Sex and Gender

Conceptualizing Sex and Gender

• 'Gender' is often confused with 'sex', but the two terms are not interchangeable.
• 'Sex' refers to biology and anatomy, describing the biological differences between female and male.
• 'Gender' refers to the expected qualities and behaviors of female and male in society.
• Differences in sex have been used to explain the development of traditional sex roles across cultures.
• Women's biology has been viewed as limiting their power, status, and achievement due to physical strength and vulnerability during pregnancy.
• Innate psychological differences are ascribed to females, suggesting that nurturant qualities are required by motherhood.
• These supposed differences have historically justified women's inferior status and role as primarily mothers. According to the UNFPA in 2004, gender refers to the economic, social, and cultural attributes and opportunities associated with being male or female.
• Gender attributes and characteristics, like roles and expectations, vary across societies and change over time.
• Gender roles are socially and culturally constructed for both men and women.
• Men's roles as property owners, decision-makers, and heads of households are socially constructed.
• Gender roles differ by place and change over time, while sex roles are naturally fixed (Makama, 2013).
• Gender attributes are socially constructed, therefore they can be changed to make society more equitable.
• Gender roles and relations involve differences in what men and women do, impacting the benefits or harm they receive from their socially defined roles.
• Gender roles relate to access to resources, autonomy, power relationships, responsibilities, and expectations assigned to both sexes.
• Varied sex-role assignments in different cultures suggest that the basic characteristics of men and women are not biologically determined, but are based on cultural definitions.
• Gender is viewed as an issue because of fundamental differences and inequalities between women and men.

Notable Concepts in Gender Study

• Gender relations are part of social relations, concerning the ways in which the social categories of men and women relate within society.
• Gender is important in establishing people's behavior in all aspects of social activity,
• Gender influences access to resources, distribution of consumption, exercise of authority, and participation in cultural, political, and religious activities.
• Gender relations describe the social meaning of being male and female and what is considered appropriate behavior.
• Gender equality is the state in which women and men equally enjoy human rights, socially valued goods, opportunities, and resources.
• Gender equality should allow both sexes the same opportunities to contribute to, and benefit from, all spheres of society, including economic, political, social, and cultural sectors.
• Equality between women and men has been a well-recognized doctrine in international law since the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Gender equity is justice and fairness in the treatment of women and men to eventually achieving gender equality.
• In order to achieve gender equity differential treatment, women and men (or specific measures) are implemented to compensate for historical disadvantages preventing equal conditions.
• Equity enables equality and involves continuing actions to address unequal status
• From the ancient Greek patriarches, patriarchy originally refers to a society where the elder males hold the power.
• The modern term "patriarchal society" describes a society where men hold the positions of power and have more privilege.
• Patriarchy is a set of social relations with a material base and hierarchical relationships between men to dominate women
• The material base of patriarchy is men's control over women's labor.
• Men exercise control by receiving personal service work from women, not doing housework, having access to women’s bodies for sex, and feeling powerful.
• Heterosexual marriage, female child rearing, housework, and women's economic dependence on men are crucial elements of current patriarchal experiences.
• Men use institutions, social relations, clubs, sports, churches, universities, and armies (Hartman, 1997).
• Patriarchal describes a general structure in which men have more power than women.
• A patriarchal consists of male-dominated power structure.
• Men have more privilege in relationships with men than women.
• The concept of patriarchy has been central to many feminist theories in order to explain the stratification of power.

Feminism

• Feminist theorizing draws from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives to address feminist concerns.
• Feminism encompasses women's struggles to secure their economic and political agency.
• From the Women's Suffrage Movement of the late 19th century and the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, feminism is associated with bringing issues of gender equality, sexual oppression, and sex discrimination into the public arena.
• Feminism means different things to different people and evokes different emotions.
• Feminism displays or distinguishes in the determination of every group to uplift womanhood.
• Some misunderstand feminism to be aggressive women who try to be like men or abandon feminine attributes.
• Feminist ideology agitates for women's economic, social, legal, political, and educational rights in order for them to be empowered.
• Feminism has never been a unified belief, but is diverse depending on political or ideological orientation.
• "Liberal feminists” focus on extending political, economic, and social rights to women in society.
• “Radical feminists” view women as an oppressed group that must struggle for liberation against men.
• Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal which is to define, establish, and achieve equal rights for women.
• There are many false and outdated on feminism (e.g. wanting women to overtake men into submission).
• It is a form of activism entrenching the emancipation of women, liberating them from class, gender exploitation.
• The root can be traced to the 18th century Europe.
• Feminist ideology insists that society should recognize claims of women for rights (legal, political, social and economic) equal to those possessed by men which contends against the subjugation and oppression of women.