How a person perceives and feels about their body is called consciousness

Notes to Sex and Gender

I. SEX AND GENDER

• Sex refers to the biological and anatomical differences between females and males.

1. Primary sex characteristics

• Primary sex characteristics are the genitalia used in the reproductive process
• External: 
• Vulva and penis;
• Gonads [ovaries and testes]
• Sex chromosomes [XX, XY]
• Hormones [estrogen, progesterone, testosterone]

2. Secondary sex characteristics

• Secondary sex characteristics are the physical traits [other than reproductive organs] that identify an individual's sex:
• Women: larger breasts, wider hips, narrower shoulders, layer of fatty tissue throughout the body, menstruation
• Men:  development of enlarged genitals, deeper voice, greater height, more muscular build, more body and facial hair.

3. Sexual orientation

• Sexual orientationis a preference for emotional/­sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex [heterosexuality], the same sex [homosexuality], or both [bisexuality].

        a.  rooted in biology

        b.  or/and social components [Debate]

• Criteria = sexual attraction, involvement, and self-identification
• Identity doesn’t always equal behavior
•  
• Homophobia:  Extreme prejudice directed at gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and others who are perceived as not being heterosexual.

4.  hermaphrodite:  a person in whom sexual differentiation is ambiguous or incomplete [thousands each year][Ex: ‘Sex Unknown’]

5.  transgender: A person in whom the sex-related structures of the brain that define gender identity are opposite from the physical sex organs of the person’s body.

6.  transvestite : A male who lives as a woman or a female who lives as a man but does not alter the genitalia.

• Not necessarily homosexual.
• Some cultures have a third sex” Men, women, and berdaches [or hijras or xaniths=biological males who live as females].

B. Gender

• Gender refers to the culturally and socially constructed differences between females and males found in the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with "femininity" and "masculinity."

1. A microlevel analysis of gender focuses on:

a.  gender roles:  the attitudes, behavior, and activities that are socially defined as appropriate for each sex and are learned through the socialization process. Traditionally, women's gender role has been that of wife and mother, and mens' has been that of economic provider. This is changing to some degree

Research shows:

peers often make non-traditional gender socialization much more difficult for parents and children.

many fathers also take an active role in socializing their sons to be thoughtful and caring individuals who do not live by traditional gender stereotypes.

mothers with non-traditional views encourage their daughters to be independent.

b.  gender identity:  a person's perception of the self as female or male.

        1.  body consciousness: 

• How a person perceives and feels about his or her body, also includes awareness of social conditions in society that contribute to this self-knowledge
• As we grow up we become aware that the physical shape of our bodies subjects us to the approval or disapproval of others

• Illustrated in eating problems, plastic surgery, cosmetic industry, etc.
• 40 Billion/year cosmetics industry
• 500 million/year cosmetic surgery industry
• 10 billion/year pornography industry

2. A macrolevel analysis of gender examines:

a.  structural features: external to the individual, which perpetuate gender inequality

1.  gendered institutions:

• Reinforced by a gendered belief system, based on ideas regarding masculine and feminine attributes that are held to be valid in a society.

        2.  gendered belief system

• Includes all the ideas regarding masculine and feminine attributes that are held to be valid in a society.
• legitimated by religion, science, law, and other societal values.
• Gendered belief systems may change over time as gender roles change [Ex: dad taking care of kids]
• But popular stereotypes about men and women, as well as cultural norms about gender-appropriate appearance and behavior, reinforce gendered institutions in society.

• Sociological Significance of Gender:  Gender stereotypes hold that men and women are inherently different in attributes, behaviors, and aspirations
• Men: strong, rational, dominant, independent, less concerned with their appearance
• Women:  weak, emotional, nurturing, dependent, anxious about their appearance.

C. Sexism:

• Sexism: the subordination of one sex, usually female, based on the assumed superiority of the other sex.
• interwoven with patriarchy:  a hierarchical system of social organization in which cultural, political, and economic structures are controlled by men.
• Matriarchy: …controlled by women.  Rare, if at all.

        1.  negative attitudes toward women

        2.  stereotypical beliefs that reinforce and justify

the prejudice: 

• Women are weak, too emotional, better as men’s subordinates, playing supportive role of housewife, mother, nurse, and secretary. 
• Men are better in public sphere, natural heads of household as well as presidential candidates, corporate executives, college presidents

3. discrimination:  Acts that exclude, distance, or keep women separate.

• Gender inequality and a division of labor based on male dominance are nearly universal

II. GENDER STRATIFICATION IN HISTORICAL

PERSPECTIVE

A. Hunting and gathering societies

• The earliest known division of labor between women and men is in hunting and gathering societies.
• Men hunt for wild game along with women if game is nearby, women gather roots and berries
• Cooperative and egalitarian
• Ex:  Bushmen of Africa, aborigines of Australia, the Kaska Indians of Canada, and the Yanomami of South America

B. Horticultural societies

• In horticultural societies, women make an important contribution to food production because hoe cultivation is compatible with child care; a fairly high degree of gender equality exists because neither sex controls the food supply.

C. Pastoral societies :  The domestication of large animals to provide food

• In pastoral societies, herding primarily is done by men; women contribute relatively little to subsistence production and thus have relatively low status.
• Women’s value is to produce male offspring so that family lineage can be preserved and enough males will exist to protect the group against attack.

        1.  polygyny:  The marriage of one man to multiple wives.

• Polygyny: contributes to power differences between women and men:
• Men with many wives can produce many children who will enhance his resources, take care of him in his old age, and become heirs to his property.

        2.  menstrual taboos

• Place women in a subordinate position by segregating them into menstrual huts for the duration of their monthly flow.  Seen as ‘unclean’.

        3.  bridewealth

• The payment of a price by a man for a wife.
• Turns women into property that can be bought or sold. 
• Man gives the bride’s family material goods or services in exchange for their daughter’s exclusive sexual services and his sole claim to their offspring.

• A combination of horticultural and pastoral activities is found in some contemporary societies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America.
• Characterized by more gender inequality than in hunting and gathering societies but less than in agrarian societies: 

D. Agrarian societies

        1.  gender inequality increases here as men become more involved in food production.

• Require more labor and individual strength
• farming done by animal-drawn or mechanically powered plows and equipment.
• Women viewed as too weak and have child-care responsibilities considered incompatible.
• Can acquire a surplus and gain control over it
• Women’s lives become more secluded and restricted
• Two practices in agrarian societies contribute to subordination of women:
• 1] Purdah: Hindus, Muslims: Require the seclusion of women, extreme modesty in apparel, and the visible subordination of women to men.
• Women must show deference to men by walking behind them, speaking only when spoken to, and eating only after the men have finished a meal.
• 2] Genital mutilation:  A surgical procedure performed on young girls as a method of sexual control
• Involves cutting off all or part of a girl’s clitoris and labia, and in some cases stitching her vagina closed until marriage.
• All are maimed, Some die as a result of hemorrhage, infection, or other complications.
• Still practiced in more than 25 countries.

• In sum, male dominance is very strong in agrarian societies:  Women are secluded, subordinated, and mutilated as a means of regulating their sexuality and protecting paternity.
• Most of the world currently lives in agrarian societies in various stages of industrialization.

E. Industrial societies

1. the status of women declines further

• Industrial societies-those in which factory or mechanized production has replaced agriculture as the major form of economic activity
• the status of women tends to decline further.
• Homemaker versus breadwinner [paid versus non-paid work]
• Postindustrial Societies:  A society in which technology supports a service-and information-based economy
• Formal education is crucial for economic and social success.
• Division of labor changes in the families ‘cause more families headed by women, so between her and her kids instead of husband
• Second Shift

III. GENDER AND SOCIALIZATION

A. Parents as Agents of Gender Socialization

1. clothing, chores, and toys reflect gender

expectations.

--From birth, parents act toward children on the basis of gender labels; children's clothing and toys, chores reflect their parents' gender expectations [also names].

• Boys are encouraged to engage in gender-appropriate behavior; they are not to show an interest in "girls'" activities.
• Mom’s gender role attitude may influence daughter’s
• Siblings affect us, too.

a.  varies by race/ethnicity and social class.

• Middle and Upper income families, as well as African American families, have found less gender-linked chores

B. Peers and Gender Socialization

1. adolescence: peers are strong and

effective agents of gender socialization—especially for males.

• Girls can play like boys but not visa versa.
• Sends message that masculine activities and behaviors are more important and more acceptable.
• Male bonding that occurs in adolescence is believed to reinforce masculine identity and to encourage gender-stereotypical attitudes and behaviors [Ex: Male peer groups have tendency to ridicule and bully others about their appearance, size, and weight.]
• Boys don’t cry

2. among college students: career choices and

long term, intimate relationships.

• In one study, the peer system propelled women into a world of romance in which their attractiveness to men counted most
• Peers influenced whether the women continued to pursue their original goals, changed their course of action, or were derailed.

C. Teachers and Schools and Gender Socialization

1. gender bias

• From kindergarten through college, schools operate as gendered institutions; teachers provide important messages about gender through both the formal content of classroom assignments and informal interactions with students.
• Teachers may unintentionally demonstrate
• gender bias-the showing of favoritism toward one gender over the other ­­ toward male students.
• Teachers give more time, effort and energy to boys:
• Males receive more praise, are called on more
• But often because they call out in class, demand help, and sometimes engage in disruptive behavior:
• Boys learn when they yell out an answer without being called on, their answer will be accepted
• Girls learn that they will be praised when they are compliant and wait for the teacher to call on them.
• Affects self-esteem:  A girl’s self-esteem is undermined in class by:
• relative lack of attention from teachers
• sexual harassment by male peers
• the stereotyping and invisibility of females in textbooks, especially science and math
• Test bias based on assumptions about the relative importance of quantitative and visual-spatial ability, as compared with verbal ability, that restricts some girl’s chances of being accepted into good colleges.
• Of all groups, African American males receive the most unfavorable treatment [frequent referrals to special ed.
• Teachers may inadvertently subscribe to racist and sexist stereotypes when they perceive Asian American student s as the best students and African American males al the worst
• Teachers also use sex segregation to separate students
• Teachers may say “boys will be boys”
• Happens in College, too:
• Women called on less, receive less encouragement, and are often interrupted, ignored, or devalues
• Participatory classroom environments may be different, though
• But women are more likely than men to earn a college degree
• Although men tend to have higher SAT scores, women tend to have a higher GPA’s in college.
• Men still constitute the majority of majors in architecture, engineering , computer technology, and physical sciences
• At the graduate level, the number of women degree recipients declines dramatically [family responsibilities].

D. Sports and Gender Socialization

1. The type of game played differs with the

child's sex

Sports and Gender Socialization --The type of game played differs with the child's sex: from elementary school through high school, boys play football and other competitive sports while girls are cheerleaders, members of the drill team, and homecoming queens [supportive roles].

--For many males, sports participation and spectatorship is a training ground for masculinity; for females, sports still is tied to the male gender role, thus making it very difficult for girls and women to receive the full benefits of participating in such activities.

E. Mass Media and Gender Socialization

1. The media are powerful sources of gender

stereotyping:

2. On television:

a. more male than female roles are shown

b. male characters:aggressive, constructive,

and direct.

c. females: deferential toward others;

use manipulation to get their way.

                       d. some changes in prime-time TV: 

• But does it reflect reality?  Women are overrepresented in professional careers that may give people wrong impression that most women in the work force are in executive, managerial, and professional positions like lawyers.  Actually, most employed women work in low-paying, low-status jobs.
• In most show, women’s appearance is considered very important and is frequently a topic of discussion in the program itself.

3. Advertising also plays an important role in

gender socialization:

• Personal and social success based on whether one embraces traditional notions of masculinity and femininity
• Purchase right products and services, then can enhance their appearance and gain power over other people:
• Ads show men away from home, working or playing outside house
• Women do domestic tasks
• Socializes kids as to what men and women are supposed to do.
• Important around the globe:  In Fiji, when satellite TV began to show images of very thin and beautiful women to the islands, may Fijian teenage girls began not only to adopt the clothing and hairstyles of US women but also to show serious symptoms of eating disorders in their efforts to emulate the weight of their favorite TV stars [15% said they had vomited to control weight versus 3% before arrival of TV.]

F. Adult Gender Socialization

1. gender­-appropriate conduct is taught in schools

and the workplace:

• Taught appropriate type of conduct
• Women’s socialization includes a measure of whether their work can be successfully combined with having a family.

2. Different gender socialization may occur as

people reach their forties and enter "middle age."

• Men considered at height of success as their hair turns gray and they wrinkle
• Women deemed over the hill, and advertising campaigns continually call attention to women’s every weakness, every pound gained, and every bit of flabby flesh, wrinkle, or gray hair.

IV. CONTEMPORARY GENDER INEQUALITY

A. Gender-segregated work

• Gender-segregated work refers to the concentration of women and men in different occupations, jobs, and places of work.
• 98% of all US secretaries are female
• 91% of all engineers are male
• Only 11.2% of the executive jobs in Fortune 500 companies were held by women in 1999.
• The degree of gender-segregation in the professional labor market [physicians, dentists, lawyers, accountants, managers] has declined, but not much for black women

B. Labor market segmentation

• Labor market segmentation-the division of jobs into categories with distinct working conditions-
• results in women having separate and unequal jobs in the secondary sector of the split­ or dual-­labor market that are lower paying, less prestigious, and have fewer opportunities for advancement.
• Pay gap is best documentation
• Affects both men and women [keeps men out, pays them less].

C. Comparable worth

• The belief that wages ought to reflect the worth of a job, not the gender or race of the worker.
• Women at all levels of educational attainment receive less pay than men with the same levels of education.
• Pay gap is greater for women of color:
• Although white women earned 68% as much as white men, African American women earned only 48% and Latinas 39% of what white male workers earned.
• Pay gap continues to increase as men and women get older
• For comparable worth, compare the actual work of women’s and men’s jobs and see if there is a disparity: Education, training, skills, extent of responsibility for others’ work, and the working conditions—allocate points for each.  Equal points should be equal pay.
• But pay equity exists in few jobs.

D. Family demands remain mostly women's

responsibility:  Again, “Second Shift”

V. PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER STRATIFICATION

A. Functional and neoclassical economic perspectives

        1.  Traditional gender role importance

• View the division of family labor as ensuring that important societal tasks will be fulfilled:
•  women’s roles: expressive tasks: nurturers and caregivers
• men’s: instrumental: economic support, and making decisions.
• This belief says the traditional division of labor is the natural order of the universe.

2. The human capital model

• According to the human capital model, individuals vary widely in the amount of education and job training they bring to the labor market.
• From this perspective, what individuals earn is the result of their own choices and labor market demand for certain kinds of workers at specific points in time.

a. what individuals earn is the result of:

1. their own choices: education and job training, experience

2. labor market demand:  certain kinds of workers at specific points in time.

• Women diminish their human capital when they leave work to pursue family obligations
• When they return to work, less pay ‘cause their education and training are obsolete.

3.  But problems with traditional gender roles.

• Not everyone likes them.
• Also structure of society makes educational and occupational opportunities more available to some than to others
• Also doesn’t consider the power differentials between men and women
• or to consider the fact that the tasks assigned to women and to men are unequally valued by society
• Blames individual if they have less education, training, skills

B. Conflict perspective

1. Patriarchyàthe gendered division of labor

within families and the workplace

• The gendered division of labor within families and the workplace results from male control of and dominance over women and resources.
• Although men's ability to use physical power to control women diminishes in industrial societies, men still:
•  remain the head of household
• control the property
• hold more power through their predominance in the most highly paid and prestigious occupations and the highest elected offices.
• By contrast, women have the ability to trade their sexual resources, companionship, and emotional support in the marriage market for men’s financial support and social status
• As a result, women as a group remain subordinate to men
• Women also often experience a "Second Shift" -- ie, after working in their jobs all day, they come home to the housework and taking care of their kids.

2. Marxist tradition: gender stratification results

from private ownership of the means of production.

• Some men not only gain control over property and the distribution of goods but also gain power over women.
• All men are not equally privileged [men in lower class positions, and all people of color].
• In industrialized societies, persons who occupy elite positions in corporations, universities, the mass media, and government or who have great wealth have the most power.
• Most of these are men.

C. Feminist Perspectives

1. Feminism: Women and men should be valued

equally and have equal rights.

• Feminist theory tries to identify ways in which norms, roles, institutions, and internalized expectations limit women’s behavior:

               a.  Gender is socially constructed

• Liberal Fem: The roots of women’s oppression lie in women’s lack of equal civil rights and educational opportunities [importance of gender-role socialization, fight for better child-care options, a woman’s right to choose an abortion, and the elimination of sex discrimination in the workplace].
• Radical Fem: patriarchy must be abolished for better world: Trace the roots of patriarchy to women’s childbearing and child-rearing responsibilities which make them dependent on men.  If institutions are gendered, alternative institutions like women’s organizations should be developed to meet women’s needs.
• Socialist Fem: women’s oppression results from their dual roles as paid and unpaid workers in capitalist economy. 
• At work exploited by capitalism, at home by patriarchy
• Low wages, few economic resources
• Must eliminate capitalism.
• Multicultural Fem:women of color have a different experience:
• Race, class, and gender effects

• Patriarchy and capitalism affect men, too.
• Men and women have commonalities, first of all

VI. GENDER ISSUES IN THE TWENTY­FIRST

CENTURY

A. Progress in the past 30 years:

• Laws have been passed to prohibit sexual discrimination in the workplace and school; women are more visible in education, the workplace, and government.

B. Many men have joined feminist movements [ex: Lesbian Fem. men].

C. However, the U.S. has a long way to go:

• In the labor force, gender segregation and the wage gap are still a problem:
• Women still earn slightly less than 77 cents on the dollar compared with men [2000]
• Women’s burden of the second shift will probably preserve women’s inequality at home and work for another generation.
• In regards to body consciousness, we have a long way to go.
• How do you think we can reduce gender inequality in the US and the world?

RESOURCES

Websites:
Queer Theory
Judith Butler and Queer Theory
Gay and Lesbian Media Watchdog

Books from the WCC library:
Androgyny: Toward a New Theory of Sexuality, June Singer
BF692.2.S55.1976
Beyond Sex Roles, Alice G. Sargent
BF692.2S27
Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, Edited by Ann Snitow, et al.
HQ21.P68.1983
The Second Sex, Simone De Beauvoir
Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility, Germaine Greer HQ21.G6713.1984
The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States, Edward O. Laumann, et al.
HQ18.U5S59.1994
Body Image
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women, Naomi Wolf
HQ1219.W65.1991
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg
Body Traps: Breaking the Binds that Keep You From Feeling Good About Your Body, Judith Rodin
BF697.5.B63R63.1992
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media, Susan Douglas

What is called consciousness?

What is the consciousness of a person?

Where is consciousness in the body?

What is a conscious feeling?