Gender & Society: Conceptual & Theoretical Foundations

GEEC 111: Gender & Society - Module I: Conceptual & Theoretical Foundations

• Module I covers the conceptual and theoretical foundations of gender and society
• Includes lessons about the study of gender & society
• Discusses the basics of gender (sex vs. gender), exploring beyond those binaries, and various theoretical approaches to understanding gender

Module I

• Provides an introduction to how learning about relationships between gender-related concepts can empower individuals personally and professionally
• Promises a rich vocabulary on gender that will form the framework of the Gender and Society course

Objectives

• Rationalize the need to study gender-related issues
• Define "gender" and relate it to the concept of "sex"
• Articulate the different elements of gender
• Articulate the difference between gender and sex, highlighting differences in terms of language
• Articulate the different theoretical frameworks in the study of gender

Directions/Module Organizer

• The module lays out conceptual and theoretical foundations for studying gender and society
• Explains how these concepts and theories form the basis for academic discussions in the study of gender
• The module contains four lessons, each requiring careful reading followed by answering exercises/activities, including four learning activities and a summative test
• Output from the exercises should be submitted to the instructor within the agreed timeframe

Lesson 1: The Study of Gender and Society

• Courses in gender studies have grown in popularity in the US and the Philippines
• This is due to increased research and a greater desire to understand this area of personal and societal life
• Studying gender and society requires courage, as it involves questioning personal identities and societal norms
• Awareness gained through study also brings responsibility to address gender issues.

Research on Gender and Society

• Gender research is conducted across many fields including communication, anthropology, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology
• Scholars use a broad array of methods in their research

Quantitative Research Methods

• Quantitative methods collect data that can be quantified and analyzed to draw conclusions
• Commonly used in the social sciences
• Includes descriptive statistics, surveys, and experiments

Descriptive statistics

• Describe populations, proportions, and frequencies
• Used to answer questions like how often men and women interrupt conversations
• Examines pay differences in professional positions, childcare hours performed by each parent, and the concerns of men in their 50s

Surveys

• Ask people to report their feelings, thoughts, and experiences
• Used to ask women and men about their close friends or how often they argue

Experiments

• Controlled studies that manipulate one variable to determine its effect on another
• Used to research the impact of fashion magazines on women's self-esteem, perceptions of "urban" imagery, and the link between pornography consumption and violence against women

Qualitative Research Methods

• Qualitative (or interpretive) methods aim to understand the nature/meaning of experiences that cannot be quantified
• Originated in the humanities

Textual analysis

• Describes communication texts and interprets their meaning
• Communication scholars view texts broadly to include written, oral, and nonverbal symbolic activities.

Ethnography

• Relies on extensive and sensitive observation of human activity
• Aims to discover what things mean to people
• Ethnography helps understand how different cultures define/enact gender, and how these practices support cultural values
• Also provides insights into women's and men's flirting behaviors and interpretations

Critical Research Methods

• Critical methods identify and challenge inequalities and problems in social life
• Aims to raise awareness and motivate change
• Commonly linked to disciplines in the humanities and liberal arts
• Critical research provides insight into how communication sustains male dominance and how organizational structures create hostile environments

Mixed Research Methods

• Combines two or more research methods
• For example, can document the frequency of smiling in social situations using descriptive statistics
• Subsequently interview people to understand why they smile and how they interpret smiles from others

Interdisciplinarity of Gender Studies

• Gender studies have grown to address big issues in daily life and global politics, where cultural, economic, political and social inequalities occur
• Gender awareness has become integral to history, literature, science, sociology, and economics
• It has also become a field of study, going beyond the mainstreaming of gender issues

Interdisciplinary research

• Scholars draw upon methods from diverse disciplines and can create new approaches, like mixed methods
• By studying gender relations and how sexual politics shape experience and various relations, gender studies use robust evidence, like statistical, quantitative data + qualitative, ethnographic and discursive approaches

Social Science Disciplines Crucial to Gender Studies

• Sociology explores how society constructs gender roles, investigating how social institutions like family and religion socialize individuals
• Anthropology studies humans and their culture, asking how gender roles originated and how gender relations evolved, including focus on male domination

History

• Historians explore recorded events of the past
• Ask questions like why gender inequality exists in a particular historical period
• Historians of Chinese women may investigate the role of concubines in Chinese dynasties

Political Science

• Scholars analyze how power is allocated between genders
• They may research the power dynamics during the fight for women's suffrage
• Economics analyzes how societies produce, consume, distribute, and allocate scarce resources

Economics Questions

• How is the division of labor distributed among genders?
• Modern economists focus on issues related to women workers' rights
• Psychology examines human behavior

Psychology Questions

• Why do behavioral differences occur between men and women?
• Why are woman described as “emotional” or men as “stiff”?
• All disciplines contribute to understanding gender and making sense of its differences and diversity

Why Study Gender and Society?

• As per Wood’s (2014) suggestions, learning about gender leads to key goals

Appreciation of Complexity

• Enhances understanding of how cultural values and practices influence views of masculinity, femininity, and perceptions of men/women
• Encourages tolerance and respect for diverse views, orientations, and gender identities

Insight into Own Gender

• Enhances one’s insight of gender identity, as it is affected or revised
• Promotes awareness of ways cultural expectations of gender are communicated
• Spurs critical thinking about accepting/challenging cultural expectations

Strengthens Membership to Society

• Enlarge one's ability to appreciate the distinct validity of diverse gender identities
• Allows one to understand diverse gender identities within their society

Lesson 2: Gender Basics: Sex vs. Gender

• Gender is widely used to indicate someone's sex, but it doesn't fully address the complexity of the concept
• People often misuse the terms or ask questions in a way that suggests these terms apply
• Cohen and Harvey (2007) clarified these terms

Sex as Biologically Determined

• "Sex" refers to the biological and physiological differences between males and females
• Physical differentiation between biological males and biological females
• Infants are labeled "boy" or "girl" at birth based on the external genital between their legs.
• However, some people are born with sex organs that do not clearly fit their category, known as intersex.
• A person is socialized according to specific gender expectations and roles

Gender as Socially Constructed

• Gender is a social classification based on one's identity, self-presentation, behavior, and interaction with others
• Gender is learned behavior, a culturally produced identity, and a social category

Per WHO

• "Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles, and relationships... It varies from society to society and can be changed"
• Gender denotes the social and cultural role of each sex within a given society
• Environment like family, interactions, the media, peers, and education help people develop their gender roles

Gender Categories

• Gender can be divided into number of categories based on ideas of masculinity and femininity Included are:
• Gender identity
• Gender presentation
• Gender roles.

Gender Identity

• Is the sense of ourselves as men, women, or other-gendered beings
• How a person sees himself/herself regardless of her sex
• Gender identity may be the same as or different from one's birth-assigned sex

Example

• Biological sex is male but its definition of oneself is a woman
• Gender identity shapes how one thinks about and influences their behaviors

Gender Presentation/Expression

• How a person expresses or presents their gender publicly through dress, hair, make-up, body language, and voice
• One may be identified as a woman and dress in a masculine way, or vis-à-vis

Gender Role

• How a person is expected to act, speak, dress, and groom based on the assigned sex given at birth
• Girls/women are expected to be feminine (polite, accommodating, nurturing) whereas men are expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold
• Gender role varies depending on the society, ethnic group, and culture.

Gender Stereotype

• Is a biased judgment about a person or group
• May not always be accurate
• Can cause unequal/unfair treatment because of a person's gender
• An instance can be that one's boyfriend cheats of the girl and she infers all men are cheaters

Stereotype Examples

• Personality traits - People expect women as weak, meek, while men as strong and aggression. This considered gender stereotype because not all women are weak
• Domestic behaviors - Women are expected to take care of children, clean, wash, laundry etc, while men take care of finances. This is considered gender stereotype because men and women share responsibility in this generation

Stereotype Examples

• Occupations - The example given can be that women tend to think to have jobs as nurses or teachers versus pilots or engineers
• Physical appearance - Women are considered to be thin, graceful, versus men with masculine features
• Though these examples are true, people have shifted to have different perspectives on the way one dresses in presentation or what one should look like in modern times

Lesson 3: Beyond Sex and Gender

• Sex is the biological difference between male/female (genitalia, genetics), while gender is socially constructed behavior/interests
• Gender can differ from its identified sex, leading to the LGBTQ++ community

Gender Revolution

• Starting in the 1960s there was an evolution of the general system that began to shift
• It was seen that women were catching up with the norm male stereotypes of going into college or getting jobs
• LGBTQ+ arose which consists of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and more

LGBTQ+

• During the late-nineteenth century, the concept of distinct gender identity did not exist
• Gay identity only emerged in the mid-twentieth century

Havelock Ellis’s views

• A person who is attracted to the same sex or whose gender presentation contrasts to their assigned sex is referred to as "sexual inverse" (gay/transgender)

Ulrich

• “Urning” is another gender between male and female, which he describes as the third gender known as gay
• Male urnings were "male-bodied" with the souls of women, and women urnings were "women-bodied" with the souls of men
• The term homosexual only became popular in the mid-twentieth century but homosexual activists used "homophile" over "homosexual" as homosexual was derogatory

Gay in the Modern Era

• "Gay" emerged as an underground term in the early-twentieth century.
• While the term is used for men, it actually historically implied to mean modern LGBTQ+ standards back than
• Lesbian comes from the Greek island of Lesbos that is associated with the poet Sappho

20th Century Women’s Movement

• Gave women the consciousness to articulate how their experiences differed both heterosexual women
• The rise of bisexual, transgender, and queer movements gave birth to the four-letter LGBT
• German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld originated ‘Transvestite' in 1910

Trans terms

• ‘Transsexual' was coined in 1949, ‘Transgender' in 1971, and ‘Trans' (British term) in 1996
• Then individuals who were not ‘transsexual' began to adopt the word ‘transgender' because ‘transsexual' had to be associated with medical transition
• ‘Q’in LGBTQ+ stands for ‘queer’or those who is still questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation. It literally means odd or quaint; considered derogatory but initial term for gays

Genderbread Person

• Has become an important depiction of gender identity
• The world seems to revolve around man and woman, yet it’s important to understand the terms based around identity
• Being attracted to the same or the opposite sex, it helps to understand where LGBTQ comes along

Sex in the Genderbread Person

• You are born either male or female
• However, ambiguity can be found in this aspect with those who do not have clear genitals (intersex) through genitals, chromosomes, gonads, and hormones
• Legal recognition of intersex is important, especially how intersex identities have to be classified

Gender Identity (Genderbread Person)

• Refers to what a person thinks of who he/she is
• How gender can be feminine or masculine
• However gender identity lies within a spectrum that can include genderqueer, non-binary, bigender, genderfluid, agender, genderneutral, pangender, and third gender
• Ultimately, only oneself can identify its gender identity.

Transgender vs Cisgender

• Cisgender: Someone whose gender and sex identity are aligned
• Transgender: sex and gender identity do not aligned. Word transsexual can be used to imply this but it is often outdated due to surgery

Expression

• Gender presentation is manifested on how people express or present themselves to the world.
• It is something subjective, however, people tend to view them in an either or standard
• How they dress, hair, makeup, hobbies and interests can all contribute to the expression of gender.

Attraction

• Attraction has to do with who a person is attracted to - may it be opposite or the same sex

Sex terms relating to attraction

• Heterosexual: Opposite gender
• Homosexual = Same gender
• Bisexual: Both genders
• Human sexuality is considered to be fluid and it can change at any point in time

Pansexual vs Asexual

• Pansexual = Not attracted to either of sexes, but to personality
• Asexual = No attraction; though sex can be desired without a romantic relationship
• A gender is very complex and has aspects that can be contributed to psychology, biology and etc

Lesson 4: Theoretical Approaches in the Study of Gender

• A theory is a way to describe, explain, and predict relationships among phenomena
• Each of us uses theories to make sense of our lives
• Guide our attitudes, actions, and predict others' behavior.

The ways gender development can be expressed

• Theories of gender development and behavior can be classified into four broad types:
  • Biological
  • Interpersonal
  • Cultural
  • Critical

Biological Theories of Gender

• Biological characteristics are the basis of differences which focus on
  • (1) sex chromosomes
  • (2) hormonal activities
  • (3) brain specialization These will influence individual qualities (bodily, cognitive or even fine motor)

Sex chromosomes

• XY chromosome structure has genetic expression as male
• XX chromosomes has genetic expression as female
• Men only inherit social skills one X in which women inherit multiple X chromosomes. This implies that it can impact intelligence or social skills

Hormonal Differences

• Estrogen gives rise to hormones that affect the development on women
• Women need to produce "good" cholesterol to do this
• If liver functioning decreases, they can have issues related to drinking due to slower function
• Testosterone can also dictate violent behavior, especially amongst men

Brain specialization

• How the left/right lobe can influence how it relates to gender
• Men: tend to have better development in the left lobe that controls linear thinking, sequential information, spatial skills, and abstract reasoning
• Women: tend to have greater right lobe for imaginative and artistic activity, holistic, intuitive thinking, and some visual and spatial tasks

Interpersonal Theories of Gender

• Focus on interpersonal factors that influence development that can relate to:
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive functions

Dynamics within the mother/daughter

• Emphasizing relationships, psychodynamic theories have helped explain the development of ones identity
• Between mother and daughter is likeness, creating a close identity while on the son its less likely
• Which can relate to attentiveness or independence amongst children

Social Learning & Cognitive Development

• Social learning theory=people are conditioned to be feminine or masculine through behavior
• Children imitate behavior on social media to communicate
• Cognition theory=children actively pick models to teach themselves

Cultural Theories of Gender

• A third group of theories focuses on understanding gender from a cultural or cross-cultural perspective
• Anthropologists, for instance, would report that Tahitian men tend to be gentle, mild-tempered, and non-aggressive, and is entirely acceptable for them to cry, show fear, and express pain

Other Anthropological Theories

• Australian aboriginal fathers have no say in their daughters marriages; that is up to the mothers

Samoan Males

• Tattoo their bodies from waist to below the knees as a means of marking the transition from childhood to manhood

Cultural Theories that Support the understanding of Identity

• Symbolic interactionism claims we learn through with others culture of our identity
• Children are literally told of who they are in parents or others
• The communication process can tell us who we are, especially in our parents

Theories that tell aspects of men and women held in culture

• Anthropology gains insight into how nature of gender can affect the views of people in diverse cultures
• Interactionist theory makes us socialize with new members and understanding/values given to them

Critical Theories of Gender

• Direct attention structures and practices by which societies classify people into groups accord privilege to how people associate with one another

Critical Theorists

• Identify dominant groups through managing to privilege their interests and perspectives
• Also, seek to understand how groups become empowered and how ideologies come to be

Key focus

• Standpoint: Focuses on how society influences someone
• Ones' experience influences their feel or how they do
• Power influences hierarchy
• Queer theory: the critic of normal and abnormal
• That identities are not fixed, but fluid
• Ex gender-fluid