MODERN AND

CONTEMPORARY
GENDER THEORISTS
 DOROTHY SMITH
QUICK FACTS

Smith was born on July 26, 1926, in Northallerton, 

Yorkshire, England, to Dorothy F. Place and Tom Place,
who also had three sons.

One of her brothers, Ullin Place, is known for his work on

consciousness as a process of the brain, another is poet 
Milner Place.
 Early Life and Works
◦ Smith did her undergraduate work at the London School of Economics, earning her BS Sociology degree with
a Major in Social Anthropology in 1955.
◦ She then married William Reid Smith, whom she had met while attending LSE, and they moved to the United
States. They both attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her
Ph.D. in Sociology in 1963, nine months after the birth of their second child.
◦ Not long afterward she and her husband were divorced; she retained custody of the children. She then taught
as a lecturer at UC Berkeley from 1964 to 1966.
◦ In 1967 she moved with her two sons to Vancouver British Columbia to teach at the 
University of British Columbia, where she helped to establish a Women's Studies Program.
◦ In 1977 she moved to Toronto, Ontario to work at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where she
stayed until she retired.
◦ In 1994 she became an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, where she continued her work in
institutional ethnography. Smith serves on the international advisory board for the feminist journal Signs.
FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY
How it became to be?
◦ Feminist Standpoint Theory is inspired by Karl Marx’s Standpoint
Theory

◦ STANDPOINT THEORY- the groups we engage with, and the activities we

engage in, shape our knowledge.

◦ Groups- social groups; like family, friends, religious community;

organizations or other epistemic agent such as race, gender, ethnicity,
sexuality etc.
3 CLAIMS IN FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY

1. Whatever knowledge we are able to obtain is socially situated.

2. People who are part of a marginalized group/s are socially situated in a way
that makes them more aware of present circumstances, allowing them to ask
questions that have more value, than those people who are not marginalized.
3. Research must therefore begin with those who are living their lives within a
group that is marginalized.
First Claim:
◦ Whatever knowledge we are able to obtain is socially situated.
◦ Your social situation produced by your social groups or any epistemic agent plays a part in shaping what we know,
and limiting what we are able to know.
◦ For example:
◦ You are an able-bodied person. You walk up to a building and enter through the doors because you know it is the entrance.
After you finish your business within that building, you leave and go about the rest of your day.
◦ A person in a wheelchair comes up to the same building but can’t go through the entrance because there is no wheelchair
accessibility. They are left to either:
◦ A. not enter the building
◦ B. ask for assistance to get to the building, or
◦ C. attempt to walk through the entrance on their own, albeit being bound to a wheelchair.
Second Claim:
◦ People who are part of a marginalized group/s are socially situated in a way that makes them more aware
of present circumstances, allowing them to ask questions that have more value, than those people who
are not marginalized.
◦ Who are these marginalized groups?
◦ These are groups to which the society deprives certain rights and privileges to them because of their conditions and/ or
circumstances.
◦ Examples: women, indigenous peoples and groups, farmers, fisher-folks, urban poor, disabled persons, etc.

◦ FEMINIST STANDPOINT THEORY suggests that women can achieve in supporting and promoting
other women when they are placed in a marginalized position in society.
Third Claim:
◦ Research, particularly that focused in power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized.
◦ Women’s lives and roles in almost all societies are significantly different from men’s, women hold a different type
of knowledge.
◦ Their location as a subordinated group allows women to see and understand the world in ways that are different and
challenging to the existing male-biased conventional wisdom.
JUDITH BUTLER
Born Judith Pamela Butler

February 24, 1956 

Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.

Education Bennington College (BA)

Yale University (MA, PhD)

Partner(s) Wendy Brown

◦ Butler is best known for the books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)
and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional
notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity. This theory has had a major
influence on feminist and queer scholarship. Their works are often studied in film studies courses
emphasizing gender studies and performativity in discourse.
◦ Butler has supported lesbian and gay rights movements and has spoken out on many contemporary
political issues.
 GENDER
PERFORMATIVITY
What is Gender?
◦ Set of expectations that society defines for you.
◦ Example: Men and Women are supposed to act and dress in a certain way.
◦ Society assumes that gender roles exist because of biology.
◦ There is an assumption that if you were born a female, you will be a woman, and thus, is required to be
feminine, hence, you should be attracted to men.

◦ BUT THE QUESTION IS---- IS GENDER REALLY NATURAL?

◦ Judith Butler: Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory
frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance”
What does Butler mean?
◦ Butler argues that Gender roles are merely constructed by society.
◦ From the moment a newborn is declared to be a girl, it is expected to act like how its sex equals to
gender, and thus society defines them to become a woman when she grows up. At inception, parents
cloth her with clothes that society deems to be ’only for girls” and then as they grow they will be given
toys that are “only for girls”.
◦ Gender is the cultural meaning we attach to our biological sex– which isn’t always true.
◦ There is ample evidence that girls like sports, and boys like make-up.
◦ It is just society that coerce people to act and think and feel in a certain way, just because of their gender.
GENDER IS PERFORMATIVE
◦ According to Butler, Gender is performative.
◦ We are not just acting it like in a performance, but rather actively constructing it as we act it out.
GENDER IS PERFORMATIVE
◦ According to Butler, Gender is performative.
◦ We are not just acting it like in a performance, but rather actively constructing it as we act it out.
◦ “GENDER REALITY IS PERFORMATIVE WHICH MEANS, QUITE SIMPLY, THAT IT IS REAL ONLY TO THE
EXTENT THAT IT IS PERFORMED. IF WE REFUSE TO PERFORM OUR GENDER SCRIPTS, THEN GENDER
WILL CEASE TO EXIST.
Raewyn Connel
◦ Born Robert Connel, January 3, 1944
◦ Parents: William Fraser Connel &
Margaret Lloyd Connel
◦ An Australian sociologist
◦ Was appointed University Professor at
the University of Sydney in 2004 till
2014
◦ She is known for the concept of
hegemonic masculinity and her book,
Southern Theory
◦ A transwoman
HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY,
EMPHASIZED FEMININITY
WHAT DOES SOCIETY EXPECT MEN
and WOMEN should be?
◦ Strong ◦ Blue
◦ Meek/Gentle/ Emotional ◦ Pink
◦ Breadwinner ◦ Caring
◦ House Manager ◦ Not affectionate
◦ Sporty ◦ Builds the house
◦ Sassy ◦ Cleans the house
◦ Studious/ diligent ◦ Cooks
◦ Independent ◦ Do repairs in the house
◦ Loves to play dolls ◦ Basketball
◦ Loves to play guns/ cars ◦ Volleyball
◦ The terms masculinity and femininity refer to traits or
characteristics typically associated with being male or
female, respectively.

◦ Traditionally, masculinity and femininity have been
conceptualized as opposite ends of a single dimension,
with masculinity at one extreme and femininity at the
other.
HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY,
EMPHASIZED FEMININITY
Hegemony
Antonio Gramsci’s Marxist, Philosophy and Politics

“The concept of hegemony is really a simple one. It means

political leadership based on the consent of the led, a
consent which is second by the diffusion and
popularization of the world-view of the ruling class”
Hegemony=Invisible power

an indoctrination process
Hegemonic Masculinity
Hegemonic masculinity is defined as a practice that
legitimizes men's dominant position in society and justifies the
subordination of the common male population and women,
and other marginalized ways of being a man. 
Conceptually, hegemonic masculinity proposes to explain how
and why men maintain dominant social roles over women, and
other gender identities, which are perceived as "feminine" in a
given society.
Examples:
◦ Boys or Men are strong physically and mentally. Soft gestures such as being
affectionate and caring are not attitudes of boys or men.
◦ Boys hold back their feelings; showing people that they cry is not “manly”
◦ Boys must have short hair.
◦ Boys only watch action films and sports shows and it is taboo to watch Disney
movies or beauty pageant shows.
◦ Boys are expected to be independent and find work to become the
breadwinner.
◦ Boys are associated with darker colors; pink, yellow, light/ pastel colors are a
no-no.
Emphasized Femininity
◦ Emphasized femininity is the idea that women must conform to the needs
and desires of men.
◦ It establishes the idea that the ultimate reason for a woman’s survival is
to provide man with sexual validation, carry his babies and serve his
household. Girls who’re raised with emphasized femininity ideas grow up
to become submissive women and do not seek power in a relationship.
◦ They often find it unattractive for a man to treat them equal or seek
their opinion in making decisions since the idea is planted deep in their
head that it’s a man’s role to lead and woman’s to follow.
Examples:
◦ Girls are soft physically and mentally. Strong gestures such as being rugged and fierce are not ‘womanly’
and thus are tomboy.
◦ Girls must have long hair as hair is the crowning glory of a woman.
◦ Girls must submit to men, by not being aggressive when it comes to love. She must wait for her “prince
charming” to come.
◦ Girls are emotional. Holding back their feelings and showing that they are not vulnerable are characters
attributable to being manly and thus not feminine.
◦ Girls love to watch Disney movies or beauty pageant shows.
◦ Girls should aspire to always dress up and look good. Invest in make-up.
◦ Girls are expected to be prim and proper, meek and only expected to accept the support of men. They
must stay at home, and manage the household.
◦ Girls love pink, yellow, light/ pastel colors.
Video on Hegemonic Masculinity
◦ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkflqwuEfy8
So what happens when we all cultivate
HM and EF?
◦ Gender is polarized.

M F

◦ When supposedly Gender is a Spectrum. The concept that gender is a spectrum is also a manifestation
that there is multiple masculinities and femininities, which both men and women could possess.
GENDER AS A SPECTRUM
HOW TO ELIMINATE HM/ EF?
1. Avoid gender roles; question gender norms; challenge gender stereotypes
2. Aspire for an equal distribution of tasks which includes equal roles and functions in activities in
societies.
3. Be educated, and educate.