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Gender Ideas Interactions Institutions 1st Edition Wade Test Bank
Gender Ideas Interactions Institutions 1st Edition Wade Test Bank
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Institutions are
a. organized arenas of production―like a factory or a stadium―that facilitates a
socially desired outcome.
b. companies organized bureaucratically to make money by producing and selling a
product.
c. social organizations, like Congress or a city’s police force, aiming to govern the
people.
d. persistent patterns of social interaction aimed at meeting the needs of a society that
can’t easily be met by individuals alone.
ANS: D REF: p. 164
6. What would happen if sports were not organized by gender, but by ability instead?
a. We would see that women and men have equal ability and women would win as
often as men.
b. We would see that women and men have such unequal abilities that they would
still never compete against each other.
c. Beliefs in gender difference and inequality would not be routinely and
ritualistically rehearsed through sport.
d. Competitions would no longer be fair.
ANS: C REF: p. 181
14. What does the statement, “the stronger women get, the more men love football” convey?
a. Sports place men and boys into a hierarchy of masculinity.
b. The symbolic link between the male spectator and the male athlete affirms men’s
supposed superiority over all women.
c. Sports is a culturewide male-bonding extravaganza that only strong women share.
d. Every economy benefits from the institutionalization of sport because modern men
love it.
ANS: B REF: p. 175
16. The predominance of African American male athletes in professional basketball is an example
used to indicate
a. superiority of their masculine physical achievement.
b. how institutions like sports change in response to shifts in the broader social
structure.
c. racial discrimination in other sports.
d. the differences in aesthetic expectations for African and American male athletes.
ANS: B REF: p. 184
18. Which of the following statements is NOT true about sex-segregated sports?
a. They affirm the hierarchical gender binary.
b. They protect women from the idea that they are inferior athletes.
c. They protect men from losing face.
d. They help justify paying female athletes less than male ones.
ANS: B REF: pp. 179–181
20. According to sociologist Abigail Feder, women figure skaters who wear glittery leotards with
short skirts perform
a. gender salience. c. emphatic sameness.
b. androcentrism. d. the feminine apologetic.
ANS: D REF: p. 177
22. The failure of efforts to install gender-neutral bathrooms in the Department of Social and
Cultural Analysis at New York University is an illustration that indicates
a. the importance of winning support from transgender faculty staff members.
b. that gender-neutral bathrooms aren’t a feasible option.
c. that changing institutions requires widespread support and compliance.
d. the impact of discriminatory behavior by the building commissioner.
ANS: C REF: p. 183
23. A study of pay in professional golfing concluded that the primary rationale for vast
differences in prize money was
a. institutional regulations. c. differences in skill.
b. gender. d. gender subordination.
ANS: B REF: p. 182
ESSAY
1. When it comes down to it, regardless of social construction and social pressure, don’t we live
in a society in which it’s possible to just be an individual?
ANS:
Answers will vary.
2. Institutional inertia makes social change difficult and yet we see a lot of social change in
gender relations in many different social institutions. How do you explain this apparent
contradiction? Discuss a few of the causal forces impelling change in a social institution of
your own choosing.
ANS:
Answers will vary.
3. Wade and Ferree argue that gender is never the most logical way to organize a sport. Choose a
sport that they do not discuss and consider their claim. Brainstorm a list of other variables on
which athletes in this sport could reasonably be divided. Choose the one you think makes the
most sense and play out the scenario. How do you think this sport would change? How would
life change for the athletes? The fans? The sponsors? What ideology of gender, if any, would
the sport now support?
ANS:
Answers will vary.
4. Wade and Ferree discuss the history of basketball in the United States, showing that it was
dominated by Jewish men in the first half of the 1900s. How does the concept of institution
help explain why African Americans eventually came to dominate professional basketball?
Likewise, how does the concept explain why men’s basketball continues to outshine women’s
basketball?
ANS:
Answers will vary.
5. The salience of gender in bathroom facilities varies. What is gender salience? Give some
examples of how the salience of gender in bathroom facilities varies? In light of these
observations, what conclusions can we draw about what purpose sex-segregated bathrooms
serve?
ANS:
Answers will vary.