Defining Gender

Media and Gender

COM 3315
Dr. Kenza Oumlil
 Feminism
Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no
opponents. It has set up no concentration
camps, starved no enemies, practiced no
cruelties. Its battles have been for education,
for the vote, for better working conditions, for
safety on the streets … for child care, for
social welfare … for rape crisis centres,
women's refuges, reforms in the law.… [If
someone says], "Oh, I'm not a feminist," [I
ask] , "Why? What's your problem?" —Dale
Spender
 Contemporary theories and perspectives on
gender and sexuality
• Social constructionists – who argued that the
influences of biology are indirect and
mediated by society
Versus
• Biological essentialists – who argued that the
direct effects of biology endow each gender
with essential characteristics.
 Defining Gender
• Deborah Tannen talks about the male figure
being unmarked and the female being
marked. Marking is a linguistic device but it is
also a semiotic device – it is a sign that tells
how to communicate gender – how to in fact
‘do’ gender.
 Defining Gender
• Tannen (1995): Men’s styles unmarked, only
scrutinizing women at conference. “Unlike the
women they had the option of being unmarked” (4).
 
• Tannen (1995): “The unmarked form of most English
words also convey “male.” Being male is the
unmarked case. Endings like ess and ette mark
words as “female”” (4). The use of “he” as the sex-
indefinite pronoun.
 Defining Gender
• West and Zimmerman: Do gender; risk of gender
assessment: “And note, to “do” gender is not always
to live up to normative conceptions of femininity or
masculinity; it is to engage in behavior at the risk of
gender assessment…” (139).
• Doing gender normalizes and naturalizes the social
arrangements based on sex category; it legitimates
the organization of social life. Conversely, doing
gender can also disrupt the dominant social
arrangements.
 Defining Gender
• West & Zimmerman (2000): “…sex
categorization and the doing of gender are
not the same” (138). Categorization could be
secure or suspect. Categorization does not
necessarily depend on gender. Being seen as
unfeminine does not make one “unfemale.”
Identificatory display (dress) ; gender display
(allowing men to light her cigarette);
normative gender behavior.