WMNST 105N Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Androcentrism, Femininity, Masculinity
Lesson 5: Gender
●Overview
○Define gender polarity, androcentrism, and biological essentialism and
demonstrate how each contributes to the systematic and invisible reproduction of
patriarchy.
○Identify examples of gender as a social construction.
○Appraise how race, class, disability, and sexuality impact our understandings of
the social construction of gender.
● Patriarchy
○systematic and largely invisible reproduction of male dominance
○gender polarity
○Androcentrism
○biological essentialism
●The Correlation of Sex and Gender
○Femininity
■gentle
■Soft-spoken
■good with children
○Masculinity
■Aggressive
■Ambitious
■Out-spoken
○Misconceptions
■our sex must match our gender
●Sex
○ biological and physiological traits
○Genitalia
●Gender
○Behavior
○Activities
○Attitudes
○Feelings
○“Girl or boy”
■unnatural or immoral for girls to behave in masculine ways
■Unnatural or immoral for boys to behave in feminine ways
