SOCIOL 2HH3 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Social Constructionism, Rapping, Psychoanalysis
SOCIOL 2HH3
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Lecture 1: 5/9/18
Tests are MC, have to know textbook definitions
Three interrelated parts
• Social construction of gender categories based on biological sex
• Sexual division of labour whereby specific tasks are allocated on the basis of sex
o Unequal value placed on gender-specific traits
• Social regulation of sexuality
Key terms
• Patriarchy
o Male-dominated social structures leading to the oppression of women
o Invisibility of privilege to those whom that privilege is conferred
o It is not universal
o Doesn't not equally privilege all men (e.g. some men are above others,
some women are above other women)
o Men as a group hold more power/resources than women as a group
• Status or Role
o Sociologically, status is a social position
▪ Ascribed status you are born with (e.g. sex, race)
▪ Achieved status you have gotten yourself (e.g. gender, being a
doctor)
o Role is the expected behaviour of a person occupying a particular status
or position
• Norms
o Shared rules that guide behaviour within a status
• Sex
o Biological
o Male or female
o Ascribed status
• Gender
o Social, cultural, and psychological
o Masculine or feminine
o Achieved status
o Emerge from a more socio-cultural standpoint
▪ Learned from family/society interaction
o Expressed the mere universal inequality between men and women
▪ Hierarchy, power, inequality
• Sex dimorphism
o Division of society into two categories - male and female
▪ Assume they are mutually exclusive categories
Textbook asks
• Why is it that basically every society differentiated people based on gender?
• Why is it that basically every society is based on male dominance?
• Why are resources unequally distributed?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Biologically grounded theories
• Gender behavior is ultimately a product of human biological nature
• Perspectives that emerged from this: sociobiology, evolutionary psychology,
and psychoanalytic theory
Sociobiology
• Edward O Wilson, sociobiology: the new synthesis 1975
• Systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behaviour
o Certain behaviours become important if they allow for more reproductive
success
o Thus the difference in sex can be explained as evolutionary adaptations
• How do sociologists response to the sociobiological position?
o While biology underlines human behaviour
▪ E.g. the development of a brain and highly developed cerebral
cortex
o Dispute/reject the mechanistic/reductionist tendencies of sociobiologists
which state that human behaviour can be reduced to human biology
• Social constructionist argue that gender differences are not the product of
biological properties, whether chromosomal, gonadal, or hormonal. Instead,
gender and sexuality are products of social structures and culture
The Power of Stereotypes
• Stereotypes
o Oversimplified conceptions
• Gender stereotypes
o Widely held belief about the defining characteristics of masculinity and
femininity
o Best and Williams (1998)
▪ Found similarities in gender stereotypes
• Males more active/strong
• Female more passive/weaker
o DeLisi and Soundranayagam (1990)
▪ Found core traits for women and men (weak vs strong)
• George Merton and the Self-fulfilling Prophecy
o Social theory and social structure (1968)
• Thomas Theorem
o If men define situations are real, then they are real in their consequences
Textbook hopes
• The difference between women and men are not nearly as great as the
difference among women and men
• Gender difference is the product of gender inequality (not the other way
around)
Kimberle Crenshaw (1995)
• Intersections of various social identities profoundly affect the lives of those who
embody these categories
• No social group is homogenous
• People must be located in terms of their structures that capture power relations
implied by those structures
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Tests are mc, have to know textbook definitions. Three interrelated parts: social construction of gender categories based on biological sex, sexual division of labour whereby specific tasks are allocated on the basis of sex, unequal value placed on gender-specific traits, social regulation of sexuality. Key terms: patriarchy, male-dominated social structures leading to the oppression of women, doesn"t not equally privilege all men (e. g. some men are above others, Invisibility of privilege to those whom that privilege is conferred. Biologically grounded theories: gender behavior is ultimately a product of human biological nature, perspectives that emerged from this: sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and psychoanalytic theory. Instead, gender and sexuality are products of social structures and culture. If men define situations are real, then they are real in their consequences. Textbook hopes: the difference between women and men are not nearly as great as the difference among women and men, gender difference is the product of gender inequality (not the other way around)