Chapter 12 Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

The dichotomous view of gender

(the notion that someone is either male or female) is specific to certain cultures and is not universal. In some cultures gender is viewed as fluid.

gender socialization occurs through 4 agents

family, education, peer groups, mass media

Talcott Parsons (1955)

functionalists have long argued that the regulation of sexual activity is an important function of the family

Functionalism gender

gender roles were established well before the pre-industrial era when men typically took care of responsibilities outside of the home, and women typically took care of the domestic responsibilities in or around the home

US

gender stratification

4 types of sexual orientations

heterosexual, asexual, homosexual, bisexual

Sanday's study of the Indonesian Minangkabau (2004) revealed that

in societies some consider to be matriarchies (where women comprise the dominant group), women and men tend to work cooperatively rather than competitively regardless of whether 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

Berdache

the term some anthropologists use to refer to individuals who occasionally or permanently dressed and lived as a different gender

symbolic interactionism

they aim to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human interaction

symbolic interactionism sexuality

they focus on the meanings associated with sexuality and with sexual orientation. They are interested in how discussions of homosexuals often focus almost exclusively on the sex lives of gays and lesbians

functionalism sexuality

they stress the importance of regulating sexual behavior to ensure marital cohesion and family stability

transsexuals

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

Contemporary conflict theorists suggest that

when women become wage earners, they can gain power in the family structure and create more democratic arrangements in the home, although they may still carry the majority of the domestic burden,

Alfred kinsey

Alfred Kinsey was among the first to conceptualize sexuality as a continuum rather than a strict dichotomy of gay or straight. He created a six-point rating scale that ranges from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. Kinsey wrote, "Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats ... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects" (Kinsey 1948).

Proposition 8

California passed a state law that limited marriage to unions of opposite-sex partners

The Navajo culture

The Navajo believe that to maintain harmony, there must be a balanced interrelationship between the feminine and the masculine within the individual, in families, in the culture, and in the natural world. In the Navajo tradition there are four genders. The first gender is the feminine woman. The second is the masculine man. The third is the male-bodied person who has a feminine essence — nadleehi. The fourth is the female-bodied person who has a masculine essence — dilbaa.

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

Queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

argued against U.S. society's monolithic definition of sexuality and its reduction to a single factor: the sex of someone's desired partner.

heteronormative society

assumes sexual orientation is biologically determined and unambiguous (the US)

Friedrich Engels,

a German sociologist, studied family structure and gender roles. Engels suggested that the same owner worker relationship seen in the labor force is also seen in the household, with women assuming the role of the proletariat. This is due to women's dependence on men for the attainment of wages, which is even worse for women who are entirely dependent upon their spouses for economic support.

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 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

gender

a term that refers to social or cultural distinctions of behaviors that are considered male or female

Fa'afafine

a term the Samoan culture accepts as a "third gender" and translates to the "the way of the woman" to describe individuals who are born biologically male but embody both masculine and feminine traits

transgender

an adjective that describes individuals who identify with the behaviors and characteristics that are other than 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 over other sexual orientations

queer theory

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

A person's sex, as determined by his or her biology, does

not always correspond with his or her gender. Therefore, the terms sex and gender are not interchangeable.

feminist theory gender

radical feminism considers the role of the family in perpetuating male dominance

stratification

refers to a system in which groups of people experience unequal access to basic, yet highly valuable, social resources

conflict theory sexuality

sexuality is another area in which power differentials are present and where dominant groups actively work to promote their worldview as well as their economic interests

social construction of sexuality

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

conflict theory gender

society is a struggle for dominance among social groups (like women vs. men) that compete for scarce resources

gender role

society's concept of how men and women should behave

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