WMST 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Judith Lorber, Marxist Feminism, Transvestism
6 Mar 2020
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Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes. Makes it hard for people to understand that gender is constantly created and recreated through our actions. Everyone does gender without thinking about it. Status can be transvestite (a person who dresses in opposite- gender clothes) and transsexual (a person who has had sex-change surgery) Gender construction starts with assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth. We dress the baby based on this. As they grow up we treat them in a certain manner based on this gender. In order to understand that gender is a social institution it is important to distinguish human action from animal behavior. Animals" sex differences are not at all the same as humans" gender differences animals" bonding is not kinship animals" mating is not ordered by marriage and animals" dominance hierarchies are not the equivalent of human stratification systems.
