Sex and Gender

2. Sex and Gender • Sex: Refers to a person’s biological apparatus (like chromosomes and anatomy). • Sex is typically considered to be a binary category • Gender: Refers to the socially-constructed notion of what is feminine and what is masculine. • Gender is a continuous category: a person can be more or less feminine or masculine

3. Why is Gender so Pervasive? • To relate to others and interact, we need a definition of our self and the other in the situation • This requires shared systems of categorization, a few of which are primary • Sex categorization is automatic, fast, and unconscious (we equate sex with gender) • We can’t relate to another without first sex categorizing

4. Why is Sex a Primary Category? • Sexual behavior and reproduction • Equal proportion of males and females • Crosscuts kin associations • As a result, gender isalways relevant

5. Interplanetary View of Gender • Belief that there are core gender differences based on stable traits • This is the hegemonic gender belief • Two popular explanations of gender differences fall within this view of gender • Nature • Nurture

6. The ‘Nature’ Explanation • Biological basis for gender differences • Fallen out of favor • Critiques: • Humans develop with the environment • Differences among men and women are greater than differences between women and men • Small biological differences can’t account for the large observed social differences

7. The ‘Nurture’ Explanation • Basis for gender differences is socialization • These differences are still considered stable • Critiques: • Ignores differences across situations and the life course • Socialization continues throughout ones life, and people change their gendered behavior

8. Critiques of Interplanetary Theory of Gender • Obscures our understanding of gender • Doesn’t consider or account for multiple masculinities and femininities • Conceals the social processes that are occurring outside you and creates gender inequality by focusing on what’s going on inside you

9. The Truth about Gender • There are more differences within gender than between gender!

10. Percent of Prison Inmates, by Gender

11. An Alternative Explanation: The Gender System • Consists of an institutionalized set of social practices • Used to distinguish between men and women • Used to organize relations between men and women on the basis of apparent difference and inequality

12. The Gender System • Involves social processes at multiple levels of social analysis: • socioeconomic structures • patterns of social interaction among individuals • patterns of socialization and the development of individual selves

13. The Gender System (Risman/Ridgeway)

14. The Nature of the Gender System • Hegemonic beliefs as the ruling ideology of the gender system • Gender differences in behavior, income, positions, etc result from and support these hegemonic gender beliefs • Constant interaction of all three levels of the gender system • The gender system is over-determined

15. Doing Gender • We conform to the gender system • We are constantly “doing gender” within the system • Gender is a socially enacted process • Sex categorization is more social than natural • We provide voluntary cues for sex categorization and society provides props for doing gender

16. Gender Stereotypes • These are widely held cultural beliefs about the expected behavior for men and women (consist of hegemonic beliefs) • Sex categorization primes gender stereotypes, regardless of personal beliefs • Main gender stereotype is that men are agentic and women are communal. This stereotype afford men greater status and power.

17. Linking Stereotypes to Behavior • Stereotypes do not necessarily determine behavior • The strength of affect of a stereotype depends on its relevance (salience) to the situation • Gender has its strongest effect in mixed sex settings and in gender-relevant contexts

18. Activating Non-Hegemonic Beliefs • In groups with like-minded others, shared non-hegemonic beliefs may guide behavior • But, hegemonic beliefs will guide interactions with strangers and in public settings.

19. Interaction and the Gender System • Interaction is a powerful arena for maintaining and changing of hegemonic beliefs • For the current gender system to persist, most people must accept stereotypes as descriptive of most others (if not themselves) and use those stereotypes to form performance expectations.

20. Organization of Interaction • All interactions involve duties and privileges, which constitute the power dynamic of an interaction and men tend to have more power. • Men tend to adopt task roles (display of agency) • Women tend to adopt socioemotional roles (display of communality)

21. Explaining Gender Differences in Interaction • Differences in power in situations • Other contextual roles besides gender • Stereotypes • Double Standards • Legitimacy Traps

22. Gender and the Socioeconomic Structure • There is interdependence of the paid labor force and the family (and thus gender) • The material basis for gender inequality • The wage gap • Sex segregation of occupations and jobs • Gendered division of household labor

23. The Wage Gap • Women’s work context and outcomes are different and unequal to men’s • Women earn 75-77 cents for every dollar a man earns • Possible explanations: • Individual explanations (human capital) • Structural explanations (employment structure)

24. Sex Segregation of Occupations and Jobs • Index of dissimilarity is .52 for occupational segregation • Segregation is severe by occupation, but even more so at the job level • Re-segregation occurs with changing structural conditions • Explains most of the remaining wage gap

25. Gendered Division of Household Labor • Women do twice as much, resulting a longer total work week • Their tasks are more recurrent and time sensitive • Women’s employment decreases their housework, but still is more than men’s • Culturally defined as the women’s responsibility

26. CONCLUSIONS • Men and women are more similar than different, but we are trained to focus on and develop the differences • Hegemonic beliefs have incredible influence • All three levels of the gender system interact and support each other, making the system over-determined • Change within our current gender system is difficult and slow, but not impossible