Sociology chapter 12

Sanday's study of the Indonesian Minangkabau

evealed that in societies some consider to be matriarchies (wherewomen comprise the dominant group), women and men tend to work cooperatively rather than competitively regardless ofwhether a job is considered feminine by U.S. standards. The men, however, do not experience the sense of bifurcated consciousness under this social structure that modern U.S. females encounter.

Talcott Parsons

has long argued that the regulation of sexual activity is an importantfunction of the family. Social norms surrounding family life have, traditionally, encouraged sexual activity within thefamily unit (marriage) and have discouraged activity outside of it (premarital and extramarital sex)

gender

in psychology, the biologically and socially influenced characteristics by which people define male and female

transsexuals

transgender individuals who attempt to alter their bodies through medical interventions such as surgeryand hormonal therapy

queer theory

an interdisciplinary approach to sexuality studies that identifies Western society's rigid splitting ofgender into male and female roles and questions its appropriateness

DOMA

Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 U.S. law explicitly limiting the definition of "marriage" to a union between one man and one woman and allowing each individual state to recognize or deny same-sex marriages performed in other states

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

She coined the term "homosocial" to oppose"homosexual," describing nonsexual same-sex relations. Sedgwick recognized that in U.S. culture, males are subject to aclear divide between the two sides of this continuum, whereas females enjoy more fluidity.

Jagose

Queer [Theory] focuses on mismatches between anatomical sex, gender identity,and sexual orientation, not just division into male/female or homosexual/hetereosexual

gender dysphoria

a condition listed in the DSM-5 in which people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with. This condition replaces "gender identity disorder"

sexuality

a person's capacity for sexual feelings

gender role

society's concept of how men and women should behave

gender identity

a person's deeply held internal perception of his or her gender

sexual orientation

a person's physical, mental, emotional, and sexual attraction to a particular sex (male or female)

sex

a term that denotes the presence of physical or physiological differences between males and females

Alfred Kinsey

among the first to conceptualize sexuality as a continuum rather than a strict dichotomy of gay orstraight. He created a six-point rating scale that ranges from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. See thefigure below.

transgender

an adjective that describes individuals who identify with the behaviors and characteristics that are otherthan their biological sex

homophobia

an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuals

heterosexism

an ideology and a set of institutional practices that privilege heterosexuals and heterosexuality overother sexual orientations

social construction of sexuality:

socially created definitions about the cultural appropriateness of sex-linkedbehavior which shape how people see and experience sexuality

biological determinism

the belief that men and women behave differently due to inherent sex differences related to their biology

double standard

the concept that prohibits premarital sexual intercourse for women but allows it for men

doing gender

the performance of tasks based upon the gender assigned to us by society and, in turn, ourselves

sexism

the prejudiced belief that one sex should be valued over another