
attachments to a same-sex parent or adult (Chodorow, 1978).
→ Given extreme dependence for satisfaction of needs, the earliest
emotional attachments belong to their mother.
→ Infants’ relations with mothers are emotionally significant and deeply
meaningful, feelings that may be incorporated into the child’s
unconscious.
- Separation of mother, development tasks:
→ Ego boundaries
▪ At the beginning of life there is no distinction between “me” and
“not me”.
▪ This distinction must happen: ego boundaries.
→ Gender identification
▪ Awareness (get sense) of oneself maleness/femaleness.
▪ Identification with same sex-parent (significant adult).
▪ Emotional attachment.
- Gender Identification is not imitation, it is a voluntary and conscious act that is
different for males and females:
→ Males develop ego boundaries easily, but gender identity could become
problematic because of switching the object of identification (emotionally
painful).
→ Females don’t need to switch gender identification but ego boundaries
could be difficult (sense of being separate and independent from others).
→ Result: different gender identities > differentiated male/female
personalities (“relational potential”).
▪ Males “will be more comfortable with separation and distance”.
▪ Females “will feel more comfortable when connected to others
and prefer relationship to separation” (“stronger basis for
experiencing other’s needs as own”).
▪ Females develop more secure sense of themselves as women
(given their ongoing relations with mothers).
▪ Males show a more insecure gender identity (given the switch of
identification figure and distant father, “must show masculinity”).
- Criticism to the identification theory:
→ Obscure to verification (unconscious entity).
→ Universalizes a particular kind of mother and family organization.
→ Reinforces exaggerated stereotypes.
→ Understanding how biology, genetics, parenthood and culture interact to
shape personality and behavior, rather than examining each factor
separately, is perhaps the best way to proceed as we explore these issues.

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R. 3. GENDER SOCIALIZATION, JEAN STOCKARD 2006
• Gender socialization is the process by which individuals learn and internalize gender
roles and expectations.
• Parents are a key source of gender socialization for children, and often reinforce
gendered behaviors and attitudes through rewards and punishments.
• Toys and other material objects can also contribute to gender socialization by
reinforcing gender stereotypes and expectations.
• Peer groups are another important source of gender socialization, as children learn
and conform to gender norms and expectations through their interactions with same-
sex peers.
• Schools and teachers can also contribute to gender socialization by reinforcing
traditional gender roles and expectations, particularly through gendered curricula and
tracking.
• Media, particularly television, can be a powerful source of gender socialization, as
children learn and internalize gendered images and messages from television
programming.
• Gender socialization can have negative effects on individuals, particularly when it leads
to the internalization of harmful gender stereotypes and expectations.
• Gender socialization can also contribute to gender inequality, as individuals who do
not conform to traditional gender roles and expectations may face discrimination and
marginalization.
• Efforts to challenge and transform gender socialization can help to promote gender
equality and reduce the negative effects of gendered expectations and stereotypes.

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 LESSON 4: INTERACTIONAL FRAMEWORKS & DOING GENDER PERSPECTIVE

4.1. Interactionist approaches

We automatically sex categorize other immediately, usually without being aware of it (Ito &
Urland, 2003). But why does sex categorization remain so important, despite massive
technological, economic, and societal changes that make it irrelevant to most of the social
situations? (Fisk & Ridgeway, 2018)

- Because people use gender as a fundamental and primary cultural frame for making
sense of others (and self in relation to others) in order to interact and organize
relationships (Ridgeway, 2011).

Interactionist approaches…

- Challenge the idea of “stable gender”.

- “Gender is a system of social practices that constitutes people as different and that
organizes relations of inequality” (Wharton, 2005).
- Social practices that constitute gender do not operate strictly at the individual level >
social forces are operating also in the external area to the person.
- Social practices also shape social relations and interaction patterns.
- At the individual level, gender is assumed to be relatively stable, but in the social or
external level no because people reactions and behaviors vary in response to the
social context:
→ The social context are other participants and features of the environment where
the interaction takes place.
→ Different degree of “consciousness” of those behaviors > according to the
expectations of other participants.
- Central mechanism: social categorization (sex category/sex assignment):
→ “Processes through which individuals classify others and themselves as members
of particular groups” (Wharton, 2005).
→ Social categorization “sets in motion” processes of social differentiation and
inequality. There is more than one theory of social interaction:
1. Ethnomethodological (“Doing gender”).
2. Status characteristic theory.
3. Homophily approach.
➢ They all view social categorization as essential for social interaction.

1. Social/Interactionist theory: Ethnomethodological

A. Ethnomethodological
→ Gender is a result (accomplishment) of human effort.
→ “Doing gender” perspective (West & Zimmerman, 1987).
→ “Sex categorization” and the “attitude towards gender” are social
constructions rather than biological or physical realities.
→ Gender definition: “activity of managing situated conduct in light of
normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one’s sex
category” (West & Zimmerman, 2005).

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B. Doing Gender
→ In contrast to previous theories, in this one gender is not an achievement
(goal) but an accomplishment (task). A Routine, methodical, and recurring
task.
→ Gender…
o Becomes an adverb rather than a noun, it becomes something one
“does” rather than one “is” (Ridgeway & Smith-Lovin, 2005).
o Produces in a situated behavior > in the presence of others
(virtual or real).
o Is an emergent feature of social situations, different from gender
roles (situated identities) and gender displays (optional portrayed
behavior):
▪ Based on expectations > people are held accountable for
these behaviors (offer explanations).
▪ Gender is produced in these interactions rather than only
displayed (how we are seen by others as female or male,
only accountable because is “seen/noticed”).
o Because sex categories are always present (because it is a personal
characteristic that is always noticeable, omnirelevant) they are
always available as a basis for interpreting others’ behavior.
→ The objective: to understand how social interaction produces a gender
differentiated world.
→ The mechanism of this theory:
Accountability
o Behavior that is socially intelligible (makes sense to
participants within the context).
o Context is specific, not universal.
o The process of accountability starts before the situation itself;
people discipline themselves through the anticipation of
potential consequences.
A) Gender accountability
o “ongoing orientation to the expectations associated with sex
category, not simply the event of other people holding the
actor responsible for their behavior” (Hollander, 2018).
o Process:
I. Perception of a set of expectations as relevant to the
current situation (orientation to sex category).
II. Anticipation of how others might respond to various
courses of behavior, compared to expectations
(assessment).
III. Adequating behavior to meet those expectations or
avoid possible negative consequences (enforcement).

→ Is it possible to not do gender? “Doing gender is unavoidable”.

→ Situations of doing gender: bathrooms, matting, work…

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2. Social/Interactionist theory: Status characteristics theory
→ How does social interaction help to produce gender distinctions and
inequalities? For interaction to occur, it is necessary to have some basis for
categorizing others vis-à-vis oneself (Ridgeway, 1997).
o People relies on attributes to organize social interactions (i.e.: sex
categorization) > expectations and stereotypes.
o Less cognitive effort organizing interactions.
→ Status characteristic is “an attribute on which individuals vary that is
associated with widely held beliefs according to greater esteem and
worthiness to some states of the attribute than others” (Ridgeway, 1993:179)
→ This approach intends to…
o Explain goal-oriented interaction: important expectations are those
relating to performance.
o Understand how distinctions and inequalities are held.
→ “People form their expectations about others’ competence by weighing each
status characteristic in terms of its relevance to the task at hand”.
o Status characteristic > expectations > evaluation (relevance)
→ Age, race, work-position, etc.
→ “People seek cues as to how others will perform in a particular situation and
use status characteristics to assess this”.
→ Gender is contextual, and can be “activated” depending on the
situation/expectations:
o Actors are members of different sex categories (group composition) >
difference
o Gender is relevant to the task (i.e.: sports) > relevance
→ Different from socialization, interaction styles are related to the setting of the
situation:
o Men and women have different behavior because they usually face
different situations.
→ Theoretical developments in lab experiments instead of qualitative
ethnographical studies.

3. Social/Interactionist theory: Homophily

Similarity tends to be a much stronger source of interpersonal attraction than
difference.
→ Homophily: describe people’s preference for sameness, a preference that is
expressed in their interpersonal relations.
→ Experienced and reinforced in everyday life > groups to which people belong
like church, neighborhoods, clubs, associations, etc.
→ People are drawn to those attitudes, values, and beliefs that are similar to
their own.
→ Ascribed characteristics: gender, age, race > “proxies” for similarity and
dissimilarity since they are believed to be reliably associated with particular
characteristics.

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 → The similarity-attraction hypothesis: people should prefer to interact with
others like themselves (same sex groups) than feel uncomfortable, threatened,
and less committed when they are in more heterogeneous groups.
→ This approach helps to understand some aspects of gender like in the
understanding of work experiences and organization:
o Proportions, commitment, attachment.
o Visibility, contrast, assimilation of minority (or subordinated) groups.
o Empowering thresholds in groups.

R. 4. 1. DOING GENDER, WEST & ZIMMERMAN 1987

• The concept of "doing gender" refers to the ways in which individuals actively
construct and perform gender through their everyday actions and interactions.
• Gender is not just a set of fixed, innate characteristics, but is produced and reproduced
through ongoing social interaction.
• The sex/gender distinction, which distinguishes between biological sex and socially
constructed gender, is problematic because it assumes a fixed, natural basis for sex
and fails to account for the ways in which gender is constructed and performed.
• Gender is a fundamental aspect of social organization, shaping the ways in which
individuals interact with one another and participate in social institutions.
• Gender is performed through a variety of means, including language, bodily gestures
and movements, and the use of material objects such as clothing and personal
accessories.
• Gender is a highly visible and salient aspect of social interaction, and individuals are
often held accountable for their performance of gender in various contexts.
• Gender is not a homogeneous category but is shaped by a variety of intersecting
factors such as race, class, and sexuality.
• Gender is not a static category but is subject to change and transformation through
ongoing social interaction and political struggle.
• The concept of "doing gender" challenges traditional notions of essentialism and
biological determinism and emphasizes the importance of ongoing social construction
and performance in shaping individual identities and social institutions.
• Understanding gender as a process of social construction and performance can help to
promote more equitable and just social relations by highlighting the ways in which
gender is produced and reproduced through social interaction and power relations.

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R. 4. 2. GENDER IN INTERACTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS, WHARTON 2005
• The gendered division of labor refers to the ways in which work is divided along
gender lines, with women being more likely to perform unpaid domestic labor and
men being more likely to perform paid work outside the home.
• The gendered division of labor is not just a reflection of natural differences between
men and women, but is shaped by social and economic factors such as gendered
socialization, discrimination, and the gender wage gap.
• Women's unpaid domestic labor is often invisible and undervalued and is not included
in measures of economic productivity such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• The gender wage gap refers to the persistent disparity between men's and women's
earnings, with women earning less than men on average across all occupations and
levels of education.
• The gender wage gap is shaped by a variety of factors, including occupational
segregation, discrimination, and the "motherhood penalty" that women often face in
the labor market.
• Occupational segregation refers to the concentration of men and women in different
types of jobs, with women being overrepresented in low-paying, traditionally female
occupations such as teaching and nursing.
• Discrimination, both overt and subtle, contributes to the gender wage gap by limiting
women's opportunities for career advancement and equal pay.
• The "motherhood penalty" refers to the negative effects that motherhood can have on
women's earnings and career prospects, as they may face discrimination and reduced
opportunities for advancement after having children.
• The gendered division of labor and the gender wage gap contribute to gender
inequality by limiting women's opportunities for economic and social mobility and
reinforcing traditional gender roles and expectations.
• Efforts to promote gender equality in the labor market include policies such as equal
pay laws, affirmative action, and work-family policies that support both men's and
women's caregiving responsibilities.

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 LESSON 5: GENDERED ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS

5.1. Institutional frameworks

Social life happens in institutions and organizations like workplaces, schools, business, the
government etc. But what is an organization? What is an institution?

- Organization: social unit established to pursue a particular goal (Wharton, 2005:65).

- Institution: rules of the dame (Jepperson 1991:43), more permanent matters.
- The education is taken more into account than actually school.

However, the main question here is: is really gender present in institutions and organizations?
Are organizations gendered? They aren’t directly specifically directed to be gendered biased
then, it is said that not processes and organizational structures have no gender and have no
sex.

What does it mean to study gendered organizations? Gendered division of labor at work is a
product of historical processes, which started on the industrial revolution and the modern
organization of work.

Before the industrial revolution work was divided along gender lines, but both men and
women participated in small scale, mostly family-managed, agricultural and manufacturing. So,
even if their tasks often overlapped, there was little to no devaluation of women’s work. Also,
the industrial revolution replaced family and slave work with market work: then, when we shift
from pre market to market society things start to change regarding society.

During this time new paid labor force that fed factories and mines was composed of men,
while women worked in unpaid labor in the household. From this we get the idea of “separate
spheres ideology”:

- “Homemaking as the appropriate occupation for women, while men’s natural place is
the public sphere where work is paid” (Kalev & Deutsch, 2018:258).

In 1960s new regulations disallowed discrimination on the basis of sex and enhanced pay
equality. Women’s labor force participation increased steadily until the mid-1990s and has
been declining slightly ever since. However, the gender pay gap still exists:

- In 1980, 51.5% of the gap was explained by factors such as education, experience,
region, race, industry, occupation, and union membership.
- In 2010, 62% of the gap was explained. Yet, education and experience had little or no
explanatory power. The role of industrial and occupational segregation and race in
explaining the gap increased compared to 1980.

- (Graph lines) The upper the lines, the less gender

gap like education (only 10 years) in comparison
to politics.

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What are the explanations for this?

- Individual based theories:

→ This comes from women’s preferences and choices: it is an economic human
capital theory, individuals seek jobs that will return their investment in
education, skill and experience.
→ The opt-out thesis, when women realize the price of success at work, they opt
out to devote more time to their families.
▪ If you invested a lot in education you will try to get a job that will
compensate this investment, but women in most cases do not expect
this return in investment.
- Structural factors, have been studied since 1970s: structure comes before workers >
determine who is going to be hired.
- Acker (1990): gender as constitutive of organizational structures.

What does it mean to say that an organization is gendered? “To say that an organization is
gendered, means that advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control. Action and
emotion, meaning and identity, are patterned through and in terms of the distinction between
male and female, masculinity and femininity”.

- Acker (1990) departs from the feminist theory > understanding organizations, but
before there was a lack of explanation of male domination in organizations.
- When for instance an organization or enterprise expects or demands a specific profile
of worker or person, and that specific individual is a men.

Why is it important to understand organizations from gender perspective? Because we can

understand why:

→ Gender segregation of work is created by organizational practices.

→ Gender inequality (income, status) is also created by organizational practices.
→ Organization are places where images of gender are produced, reproduced and
disseminated.
→ Some aspects of gender identities are also affected by organizational processes.
→ The feminist goal is to make organizations more democratic…
o However, the impediment was the assumption of gender-neutral
organizations > gender is not an addition to the process, rather is an essential
part of it.

How are organizations gendered-based?

- Division of tasks, places, locations, positions etc.

- Implementation of symbols that represents those divisions like dress codes… but also
TV and culture “successful businessman and leader”.
- Interactions where men are in the center of the scene (talk more, interrupt more etc.).
- The production of individual identities, gendered identities (the aptitutes depending
on the task you’re assigned to are gendered, like a receptionist must be polite etc.) as
a consequence of those mechanisms.

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 - Gendered underlying organization rules (documents, contracts, structure, hierarchies,
job evaluations etc.).

Some relevant mechanisms inside of institutions challenge gender like:

1. Bureaucracy
→ Formalization of rules inside organizations.
→ Bureaucracy and formal rules can encourage or discourage women
participation at work.
→ “Biased formalization” > workers in highly formalized workplaces are less likely
to perceive inequalities as being due to discrimination (Kalev, 2014).
o I.e.: unnecessary physical test for job candidates, evaluations that
allow managers to be credited for tasks done by subordinates, etc.
2. Job evaluation
→ They are not just skills, knowledge, or effort… but also, some managerial
values (what is most valuable?).
→ There is a gender-neutral assumption that jobs are not people but since they
are the basic unit of hierarchy in an organization, jobs are gendered too.
o You can’t say jobs are not persons as jobs cannot happen without
them, hence they are gendered).
o “An abstract job can be transformed into a concrete instance only if
there is a worker” (Acker, 1990:149).
→ The ideal worker norm (as part of the separate spheres ideology)
o The ideal worker norm portrays a worker fully devoted to the
workplace and to work, with no competing demands, year-round
(Williams, 2000).
o The ideal worker has no explicit gender. But… the time devotion and
traits expected from the ideal worker are incongruent with women’s
gender role.
o Ideal worker’s time: women, specially mothers, are more likely to be
evaluated as not committed enough to the workplace, which affects
their hiring, promotions and pay.
o Ideal worker’s traits:
▪ Traits perceived as right for successful leadership. Workplace
organizations are often regarded as an arena for “doing
masculinity” (Acker, 1990).
▪ Ideal, successful worker and leader are described in
stereotypically masculine traits as individualists, aggressive,
authoritative, competitive, powerful, and rational.
o Ideal worker’s class and race:
▪ The ideal worker is not only masculine but also white and
middle class.
▪ Difficult for minority women due to different factors such as:
stronger patriarchal barriers in their communities, housing
segregation forcing longer commutes, and discrimination in
access to education.

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 ▪ Minority, poor and immigrant women are viewed as ideal
workers: employers believe the whip of poverty and their
needs forces them to take any job (Moss & Tilly, 2001).
→ “The abstract, bodiless worker, who occupies the abstract, gender-neutral job
has no sexuality, no emotions, and does not procreate” (Acker, 1990:151).
o The history of modern organizations includes the suppression of
sexuality due to interests of the organization (Acker, 1990).
o The attempts to banish sexuality from the workplace as part of a wider
process to differentiate home (the location of legitimate sexual
activity) and work (the place of capitalist production).
o Stigmatization of women’s bodies and sexualities within the
organization > cause of exclusion or sexualization for women’s jobs.
→ The hegemonic masculinity plays a role in the organizational power and
hierarchy.
o Strong, technically competent, authoritative leader, sexually potent,
with family and with controlled emotions.

Is there some way to close the Gender gap? (Kalev and Deutsch, 2018)

◊ Structures promoting equality:

o Legislation.
o Accountability.
o Changes within organizations (diversity programs, teamwork management,
etc.).
◊ Women as agents of change:
o Active actors (not merely “tokens”).
o Women in managerial positions > expand gender integration in large
organizations (Huffman et al., 2010), reduce pay gaps (Choen & Huffman,
2007), push for diversity programs (Dobbin et al., 2011) and promote cultural
changes in organizations (Ely, 1995).

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R. 5. 1. GENDER INEQUALITY AND WORKPLACE ORGANIZATIONS: REPRODUCTION AND
CHANGE, KALEV & DEUSTCH 2018

It discusses the persistence of gender inequality in the workplace and suggests ways to create
more inclusive and equitable organizations. Here are the key points of the article:

• Gender inequality persists in many workplaces, despite decades of progress in

addressing it.
• The authors propose a "reproduction" framework to understand how gender
inequality is maintained and reproduced over time within organizations.
• The reproduction framework emphasizes the importance of organizational structures,
practices, and culture in shaping gender inequality.
• The reproduction framework also emphasizes the role of individual actors, including
managers and employees, in perpetuating or challenging gender inequality.
• The authors suggest several strategies for creating more inclusive and equitable
organizations, including promoting diversity, implementing flexible work
arrangements, and addressing unconscious biases.
• The authors also emphasize the importance of involving men in efforts to promote
gender equality in the workplace.
• The article concludes with a call for further research on the reproduction framework
and its implications for creating more equitable workplaces.

R. 5. 2. HIERARCHIES, JOBS, BODIES: A THEORY OF GENDERED ORGANIZATIONS, ACKER

1990
It discusses how gender is used to structure organizations and the ways in which organizations
create and maintain gendered hierarchies:

• Gender is a socially constructed concept that is used to organize social life, including
organizations.
• Organizations are not gender-neutral, but rather reflect and reproduce gendered
hierarchies.
• Gendered hierarchies are created and maintained through the division of labor, with
certain types of work being seen as "women's work" and others as "men's work."
• The gendered division of labor is reinforced through job segregation, which leads to
gendered job titles and job descriptions.
• Gendered hierarchies are also reinforced through the use of gendered language, such
as using "he" as a generic pronoun for all employees.
• The concept of "the ideal worker" is gendered, with the ideal worker being seen as
someone who is always available for work and has no caregiving responsibilities.
• Gendered hierarchies are reinforced through the use of gendered bodies, with
women's bodies being seen as weak and in need of protection.
• The concept of "tokenism" refers to the practice of hiring a few women or minorities
to create the appearance of diversity without actually changing the gendered
hierarchy.
• The article concludes by arguing that in order to create more equitable organizations,
we need to recognize and challenge the gendered assumptions and practices that are
built into organizational structures and culture.

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 LESSON 6: INTERSECTIONALITY

6.1. What is an intersection, what is intersectionality?

“Intersectionality is a black feminist theory of power that recognizes how multiple systems of
oppression, including racism, patriarchy, capitalism, interact to disseminate disadvantage to
and institutionally stratify different groups.” (Robinson, 2018)

It was coined in 1989/1991 by American critical legal race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw.

- Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of

Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics (1989).
- Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women
of Color (1991).

it has been interpreted and discussed in various ways – e.g., as a theory, methodology,
paradigm, lens or framework. (Hankivsky, 2014). It bases itself…

- Understanding human beings as shaped by the interaction of different social locations

(e.g., ‘race’/ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, geography, age,
disability/ability, migration status, religion).
- The theory accounts for how systems of oppression reinforce each other.
- Understanding how gender identity and disadvantage are experienced differently
across social statuses is central to uncovering and delineating how power works.

6.2. Historical context

It can be traced to black women’s theorizing about their lives in nineteenth century (slavery).
There was a “double disadvantage”, gender and race statuses meant that they were especially
vulnerable to gendered violence and capitalist exploitation.

Then, it evolved into “multiple jeopardy” (King, 1988) > capture the systemic, institutional, and
micro-level, interpersonal discrimination black women experienced.

The “Negro Question” and the “Woman Question” were seen as separate issues because the
“Negro Question” was inherently about black men and the “Woman Question” was chiefly
about white women, and often economically privileged white women (Beale, 1969).

Intersectionality is born of and rooted in black women’s standing and theorizing in the gap
because black women’s experience of gender was always fundamentally different from that of
white women. These efforts highlighted the unequal categories of difference that left black
women without access to the privileges that facilitated white women’s dominance.

- Class, gender, and race that emerged from enslavement continued to shape the order
and nature of systems of oppression long after abolition.
- The suffrage cause: all white women, even poor, gained access to a valuable
sociopolitical tool that black women didn’t have > racialized boundaries of gender.

Within feminist movements there were differences in the understanding of inequalities across
class and race. Tensions were reflected in emergent Women’s Studies spaces, women’s
organizations, activist concerns, and policy prescriptions.

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In fact, 1960s white women theorists were unable to clearly articulate how black women’s
oppression enabled their own relative privilege. They were unaware of the different conditions
and huge disproportion of opportunities.

- Absence of violent environment.

- Reproductive control (poor women across racial groups subjected to sterilization
campaigns that took away their reproductive control, often without their knowledge
(Roberts, 1997), high costs of birth control and safe abortion procedures).

Out of the activism of the 1960s, black feminist theories of gender, race, and class, proliferated
in the black public sphere. Black and latinx women theorists and activists set a double
challenge to current theories:

1. Challenged theories of racial capitalism that did not include analyses of gender.
2. Challenged theories of gendered capitalism that did not include analyses of race
(Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1983).
→ In 1990s there was a cultural shift > proliferation of ideas about women’s individual
power represented a challenge of these structural analyses.

There was an erroneous notion that feminism had completed its goals (equal pay, bodily
autonomy, and access to previously closed portions of the labor market) was widespread. But
in the mid-2000s social media brought a revival of black feminist movements:

- Internet provided grounds for movements against rape culture, black lives, black and
Latinx women, criticism to appropriation of indigenous women’s experiences, criticism
to excluded transwomen and lesbian women, and gender violence.
- #SayHerName

Now theorists are still teaching the fundamental lesson that racial and ethnic minorities can
simultaneously be women, gay, disabled, or trans and that their lived experiences and
oppression intersect across systems of racism, sexism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and
cissexism.

6.3. Theoretical developments

→ Intersectionality as a theory of power: everyone, regardless of status, to be located in

the “matrix of domination” (Collins, 1990). As a theory of power in relationships,
intersectionality highlights how various systems of oppression (racism, sexism,
capitalism, and heteropatriarchy) intersect and reinforce each other in order to stratify
and dominate minority groups.
o Systems of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability oppression intersect to
locate and either constrain or enable individuals based on their multiple
intersecting statuses.
→ As an alternative epistemology to the conventional practice of gender theory, which
often assumes implicitly normalized gendered subjects as race-less, middle class, able-
bodied, or white.
❖ Intersectionality makes such normative assumptions visible by focusing on power
relationships accounting for how multiple systems of power simultaneously act on
individuals contradicts the “universal subject” that experiences gender advantage or
disadvantage in relatively uniform ways.

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 ❖ Intersectionality is at once a stand-alone theory of structural power relationships, a
key form of gender theorizing, and an alternative to conventional gender theory.
→ Intersectionality as a challenge to rigid Marxian inequality discourse that situated
class and capital as the essential form of domination, with gender domination only a
consequence of class domination > gender dominance exists and persist in economic
contexts beyond capitalism.
o It divide lines across theoretical frameworks… constructionism (theory of
difference -“doing gender”) vs systems of oppression (theory of power).
❖ Intersectionality rejects the logic of the primacy of essential gender oppression in the
same way that they dismissed rigid Marxian focus on the dismantling of capitalism.
❖ The questions were not about difference, as it were, but about power, which was
embedded in interlocking systems of oppression.
❖ Questions of power require attention to systems, structures, and institutions, and
engagement with the interlocking nature of those systems.

6.4. Methodological challenges to Intersectionality

There is no consensus about methods to adequately account for intersectionality > became a
critical issue to the theory’s further development. McCall (2005) proposes 3 methodological
perspectives after institutionalization of race and class studies within the field of
intersectionality:

1. Within groups (“intracategorial”) > sheds lights on previously neglected groups within
a category while recognizing the socially constructed nature of categories.
• More quantitative
2. Across groups (“intercategorical”) > accepts categories but only to demonstrate the
relationships of power between groups.
• More qualitative
3. No-groups (“anticategorical”) > rejects categories because of their inherent fluidity
and impermanence.

Intersectionality first and foremost reflects the reality of lives (Shields, 2008). There is now
considerable consensus growing that one must always take into consideration multiple axes of
oppression; to do otherwise presumes the whiteness of women, the maleness of people of
color, and the heterosexuality of everyone” (Risman, 2004:442).

- Richer and more complex ontology than approaches that attempt to reduce people to
one category at a time.
- Social positions as relational.
- Privilege << >> oppression axis

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6.5. Some criticism to Intersectionality

1) Social divisions have different organizing logics (Skeggs, 2006)

→ ‘Race’ cannot be treated in the same way as social class.
→ ‘Different inequalities are dissimilar because they are differently framed’ in
society.
→ ‘Policy strategies not only in the similarity, but also in the distinctiveness of
inequalities’ (Yuval-Davis, 2008).
2) Future directions
→ Accumulation of intergenerational disadvantage from an intersectional
perspective.
→ Multiple ways disadvantaged individuals make labor choices in the wake of
discrimination. (Sex work)
→ Study of economically elite racial and ethnic minorities >> how interlocking
systems of oppression work across groups.

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R. 6. INTERSECTIONALITY AND GENDER THEORY (CH. 5), RISMAN 2018
• Intersectionality refers to the ways in which social identities intersect and interact with
one another, creating unique experiences and inequalities.
• Gender intersects with other social identities such as race, class, and sexuality, creating
complex and interconnected systems of privilege and oppression.
• Intersectionality can help us to understand the multiple and intersecting dimensions of
inequality and the ways in which social identities are constructed and performed.
• The concept of "doing gender" refers to the ways in which individuals actively
construct and perform gender through their behavior, appearance, and language.
• Gender is not a fixed or innate characteristic, but rather is constructed and reinforced
through social interaction.
• The performance of gender can be constrained by social norms and expectations,
leading to gender inequality and the reproduction of gendered hierarchies.
• Gender can also be performed in ways that challenge or subvert gender norms and
expectations, leading to greater gender diversity and inclusion.
• The article concludes by arguing that an intersectional approach to gender and
inequality is necessary for creating more equitable and inclusive social systems.
• The intersectional approach to gender and inequality recognizes that social identities
are not additive, but rather intersect and interact with each other in complex ways.
• Intersectionality highlights the importance of studying the experiences of people who
occupy multiple marginalized identities, such as women of color or queer people from
low-income backgrounds.
• The concept of "doing intersectionality" refers to the ways in which individuals actively
negotiate and perform their multiple social identities in different contexts.
• Doing intersectionality can involve balancing conflicting or overlapping identities and
dealing with intersecting forms of discrimination and privilege.
• Gender and other social identities are performed in both conscious and unconscious
ways, and can be influenced by cultural norms, social institutions, and power relations.
• The performance of gender and other social identities can also be influenced by the
individual's own agency and resistance to dominant norms and expectations.
• The article emphasizes the importance of understanding the historical and cultural
context in which gender and other social identities are constructed and performed.
• The intersectional approach to gender and inequality has implications for policy and
practice, highlighting the need for targeted interventions that address multiple forms
of oppression and recognize the diversity of experiences among marginalized groups.

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