History of Gender Idea
• Gender as a concept first used by Greek
Sophists in fifth century B.C. to describe the
names of masculine, feminine, intermediate.
• Latin describes third category as “neither”
(Lyons 1968 in Archer/Lloyd)
• Early western ideas acknowledge people
who are neither clearly biologically male or
female
Mid-20th Century
Academics:John Money
• Academic interest in hermaphrodites—people
presenting “dimorphism” of biology—gonadal,
genital anomalies, fetal hormone effects,
developmental differences
• Psychologist John Money (Johns Hopkins
University) in 1955 argues for “assigned sex” that
would make a person take on a “gender identity.”
20th century concern with “fixing” the intersexed.
• Social constructionism splits sex from gender
The “Agnes” case
• Agnes presents herself to UCLA academics in 1958
(including sociologist Harold Garfinkel) seeking plastic
surgery for what she defines as hormonal abnormalities
• Physical signs clearly show she was born and raised male,
but she had been taking her mother’s estrogens from the
time she was 12 to make her a female.
• She obtained a sex change operation.
• 1968—UCLA psychiatrist Robert Stoller publishes Sex
and Gender and defines “gender” as a term with
“psychological or cultural rather than biological
connotations”
• Most famous transsexual of period, Christine Jorgenson, m
to f.
• Then differentiated transsexual (gender choice) from
intersexed (biological hermaphrodite)
Gender Identity Academics
• Academics construct notions of “core gender
identity” study in university “Gender Identity
Research Clinics”. “core gender identity” defined
as inner sense of being female/male
• Belief by Money that turn a biological male at
birth into a female simply through “proper”
female socialization—Joan/John, David Reimer
case
• Milton Diamond’s challenge of biological ideas
(Colapinto’s discussion)
“Ambiguous” Genitalia
• Importance of biological anomalies as challenge to
concepts of sex and gender as binary systems.
• Kessler: “physician as discoverer and the
physician as determiner of gender” in Wharton.
• Concept of what is “natural” a social construction
by academic and medical social interests
Transsexuality
• Hausman argues the concept of gender, medical
technological developments allowed doctors to
act on demands for sex change—to change people
from one sex to another
• Fausto-Sterling study of intersexuality, metaanalysis of studies of outcomes, the “surgical
fix”—doctors decided “nature’s intention” related
to “acceptable” penis size, the “phall-O-metrics”
(p. 59)
• Today transsexual defined as someone who has
undergone a sex change operation (see psychology
of gender textbooks)
Transgendered
• Defined today as persons with a “gender
identity problem” or gender dysphoria—
persons who feel their biological sex is
incongruent with their psychological sex
• Current popular media discussions with
identical twins where one experiences
problem and other doesn’t—is it nature or
nurture and how?
Anthropology: third sex cultures
• Interest in societies where male/female were
not binary began in anthropology
• Examples include hijras (India), transvestis,
bichas, viados (Brazil), kathoey (Thailand),
sworn virgins (Albania), Native American
“third sexes”
Social
Construction/Interactionism
• Social interactionism—peoples’ interactions
construct gender in social contexts
• Social categorization—processes through which
individuals classify themselves and others as
members of groups, sex category
• Ethnomethodology and “doing gender”—
presentation of self as female/male
• Status characteristics’ theory—people expect sex
category behaviors
• Homophily theory—consequences of people
classifying others as similar, different from self
“Doing Gender”
• People “do gender” as habit, automatic, taken for
granted; how does social interaction between
people produce gender?
• Gender is an accomplishment and a performance
• Ethnomethodologists see sex categories
(male/female) as social constructions, not
“natural.” Natural is what is socially defined as
such.
• Consider role of power and production of
inequalities because of these definitions and
interactions.
Status Characteristics theory
• Theory of “expectation states”—people orient self to
others with categories
• Expect certain behaviors based on those categories
• Behaviors have “status characteristics”—attributes have
greater or lesser worthiness, social esteem
• In U.S. society, men regarded more positively than
women??
• Goal-oriented expectations where people assess how
competent others are (“performance expectations”) at
achieving gender (“Mine is bigger than yours.”)
• Group composition/expectations determine interactions
more than individual choices/personalities
Homophily theory
• People prefer sameness-people like themselves
and in their communities—”people like us”
• Trust more with greater sense of kinship and
feelings of comfort; similarity-attraction
hypotheses
• Threatened and less committed to people who are
different, heterogenous
• Tsui et al. found whites and men (members of
historically dominant US groups) reacted more
negatively to being different than non-whites,
women in work settings.
• Kanter: tokens, dominants in skewed groups
The Western Sex/Gender Split
• Gender split off from biological sex in western
(US/Europe) ideas reflects the binary split of
male/female in western societies
• Biological intersexed, social choice
transgendered, cultural diversity challenge to
sex/gender split and also challenge ideas about
male/female
• Diversity in societies, cultures and histories
challenges absolutes found in religious traditions
and in biological theories about female/male
• Beliefs about sex/gender operate within everyday
social hierarchies which need academic analysis
Reconceptualizations
• Fausto-Sterling argues multiple genders
• Friedman argues SexGender as a continuum
going from physical sex to cultural gender,
a continuum of colored dots
U.S. Political Context
• U.S. feminists used “gender” from 1970s on—
social construction means oppressive institutions
of gender can change
• In U.S., challenges from social movement activists
organizing for rights of transgender/transsexual,
intersexed individuals, gay marriage advocates
• Politics and culture wars between social
conservatives critics of “gender feminists”
(Christine Hoff Sommers 1990s) and critics of
social constructionism (includes Christian
evangelicals, conservative Republicans,
“independent” feminists) vs. social liberals, social
constructionists, liberal feminists who support
References
• Wharton, Chaps. 2, 3; John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him
• Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body (2000)
• Sarah Fenstermaker and Candace West Eds, Doing Gender, Doing
Difference (2002)
• Asia Friedman, “Bringing the ‘Sex’ Back In” (unpublished paper
2005)
• Harold Garfinkle, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967)
• Bernice Hausman, Changing Sex (1995)
• John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, Man & Woman, Boy & Girl (1972)
• Serena Nanda, Neither Man nor Woman: the Hijras of India (1999);
Gender Diversity (2000)
• Robert Stoller, Sex and Gender (1968)