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Sex, Sexuality and Gender: Basic Concepts
Sex, Sexuality and Gender: Basic Concepts
Sex, Sexuality and Gender: Basic Concepts
Basic Concepts
From Advancing Sexuality Studies:
a short course on sexuality theory and
research methodologies
The International
Resource Network
Developed by:
The Caribbean International Resource Network
Presented in collaboration with:
The Institute for Gender & Development Studies at the
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
(Trinidad & Tobago)
With funding from The Ford Foundation & the
International Association for the Study of Sexuality,
Culture and Society (IASSCS)
Available under an Attribution, Non-Commercial,
Share Alike licence from Creative Commons
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Schedule
Learning activity Time allowed
Introduction & aims 10 mins
Session 1. Challenging biological determinism and 160 mins
defining sex, sexuality and gender
Group work & lecture (x2) 130 mins
Reading images 20 mins
Session wrap-up 10 mins
Session 2. Heteronormativity and sexual stratification 100 mins
Introduction and lecture 30 mins
Group work 20 mins
Lecture & group work 50 mins
Session 3. Understanding sexuality as historically & 80 mins
socially constructed
or Transgender issues in cross-cultural perspective
Guided reading and group work 80 mins
Conclusion & personal reflection 45 mins
Total 395 mins
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Module aims
To:
Introduce and critique biologically determinist understandings of
sex, gender and sexuality
Introduce Critical Sexuality Studies definitions of sex, sexuality
and gender and examine the history of the construction of
sexuality
Examine the relationships between sex, sexuality and gender
through consideration of heteronormativity and sexual/gendered
inequity
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Participants will:
Critique biologically determinist constructions of sex and
sexuality
Identify key theorists and concepts in the study of sexual
inequality
Think critically about the relationships between sex, sexuality
and gender
Reflect on the effects of normative constructions of sex,
sexuality and gender as these are relevant to their own
sociocultural and research settings
5
Session 1.
Challenging biological
determinism and defining sex,
sexuality and gender
6
Group work
Divide into two groups
Group 1
List differences between women and men and consider:
On what are these perceived differences based? (e.g. biological, social,
cultural or religious beliefs)
Group 2
List similarities between women and men and consider:
On what are the perceived similarities based? (e.g. biological, social,
cultural or religious beliefs) (10 mins)
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Biological determinism,
sex and sexuality
10
The gay gene
Geneticists search for a gay gene to prove there is a
biological basis for, and explanation of, male homosexuality
Small differences found between the post-mortem brains of
heterosexual and homosexual young men (LeVay, 1991)
Research on pairs of homosexual brothers found that some had
similar markers on the X chromosome, indicating a genetic basis
for sexuality (Hamer et al. 1993)
14
Complexities of sex & gender
Is there a difference? Yes, on one level
Sex is biological male, female, also intersex (reproductive
differences based on genitalia, chromosomes, hormones)
Also refers to sexual acts, as in having sex
15
Hijra in India Caster Semenya, South A Tom in Thailand
African athlete
Trinidadian
Jowelle De Souza
16
Temptation to make an absolute distinction between sex
and gender:
Nature vs nurture or essentialism vs social constructionism
17
Cannot neatly separate the sexed body from the gendered
body
Mutually constituted through sociocultural processes
18
Bodies cannot be understood as just the objects of
social processthey are active participants in social
process...
They participate through their capacities, development
and needs through the direction set by their
pleasures and skills.
Bodies must be seen as sharing social agency.
(Connell 2002: 40)
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Discussion
Bodies have physical capacities and limitations
These influence how bodies can be socially experienced or
intervened with
Discussion (5 mins)
20
What is sexuality?
Quite a new term
Came into English, French and German usage at the end of the
18th century
Usually meant reproduction through sexual activity among plants and
animals
Used in relation to love and sex matters in European discourse in
the 1830s
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Four intertwining strands of sexuality:
Sexual desire or attraction
To whom (or in some cases what) someone is attracted (physically and
emotionally)
Sexual activity or behaviour
What a person does or likes to do sexually (intercourse, masturbation, oral
sex, sexual fetishes)
Sexual identity
How someone describes their sense of self as a sexual being (e.g.
heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, homosexual)
Sexual experience
Observations of others sexualities; education or training related to
sexuality; experiences that may not have been consensual
No clear boundaries!
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The sexuality matrix
Desire
Behavior Identity
Experience
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General theoretical definition
Sexuality [is] an historical construction which brings
together a host of different biological and mental
possibilities, and cultural forms gender identity, bodily
differences, reproductive capacities, needs, desires,
fantasies, erotic practices, institutions and values which
need not be linked together, and in other societies have not
been.
Weeks, J (2003: 7) Sexuality: Second Edition, Routledge
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Caribbean theoretical
definition
Caribbean sexuality is characterized by diversity and
involves embodied sexual practices, identities, knowledge,
and strategies of resistance of the colonized and
postcolonial subject (2004: 2).
Kempadoo, K (2004: 2) Sexing the Caribbean, Routledge
25
Are these images of sex, sexuality or gender?
What would we need to know in order to make sense of this
question? (5 mins + 5 mins feedback)
Images by Rodell Warner from the Photobooth series (2009-2011)
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Are these images of sex, sexuality or gender?
What would we need to know in order to make sense of this
question? (5 mins + 10 mins feedback)
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Session summary
Review the notes made at the start of the session on
definitions of sex, sexuality and gender and consider:
To what extent do they equate with working definitions so far?
(5 mins)
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Session 2.
Heteronormativity and
sexual stratification
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Like gender, sexuality is political. It is organised into
systems of power, which reward and encourage some
individuals and activities, while punishing and suppressing
others.
Gayle Rubin (1984: 309)
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Lecture
Heteronormativity
the institutions, structures of understanding and practical
orientations that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent
that is, organized as a sexuality but also privileged.
(Berlant and Warner (2000: 312))
Heteropatriarchy
the systems that support the combination of heteronormativity
and patriarchy (male dominance)
Maintained and perpetuated by social institutions
e.g. media, education, law, family, religion, healthcare systems
usually through exclusion and marginalisation
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Brainstorm
Can you think of examples of heteronormative assumptions
that are present in the Caribbean? (5 mins)
33
Inducements & punishments
Inducements Material
The marriage contract (legalised sexual subordination of women)
Financial and material support (husband)
Sphere of influence (the domestic)
Stay-at home child allowance for women
Reduced earning capacity for women compared with their male partners
Symbolic or ideological
Romance and love made complete with a man (heterocoupling)
Female beauty as an ideal of female worth
Motherhood within marriage as female self-fulfilment
Women valued only insofar as they are valuable to men
Punishments Social ostracism for unmarried mothers, women who leave their husbands and
financially independent women
Women who are sexually independent labelled as loose, skettels, sluts
Criminalisation, pathologisation and abuse of lesbians and women who are not
exclusively heterosexual
A system of gendered sexual violence that keeps women (and their sexuality) in its
proper place
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Group work
Divide into groups
Using the handout supplied on Richs work re: inducements
and punishments, consider the following focus questions:
Is this model of inducements and punishments relevant in the
Caribbean historically and/or in the 21st century? If not, can it
be rewritten?
Can this table be rewritten to apply to men? (10 mins)
35
Gayle Rubin
Thinking Sex (1984)
Hierarchies of sexual value
People and practices high in the hierarchy rewarded with a range of
benefits, those low in the hierarchy punished and vilified
Heterosexual couples who are married, monogamous and of the same
generation accrue more benefits than those who are not married and/or
who engage in more marginalised sexual practices
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Charmed circle: summary
Diagram not intended to be a fixed representation of how
heteronormativity works at all times, in all places
The inner circle boundary line can shift over time, and from place-to-
place, for instance:
Homosexuality was never illegal in French colonies but was criminalised
by the British in all of its colonies; today, same-sex marriage is technically
legal in the Dutch Caribbean territories that remain part of the Kingdom of
the Netherlands, but very few have been performed.
Polygamy is illegal in Caribbean territories, but it is commonly practiced.
Intergenerational sex between males was permitted in Ancient Greece but
is illegal in Greece now.
Whoever controls the boundary determines what is normal and
abnormal, and controls the system of rewards and punishment
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Session 3.
Either: Understanding
Caribbean sexualities as
historically and socially
constructed
or: Transgender identities in a
Caribbean context
39
Session 3, Option 1.
Understanding Caribbean
sexualities as historically and
socially constructed
40
Guided reading
Read G. Wekker Whats Identity Got to Do with it:
Rethinking Identity in light of the Mati Work in
Suriname. (2005)
Or
J. Alexander Erotic Autonomy as a Politics of
Decolonization: Feminism, Tourism, and State in
the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago
(30 mins)
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Focus questions
(30 mins reading, 15 mins discussion, 30 mins feedback)
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Session 3, Option 2.
Transgender issues in
a Caribbean context
43
Guided reading
Read Caricco (2012) Collateral Damage:
the Social Impact of Laws Affecting LGBT
Persons in Guayana
44
Guided reading
Focus questions:
How do Guyanese legal and cultural systems affect transgender people?
What (if anything) in the reading is particular to the Caribbean and local
understandings of gender and sexuality?
How can transgender identities challenge heteronormativity? How might they
reinforce heteronormativity?
What challenges do transgender individuals present for biological determinists?
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Conclusion
In Critical Sexuality Studies, human sexuality is understood
as:
Diverse
Dynamic and
Deeply inventive
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Personal reflection
In pairs: discuss the aspect of the module that you
personally found to be the most thought-provoking (5 mins)
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Module adapted for the Anglophone Caribbean by:
Dr. Rosamond S. King, The Caribbean International Resource
Network
Original module created by:
Dr Deb Dempsey, Swinburne University of Technology and Mr William Leonard,
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society with supporting material from
Professor Gary W. Dowsett, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society
Caribbean short course developed by:
The Caribbean International Resource Network
with the Institute for Gender & Development Studies, The University of
the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago
Original short course developed by:
The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe
University, Melbourne, Australia and The International Association for
the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS)
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