Chapter 9
Sexuality and Gender
Chapter Outline
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Sex Versus Gender
Theories of Gender
Homosexuality
Gender Inequality
The Women’s Movement
Intersexed People
Intersexed people have ambiguous genitals
resulting from a hormone imbalance in the
womb or some other cause.
• About 18 out of every 100,000 babies are
born with this condition.
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Sex and Gender
Your sex depends on whether you were born
with male or female genitals and a genetic
program that released male or female
hormones to stimulate the development of
your reproductive system.
• Your gender is your sense of being male or
female and playing masculine and feminine
roles as defined by your culture and society.
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Consider this…
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What are some things you would do, that
you don’t feel comfortable doing now, if you
were the other gender?
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What are some things you wouldn’t do if you
were the other gender?
Gender Identity
Gender identity is one’s identification with, or
sense of belonging to, a particular sex—
biologically, psychologically, and socially.
• A gender role is the set of behaviors
associated with widely shared expectations
about how males or females are supposed to
act.
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Theories of Gender
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Essentialism - gender differences reflect
naturally evolved dispositions.
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Social constructionism - gender differences
reflect the different social positions occupied
by women and men.
Functionalism and
Essentialism
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Functionalists reinforce essentialists claim
that traditional gender roles help to integrate
society
4 Criticisms of Essentialism
They ignore historical and cultural variability
of gender and sexuality.
2. They generalize from the average, ignoring
variations within gender groups.
3. No evidence directly supports their major
claims.
4. Their explanations for gender differences
ignore the role of power.
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Distribution of Aggressiveness
among Men and Women
Social Constructionism and
Symbolic Interactionism
The apparent natural or innate features of life,
such as gender, are actually sustained by
social processes that vary historically and
culturally
• We learn our gender through socialization
through toys, treatment by and expectations
of parents and teacher, etc.
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Gender Segregation, and
Interaction
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Sociologist Barrie Thorne observed a fourth- and
fifth-grade classroom.
The findings made important contributions to
understanding gender socialization:
– Children are actively engaged in the process of
constructing gender roles.
– While schoolchildren tend to segregate
themselves by gender, boundaries between
boys and girls vary depending on social
circumstances.
Gender Ideology
A set of ideas about what constitutes
appropriate masculine and feminine roles and
behavior.
• We learn these in the classroom, at home,
from the media, from our role models
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Polling Question
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Do you approve or disapprove of a married
woman earning money in business or
industry if she has a husband capable of
supporting her?
a. Approve
b. Disapprove
c. No opinion
Women and Occupations, 2010
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Insert Table 9.1 HERE (pg. 207)
Body Dissatisfaction across
World Regions
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INSERT FIGURE 9.2 HERE (pg. 209)
Glass Ceiling
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A social barrier that makes it difficult for
women to rise to the top level of
management.
Polling Question
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If you were taking a new job and had your
choice of a boss, would you prefer to work
for a man or a woman?
a. Man
b. Woman
c. No preference
Transgender and Transsexual
Transgendered people defy gender norms
and blur accepted gender roles.
– 1 in every 5000 to 10,000 people.
• Transsexuals want to alter their gender by
changing their appearance or medical
intervention.
– 1 in every 30,000 people.
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Non-heterosexuality
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Homosexuals prefer sexual partners of the
same sex.
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Bisexuals enjoy sexual partners of either
sex.
Homosexuality Indicators in
U.S.
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INSERT FIGURE 9.4 HERE (pg. 212)
Homophobia
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Research suggests that some antigay crimes
may result from repressed homosexual urges
on the part of the aggressor.
– Aggressors are homophobic, or afraid of
homosexuals, because they cannot cope
with their own, possibly subconscious,
homosexual impulses.
The Earnings Gap
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In 2001, women over the age of 15 working
full-time in the paid labor force earned 81.2%
of what men earned.
The Earnings Gap: Four
Factors
Gender discrimination.
2. Heavy domestic responsibilities reduce
women’s earnings.
3. Women tend to be concentrated in low-wage
occupations and industries.
4. Work done by women is commonly
considered less valuable than work done by
men because it is viewed as involving fewer
skills.
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Gender Discrimination
A practice that involves rewarding men and
women differently for the same work.
• Female–male earnings ratio
– Women’s earnings expressed as a
percentage of men’s earnings.
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Male Aggression Against
Women
The majority of acts of aggression between
men and women are committed by men
against women.
• In 2009, 88,097 rapes of women were
reported to the police in the United States.
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Male Aggression Against
Women
In a survey of acquaintance and date rape in
American colleges, 7% of men admitted they
attempted or committed rape in the past year.
• 11% percent of women said they were victims
of attempted or successful rape.
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Sexual Harassment
Quid pro quo sexual harassment takes
place when sexual threats or bribery are
made a condition of employment decisions.
• Hostile-environment sexual harassment
involves sexual jokes, comments, and
touching that interfere with work or create an
unfriendly work setting.
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Gender Inequality Index (GII)
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An indicator of the progress of women that
takes into account inequality between men
and women in terms of health, participation in
the paid labor force, and political influence
Labor Force Participation in
the U.S.
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INSERT FIGURE 9.5 HERE (pg. 220)
GII, Top and Bottom 10
Countries, plus U.S.
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INSERT FIGURE 9.6 HERE (pg. 220)
Affirmative Action
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Involves hiring a woman if equally qualified
men and women are available for a job, thus
compensating for past discrimination.
Child Care
An additional barrier for women’s participation
in the paid labor force
• High-quality, government-subsidized,
affordable child care is available in most
western European countries, but not in the
U.S.
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Comparable Worth
Refers to the equal dollar value of different
jobs.
• It is established in gender-neutral terms by
comparing jobs in terms of the education and
experience needed to do them and the
stress, responsibility, and working conditions
associated with them.
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The Women’s Movement
First Wave: 1840s.
– Made a number of demands including the
right to vote.
• Second Wave: mid-1960s
– They advocated equal rights with men in
education and employment, the elimination
of sexual violence, and women’s control
over reproduction.
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Quick Quiz
1. Which of the following is not a determinant of
one's sex?
a. whether one is born with male or
female genitalia
b. feelings and attitudes associated with
being a man or a woman
c. behaviors associated with being a man
or a woman
d. the feelings and attitudes associated
with being a man or a woman, and the
behaviors associated with being a man
or a woman
Answer: d
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The feelings and attitudes associated
with being a man or a woman, and the
behaviors associated with being a man
or a woman are not a determinant of one's
sex.
2. Which of the following is not a criticism of
essentialism?
a. It ignores historical and cultural
variability of gender and sexuality.
b. It tends to generalize from the
average, ignoring variations.
c. It ignores the role of power.
d. It ignores the way in which a host of
gender differences in personality and
behavior follows from anatomical sex
differences.
Answer: d
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That “Essentialism ignores the way in
which a host of gender differences in
personality and behavior follows from
anatomical sex differences” is not a
criticism of Essentialism.
3. Social constructionism is a school of thought
that sees gender differences:
a. as a reflection of the different social
positions occupied by women and men
b. as a reflection of the strategies men and
women use to achieve reproductive
success
c. resulting from identification with, or a
sense of belonging to, a particular sex
d. as a reflection of biological differences
between women and men
Answer: a
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Social constructionism is a school of
thought that sees gender differences as a
reflection of the different social
positions occupied by women and men.
4. Surveys of body image show that:
a. a great majority of people who are
dissatisfied with their weight - both men
and women - want to lose weight
b. men are more concerned about their
stomachs than women are
c. women are more concerned about their
breasts than men are about their chests
d. all of these choices
Answer: a
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Surveys of body image show that a great
majority of people who are dissatisfied
with their weight - both men and women want to lose weigh.
5. Transgendered people are:
a. people who prefer sexual partners of both
sexes
b. people who identify with, and want to live
fully as, members of the "opposite" sex,
and who resort to medical intervention
c. people who break society's gender norms
by defying the rigid distinction between
male and female
d. people born with ambiguous genitals
Answer: c
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Transgendered people are people who
break society's gender norms by defying
the rigid distinction between male and
female.
6. Men commit more frequent and more
harmful acts of aggression against women than
women commit against men because:
a. men are physically stronger than
women
b. norms justify male aggression against
women
c. men have more social power than
women
d. b. and c. only
Answer: d
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Men commit more frequent and more
harmful acts of aggression against women
than women commit against men because
norms justify male aggression against
women and men have more social power
than women.