Gender Theories Explained

• Gender equality and sociological theories are the topics.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will correctly identify theories relating to gender issues.
• Students will enthusiastically demonstrate an appreciation of these theories through creative presentation.

Topic Outline

• Introduction to gender issues and sociological theories
• Knowledge, skills and attitudes in advocating gender
• Understanding gender concepts (equality and equity)
• Sociological theories relating to gender

Advocating Gender:

• Adopt a gender inclusive approach, especially in the workplace.
• Allow women to participate in decision-making processes, such as discourse about abortion or use of contraceptives.
• Be sensitive in labeling genders by asking people their preferred pronouns.
• Sexual orientation and gender identity awareness are required.

Gender Equality

• Gender equality is the opposite of gender inequality, not gender difference.
• Gender equality aims to promote the full participation of women and men in society.
• Gender equality includes accepting and valuing equally the differences between women and men and the diverse roles they play in society.

Gender Equity

• Gender equity means fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs.
• Gender equity may include equal treatment or treatment that is different but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations and opportunities.

Sociological Theories

• Sociological theories relate to gender.

Sociobiology

• Sociobiology is also known as evolutionary psychology.
• Differences between men and women result from genetic factors that ensure survival of the fittest.
• Men and women follow distinct reproductive strategies in an effort to maximize the chance that their genetic lines will continue.
• Criticism of Sociobiology: This theory fails to account for sexual behavior that occurs without the goal of reproduction and ignores the ways in which social influences mitigate biological drives.

Psychodynamic Theories

• Psychodynamic theories claim that the first relationship we have fundamentally influences how we define our identity, including gender.
• Between mother and daughter, there is a fundamental likeness that encourages close identification.
• Theorists suggest that infant boys recognize in a primitive way that they differ from their mothers.
• A boy must establish his independent identity to distinguish himself from his mother or other female caregiver and he must define himself as distinct from her.

Social Learning Theory

• The Social Learning Theory was developed by Walter Mischel (1966) and Bandura et. al (2002).
• Individuals learn to be masculine and feminine by imitating others and getting responses from others to their behaviours.
• Children imitate the communication they see on television, online, and in videos as well as the communication of people around them.
• Young people like to mimic almost anything.
• Others reward only some of children's behaviors, and the behaviors that are rewarded tend to be repeated.
• Rewards from others teach boys and girls which behaviors are appropriate for them.

Cognitive Development Theory

• Cognitive Development Theory assumes that children play active roles in developing their gender identities.
• They do this by picking models of competent masculine or feminine behavior.
• Children notice the ways other label and describe them.

Gender Schema Theory

• Gender Schema Theory is related to cognitive development theory.
• Even before reaching the first birthday, an infant distinguishes between male and female voices.
• By the age of two, gender schema theorists claim that children begin to organize their understandings of gender into coherent wholes
• Gender Schema: An internal framework that organizes perceptions and directs behavior related to gender..
• Children organize clothes, activities, toys, traits, and roles into those appropriate for boys and men and those appropriate for girls and women.

Symbolic Interactionism

• Symbolic Interactionism emphasizes that communication with others is the primary way we develop identity, including gender identity.
• Communication reflects the values and meanings of society.
• Parents often echo cultural views of gender in the words they use to describe children—big or little, dainty or hardy, strong or demure.
• Cultural views are communicated through play activities with peers and teachers' interactions with students.
• Role: A set of expected behaviors and the values associated with them.

Standpoint Theory

• Standpoint Theory complements symbolic interactionism by noting that societies are made up of different groups that have different amounts of power and privilege.
• It focuses on how membership in groups, such as those designated by gender, race, class, ability, and gender identity, shapes what individuals experience, know, feel, and do as well as how individuals understand social life as a whole.
• Claims that the marginalized standpoints can generate unique insights into how society works.
• Three significant claims of the theory is that all perspectives on social life are partial and some perspectives are more partial than others.
• Standpoint is earned by developing a political awareness of power differences among social groups.
• Social location: A group to which an individual belongs.
• Standpoint: Earned through critical reflection on power relations and through engaging in the struggle required to construct a stance that challenges the dominant one in a culture.

Queer Theory

• Queer Theory is a critique of conventional categories of identity and cultural views of the gender binary.
• It argues that identities are not fixed, but somewhat fluid.
• The Queer Theory arose in the context of gay and lesbian studies.
• The initial focus of this theory was heteronormativity.
• Heteronormativity: The assumption that heterosexuality is normal and all other sexual orientations are abnormal.
• Queer: Refers to anything that departs from what society considers normal.
• This theory challenges the ways that a culture defines and polices what is considered normal and abnormal.

Performative Theory

• Argues that humans generate identities, including gender, through performance or expression.
• Explains that gender comes into being only as it is expressed, or performed.
• The performance is the thing we call gender.
• Gender is not a thing we have but rather something that we do at specific times and in specific circumstances, as pointed out by Judith Butler (1990, 2004).
• According to performative theorists, all of us perform gender, although we do so in diverse ways (Butler et.al, 1990) such as dominating or deferring in conversations and crossing legs so that one ankle rests on the knee of the other leg or so that one knee.

Queer Performative Theory

• Queer Performative Theory integrates queer and performative theories.
• It offers a view of queer performances as means of challenging and destabilizing cultural categories and the values attached to them.

Conflict Theory

• Society is defined by a struggle for dominance among social groups that compete for scarce resources.
• In the context of gender, it argues that gender is best understood as men attempting to maintain power and privilege to the detriment of women.
• Men can be seen as the dominant group and women as the subordinate group.

Structural Functionalist Theory

• Argues that gender roles were established well before the pre-industrial era when men typically took care of responsibilities outside of the home, such as hunting, and women typically took care of the domestic responsibilities in or around the home.
• These roles were considered functional because women were often limited by the physical restraints of pregnancy and nursing and were unable to leave the home for long periods of time.