Gender, Sexuality and Inequality

Question 1

Define sex.

Answer 1

– historically been classified as referring to biological aspects of male and female people; intersex

Question 2

Define gender.

Answer 2

– traditionally been understood as social

• • set of behaviors, presentations that are associated w/ specific gender
• • masculinity, femininity

Question 3

What is masculinity/femininity?

Answer 3

• • depends on what we define these two as
• – changes over time and vary w/ different cultures
• • associate masculinity w/ maleness
• • associate feminity w/ femaleness
    
    • -> must consider the fact that these aren’t static and change over time which is how we know this is constructed

Question 4

what is gender transgression?

Answer 4

– crossing the lin of your expected gender behaviors/performance

Question 5

T or F, people can choose not to align with femaleness and maleness

Answer 5

True; more than 2 genders exist

Question 6

What is gender identity?

Answer 6

– when this is brought up in our generation as apart of the dominant group we tend to automatically think of the marginalized group

– may also be much more removed

– call also refer to how male or female you feel

Question 7

Define Sexual orientation.

Answer 7

– not same as gender identity although they overlap

– it is who we want to have sex with

– who someone wants to have sex with has nothing to do w/ how they identity in terms of gender

• • what this tells us is how we choose to talk about sexual orientation
    
    • -> not necessarily something people choose but something people are born into

Question 8

Why isn’t there much data on non binary individuals?

Answer 8

– due to continual forcing of binariness

ex: in surveys do you identify as male or female

– this then makes it difficult to see the varying gender inequalities that aren’t man or woman

Question 9

Describe the differences in political representation when it comes to gender.

Answer 9

• • 51% female (U.S. pop)
• • a quarter of women in congress
• • 20% in Senate
• • 0% president
• • WOC even more unerrepresented
  • -> 9% representation in congress

Question 10

Describe the wage gap.

Answer 10

• • 80 cents to the dollar
• • not a difference in amount of hours
• • this is in reference to full time

Question 11

What is occupation sex differentiation?

Answer 11

• • men and women going into diff types of jobs
• • gendered really early on in life – due to socialization and more
• • there is this layering that work is paid based on who and how that job is being performed
• —-> we find that for women it is lower

Question 12

T or F, w/in occupation there is wage inequality

Answer 12

True; in entry level occupations that are similar for men and women –> they make roughly the same

 --> can be interpreted as wage gap not existing

Question 13

T or F, growth of income is greater for men than women

Answer 13

True

Question 14

What are the key reasons for divergence of income?

Answer 14

– informal social networks tend to be sex-segregated

• -> male group tends to include the supervisors/importatn people making decisions
• -> they have more connections to the top people

–> if you are a woman you are perceived as being split between work and family even if you don;t have any familial responsibilities

Question 15

Describe the the different roles men and women play in the family/marriage. (also unpaid labor)

Answer 15

– in heterosexual marriages women do more unpaid household stuff than men do, even though men are much more involved in hands on childcare stuff

• • household labor/ unpaid labor is very gendered still
  • -> early 20th century women were doing 7 times that of men
  • -> now it’s been cut down to 2 times that of men
• • on difference in the unpaid labor is the quantity of labor being done
• • quality of unpaid labor also plays a role
    
    • -> stark difference btwn the diff. types of household/unpaid labor

Question 16

What are the two characteristics of how the differences in unpaid labor play out.

Answer 16

• • men’s –> occasional, seasonal unpaid labor
• • women’s –> daily unpaid labor

men’s hosuehold labor –> delayed, scheduled
women’s hosuehold labor –> instant

Question 17

T or F, unpaid/household labor can interrupt/yank women out of their work like

Answer 17

• • days are more interrupted
• • more likely to move work like around
• • evidence: when women have a child their income takes a hit forever; whereas for men their income tends to grow bc their behavior is diff

Question 18

Why do these gender differences persist?

Answer 18

– we have assigned a gendered meaning to tool that are apart of the toolkits that people come w/

———-> socialization: modifying/manipulating that which is already there

Question 19

What about aggression when it comes to gendered differences/socialization?

Answer 19

• • mapping out aggression levels find out there’s a gap —–> 25% diff
• ——> 75% of gap is not being explained by testosterone
• ——> meaning it’s both natural and socialized

Question 20

Define gender socialization.

Answer 20

– being expected to peform or uphold expectations that are assigned that specific gender

– ex: shifting the ways inwhich we treat men and women & even baby boys and girls

• ——-> we do this from the very beginning
  ex: asking people what they had when they have a baby to know hot to move accordingly

Question 21

How do we interact with the socialization of children?

Answer 21

– boys are allowed to roam and explore more where as girls are more restricted, protected and helped

—> in those formative years –> girls are getting the message that they can’t do things by themselves –> plays a large role later on in life

Question 22

T or F, socialized in a way where we learn more and more about ourselves by virtue of socialization

Answer 22

True; although gender is socially constructed it becomes apart of you; socialization argues that gender is something that you become apart of; it becomes you

Question 23

What is the doing gender approach?

Answer 23

– contrasts w/ socialization in that it says gender is a performance not actually apart of who you are

– property of interaction

• • Key concepts:
• –> sex, sex category, gender

gender: repertoire of behaviors, performance
sex: whatever your sex is biologically
sex category: any cues that you give off or what others pickup as to what sex you are
——-> in order to see which script you’re going to activate
——-> secondary sex characteristics are apart of the cues we use to put people in diff. sex categories

Question 24

Why does doing gender persist from this particular perspective?

Answer 24

– when people tend to activate a specific script repeatedly it becomes a normal thing

ex: that's just how men are

– we usually don;t break the rules, meaning that the rules aren’t normally visible –> we don’t even know that we’re behaving in ways that are specific to our gender

– gender is a property of interaction

– symbolic interactionsim –> we perform gender