CANS 406 Lecture 1: 1. What is Gender
22 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
January 11, 2017
POLI 448
What is gender and why does it matter for IR?
-Class perspectives on gender:
-Part of identity
-Social construct, rules tied to female or male behavior
-Scale from femininity to masculinity
-Socially constructed self-identity spectrum
-Comes with normative expectations/stereotypes
-Gender does not equal sex
-Performative
-Peterson and Runyon: sex is “the biological distinction between males and females”
-Reflects a common understanding of sex, but is rather old school
-Sex is classically determined in relation to anatomical and genetic characteristics
-Think of sex as a constantly evolving
-Sex is not necessarily just biological/physical – it is a legal status (indicated on legal
documentation), a political category
-Shepherd: “gender does not ‘read’ from sex in any straight-forward way…sex is as much a
fiction as gender”
-Sex is similarly a social construct
-Moving away from biological foundationalism
-New option for Canadian passports to indicate the option X rather than male or female
(unspecified)
-The legitimacy of “X” as a category is not necessarily widely accepted – Canadian
government cannot guarantee that this will be recognized when you try to enter another
question
-Why indicate sex at all? Passports are a form of identification and classification, a way
of governing human mobility
-In relation to security issues, sex might be a category used to organize and
recognize people
-Government of Pakistan also instituted a similar provision in 2017
-Challenges how sex and gender are perceived
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Social construct, rules tied to female or male behavior. Peterson and runyon: sex is the biological distinction between males and females . Reflects a common understanding of sex, but is rather old school. Sex is classically determined in relation to anatomical and genetic characteristics. Sex is not necessarily just biological/physical it is a legal status (indicated on legal documentation), a political category. Shepherd: gender does not read" from sex in any straight-forward way sex is as much a fiction as gender . New option for canadian passports to indicate the option x rather than male or female (unspecified) The legitimacy of x as a category is not necessarily widely accepted canadian government cannot guarantee that this will be recognized when you try to enter another question. Passports are a form of identification and classification, a way of governing human mobility. In relation to security issues, sex might be a category used to organize and recognize people.
