Sociology of Gender

SYD 3804
Professor Oueslati-Porter
WELCOME to Sociology of Gender &
Introduction to Women’s and
Gender Studies!
Today’s Agenda:
• Gender quiz.
• What is Sociology of Gender?
• What is gender, what is sex, and what is sexuality?
• What kinds of theory do sociologists of gender use?
• The syllabus
 The Gender Quiz
Directions: Turn to a neighbor, and introduce yourself. Then, answer
each question to the BEST of your knowledge. Be sure to discuss HOW
you feel you know the answer.
1) True or False: The wages of U.S. women have just about caught up
with U.S. men.
2) Among, U.S. women, _______ women pay higher interest on car
loans than any other race/ethnicity of women.
3) T/F: In college “hook-up” culture, male and female students report
having orgasms at about the same rate.
4) In heterosexual marriages here in the USA, what race/ethnicity of
men do more housework than any other race/ethnicity of men?
5) What group of men in the USA is most likely to be killed by police
while unarmed?
Key Terms
Sex
Gender
Sexuality
 Sex, defined.

“Our biological sex is how we are defined as female, male, or intersex. It

describes our internal and external bodies — including our sexual and
reproductive anatomy, our genetic makeup, and our hormones.”
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/f
emale-male-intersex#sthash.XC5xT5Xm.dpuf
Sexual Differentiation in Humans:
Which Embryo is male and which is
female?

• Left: “male”
• Right: “female”
The Social Construction of Sex
Differences
Did you know: Clitorises that are longer than .9 cm and penises that are
shorter than 2.5 are likely to be surgically “fixed” shortly after birth?
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female: one in 100 births.

• Not XX and not XY one in 1,666 births

• Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13,000 births
• Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 130,000 births
• Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13,000 births
• Vaginal agenesis one in 6,000 births
• Ovotestes one in 83,000 births
• Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) one in 110,000 births
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance
one or two in 1,000 births
The World Health Organization:
“Clearly, there are not only females who are XX and males who are XY,
but rather, there is a range of chromosome complements, hormone
balances, and phenotypic variations that determine sex.”
 How important is Biological Sex?

In Western Societies, Sex and gender often considered in binary pairs:

• Male or Female = Masculine or Feminine
Binary challenged by intersex, transgender or third gender people
15
Gender

The socially learned expectations and behaviors associated with

members of each sex.
Gender Stratification
The differential ability of men and women to achieve the privileges/ access the resources in a
society.
Gender stratification can be see throughout the society’s institutions.
• Family
• Religion
• Education
• Work
• Sex, Love, Marriage
• Media
• Healthcare
• Old Age
Basic Schools of Thought on Gender
Differentiation
Differential Socialization
Biological Determinism Q: Are men and women different
because they are socialized differently?

Q: Are men and women different

because they are “hardwired” to
be different?
Media Socialization Normalizes
Gender
What are your reactions to the same
advertisement where the gender is
changed:
What do our reactions to each of
these photos tell us about our
gender socialization?
Transgender people are those who live as a gender different from the
one they were assigned by society at birth.

Right now in the USA: Trans women of color are disproportionately

murdered.
http://www.advocate.com/transgender/2016/8/11/these-are-trans-peop
le-killed-2016#slide-3
Cece McDonald Case:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/8/18/a_state_of_emergency_at_l
east
An Intersectionalities Approach to
the Study of Gender
“…the complex of reciprocal attachments and sometimes polarizing
conflicts that confront both individuals and movements as they seek to
"navigate" among the raced, gendered, and class-based dimensions of
social and political life.”
http://www.uccnrs.ucsb.edu/intersectionality

Race, Class, and Gender intersect in our lived experiences and our
experiences in society’s institutions.
White, Middle Class as “generic.”

• What is the luxury of being generic? The invisibility of privilege.

• Do Women of Color and White women share the same experiences

and perspectives?
“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the
patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street,
and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying.”

― Audre Lorde
Here are 21 examples from the last five years of some of the things black
people can't do without others thinking they're up to no good.
1. Listen to loud music at a gas station.
2. Walk home from a snack run to 7-11.
3. Wear a hoodie.
4. Drive after swimming.
5. Drive in a car with a white girl.
6. Appear in public in New York City.
7. *Walk on the wrong side of the street.
8. Wait for a school bus to take you to your high school basketball game.
9. Drink iced tea in a parking lot.* (Xtrav)
10. Seek help after a car accident.
11. Inspect your own property.
12. Show up at your job.
13. Talk trash after an NFL game.
14. Throw a temper tantrum in kindergarten.
15. Buy designer accessories at Barney’s.
16. Buy designer accessories at Macy’s.
17. Be a 13-year-old boy.
18. Enter your own home.*
19. Botch a science experiment.
20. Be a tourist.
21. Lay face down in handcuffs.*
Race, Class, and Gender are
interlocking systems of
oppression.
Sexuality
Sexual desire is, like gender, socially constructed.
Sexuality and Theory
• Sociology Uses Queer theory:
• Queer Theory: society forces sexual boundaries
on people.
• Queer Theory Challenges “either/or” thinking about
sex and gender.

• Queer Theory Challenges the idea that only one form

of sexuality is normal.
Mangaia of Polynesia
•Adolescent boys are given sexual instruction by middle-aged women.
•Practically every girl and boy has had intercourse before marriage.
•“Frigidity,” celibacy, and homosexuality unknown.
Sexuality and same-sex desire
• In global surveys, sex acts involving people of the same sex were
absent, rare, or secret in only 37 of 76 societies (Ford and Beach)
Meaning, same-sex sexual activity considered normal and acceptable in 39.
• Etoro of Papua New Guinea
Inis Beag, Ireland
“Most sexually repressed” society in the world.
• Roman Catholic
• Absence of sexual foreplay.
• Belief that sexual activity weakens men.
• Absence of premarital sex.
• High percentage of celibate males.
• Extraordinarily late age of marriage.
Andalusia and
Sexual Control of Women
• Roman Catholic, Like the Irish of Innis Beag
• Women are seen as the devil.
• Women have lustful appetites and lead men into temptation.
• Women possess goodness only as mothers.
• Husbands fear that women drive them to early death by demands for
sex.
Review Question
_____ refers to biological identity as male or female.

A. Gender
B. Sexuality
C. Sexual preference
D. Sex
Review Question
The definition of oneself and one’s society as a “woman,” a “man,” or
another category such as the Omani Xanith is one’s _____.

A. sexual identity
B. sexual self-image
C. sexual preference
D. gender identity
Review Question
The sociological term for the hierarchical distribution of social and
economic resources according to gender is _____.

A. gendered prejudice
B. the glass elevator
C. gendered segregation
D. gender stratification