SOC 0851 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Intersectionality, Cisgender, Orthodox Judaism
24 May 2018
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What is Gender and Why Should We Care About It?
• Gender attribution – reading the many different cues people present in order to decide
whether someone is a woman or a man
• Seeing gender – beginning to reveal the invisible ways in which gender works which are
not always apparent on the surface of our lives
• Social construction of reality – historical process by which our experiences of the world are
put into categories and treated as real things
• Thomas principle – if people defie situatios as eal, the ae eal i thei oseuees
• Anthropologists and biologists have definitively shown that there is no biological basis for
what we think of as racial categories
o Extensive research using DNA from people all over the planet demonstrates that
among the small amount of genetic variation that exists in humans as a species,
most exists within the groups we commonly refer to as races
o Any two people within what we think of as a racial category are as likely to be
genetically different from each other as they are from someone in what we think
of as a different racial category
• Two approaches to study social construction around us
o Historical approach – part of what makes things seem real is the sense that this
is how they always have been and how they always will be. A historical approach
helps us see that this is very often not the case.
o Cross-cultural approach – if something that you very much believe is real in your
particular culture is perceived as ridiculously impossible in another culture, what
exactly is real?
• Gender and Intersectionality
o Intersectionality
• Variation in experiences of gender across intersecting categories such as
race, social class, sexuality, age, and disability
• Theoretical orientation and a frame for activism
• Draws our attention to variations and contradictions in the way people in
different social categories experience gender
o We do not experience all our overlapping identities separately
o We are always simultaneously gendered and raced, classed, sexualized,
embodied, etc.
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• Sex or Gender
o Sex describes the biological differences between people we call males and
people we call females; gender is the social meanings that are layered onto
those differences
o This division leaves sex up to those concerned with biology and gender up to
those interested in the social world
• Biosocial Approach – much of what we experience regarding gender is socially constructed
o Limits to that social construction because of the biological reality of male and
female bodies
o Sexual dimorphism – sex marks a distinction between two physically and
genetically discrete categories of people
• We can use certain characteristics to sort people objectively into two
categories we call male and female
• You can only be one or the other and not both at the same time
• This sotig happes whe ou’e o ad soeoe usuall a doto
deides whethe ou’e a gil o a o – gender assignment
o Gender is constructed onto the differences we call sex but they do believe that
there are two kinds of people in the world: females & males
o What we see on the street is cultural genitalia, or the outward performance of
gender that we then assume to match up with biological genitalia
• Strong Social Constructionist Approach – sex and gender are socially constructed
o Sex itself is socially constructed and therefore it is culture that dictates how we
understand sex
o Biological differences do not line up with the categories we have created and
labeled sex
o Four areas of evidence to support this approach:
• Gender and Bodies
• Biological differences can be influenced by social reality (social
can influence biological)
• On average, men have 20% to 30% greater bone mass and
strength than women. Among Orthodox Jewish adolescent boys,
the development of bone mass proceeds very differently
o Boys experience inhibited development of bone mass due
to spending less time engaged in physical activity and
more time in school
o Girls who engaged in physical activity had stronger bones
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
What is gender and why should we care about it: gender attribution reading the many different cues people present in order to decide whether someone is a woman or a man. Seeing gender beginning to reveal the invisible ways in which gender works which are not always apparent on the surface of our lives. Social construction of reality historical process by which our experiences of the world are put into categories and treated as real things. Two approaches to study social construction around us: historical approach part of what makes things seem real is the sense that this is how they always have been and how they always will be. Intersex: not everyone fits into categories of male and female or man and woman, some people have a combination of internal and external genitalia, cah and ais. Individuals who seek surgery to change their underlying anatomy.
