Identity and exclusion - Sex and Gender Flashcards
1
Q
Differences between sex and gender:
A
- gender is not the same as sex - conflated but refer to different things particularly in geographical context.
- gender is a relatively new term - mid twentieth century. Historically it was applied primarily as a grammatical concept. Process of distinguishing between different kinds of nouns.
- 1950s: gender became a term used to think about social aspects of a person’s sex.
- gender is formed of social attitudes, behaviours, and opportunities (socially constructed/constituted).
- distinction between sex as a biological, physical characteristic and gender as a cultural one.
- sex describes anatomical distinctions.
- neither sex or gender are binary - pluralised identities.
- understanding gender is not a binary trait and is a socially determined trait is controversial - strong right-wing resistance to accepting the idea. However, more widely accepted than the idea that sex isn’t a binary trait.
- 1% of the population are born intersex - no clear distinction.
2
Q
Sex, gender, and sexuality and UK legislation:
A
- 1918: first opportunity for women to vote in the UK - strict legislations (over 30, must meet certain property requirement). By no means equal right to vote.
1960: prior to this, access to contraceptive pills were heavily regulated. Even after 1960 they were only accessible for married women. 1967 - available to all.
1974 - contraceptive pill became accessible through the NHS - before it was private, creating issues of access. - over the past decade there has been a shift to expansion of rights and suddenly moving to curtail them - important pattern and is causing significant social divide.
- slow process which is currently under threat.
3
Q
British Social Attitudes survey - 2013:
A
- inequality is still prolific due to outdated perspectives despite changes in law and society.
- mid 1980s - 50% of people felt it was the man’s responsibility to earn money and the women’s to manage the home (13% by 2013).
- ‘mothers should stay at home until child is school age’: 64% agreed in 1980s, 33% in 2013.
- Women spend 13 hours per week on housework and 23 hours on caring responsibilities.
- men spend eight hours on housework and 10 hours on caring responsibilities.
- historically gendered ideas of labour link things that are related to emotions to femininity - e.g., jobs around education or in caring.
- jobs that require decision-making, logic, etc were associated with being more masculine.
- McDowell: assumption that you had to perform gender in a certain way to be valued or recognised within the workplace.
4
Q
feminism in academia:
A
- the feminist movement has been a key force in how we think about gender in geography.
- feminism: ‘advocacy for women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.
- not just an ongoing campaign
- feminism is deeply ingrained in geography.
- feminist theories are uncovering and dismantling hidden oppressive structures. Gender in academic institutions - pay gaps and the four fights.
- ONS: gender pay gap is 7.7% (as of 2013).
- Uni of Exeter (2022) - 18.6%.
- higher paid roles are disproportionately held by men.
- only 30% of professors are women (2020), 13.9% in 2009/10.
5
Q
Waves of feminism:
A
- first wave: began in late 19th century and continued to early 20th. Focused on legal obstacles, e.g., enfranchisement, e.g., suffragettes.
- second wave: 1960/70s which centred around social issues, e.g., family and reproductive rights, marital rights and education, etc.
- third wave: early 1990s. Tied to other moves around social justice, including race equality, sexuality, class, etc. First and second waves favoured middle class white women. Critical of 1st and 2nd waves stopping too soon.
- fourth wave? 2012-present. targeted at dismantling institutional barriers and institutional sexism and discrimination. E.g., the #MeToo movement and Everyday Sexism Project.
6
Q
Masculinities and feminism:
A
- the enfranchisement of working-class men.
- men are expected to perform masculinity in similar ways that women are expected to perform femininity (R.W. Connell).
- second wave feminism and its challenges to the social and economic rights started the process of reforming what it meant to perform masculinity.
- growing trend of men thinking about physique and appearance and engaging more in caring responsibilities - process of changing identity in one area has a knock-on effect.
- calls for more masculinity within research - isn’t putting more focus on men but when discourse is about femininity, the masculinity is not critically engaged with - toxic masculinity and problematic ways of performing masculine identities.
- if we’re focusing on femininity, we’re establishing that that masculinity is the norm.
7
Q
Counter point:
A
- historical point but still exists - exclusion of
- many organisations trying to reverse this view but remain relatively unsuccessful.
8
Q
Is there a fourth wave of feminism?
A
- hard to tell when we’re in it.
- Jessica Abrahams - digital infrastructure key to contemporary feminism. Wave that is occurring largely across platforms like social media.
- 2012: Laura Bates launched the Everyday Sexism Project - women could submit stories of individual instances of sexism that they had experienced.
- ongoing process in everyday lives.
9
Q
The strange case of the missing female geographer:
A
- 1973: while women were important in geography, they weren’t really present in a lot of the output.
- geography at the time was a sexist field.
- led to the formation of certain institutions within the discipline aimed at increasing representation across sex and gender identities.
10
Q
Feminism and geographical institutions:
A
- Women and Geography Study Group (RGS) formed in 1980 (became Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group in 2013).
- Geographic Perspective of the Women speciality group (AGG) formed in 1979 - (became Feminist Geographies speciality group in 2020).
11
Q
Key feminist thinkers:
A
- Doreen Massey: prominent thinker. Book ‘For Space’ (2005). Relational approach to place, space and specialisation of power relations between us and gender identities.
- Gill Valentine. Work focuses on three areas, diversity and social inclusion, childhood and family life and urban cultures and consumption.
- Judith Butler (20th Century). ‘Gender Troubles’ - led the charge that gender is performed and socially constructed rather than an inherent difference.
12
Q
gender, contact sports and pain:
A
-
13
Q
It hurts so its real:
A
- communities and intimacy formed through shared experiences of pain.
- process of intimacy is enacted through acts of violence in a way that helps community justify what they’re doing as a masculine performance.
‘this builds an intimacy rarely available or acceptance within the normative standards of masculinity’. - participants engaging with practice requiring physical intimacy and to ensure this was perceived in a masculine way engaged by making crude jokes.
- physical aggression, violence and pain provides a way to build community and deconstruct potentially toxic notions of masculinity.
14
Q
Men who strike and men who submit:
A
- different understandings of masculinity in Western and Asian audiences, particularly Japan and the US.
- one can either be knocked out or submitted.
- western audiences: knock-outs are views as representing masculinity more due to violence, strength and aggression
- Japanese audiences: traits represented as undermining someone’s masculinity as they were seen to represent a lack of control and discipline.
- ‘Chinese culture puts a clear ascendancy on wen [cultural refinement, scholarly attainment] over wu (martial aggression) because wu represents “the need to resort to force to achieve one’s goals” (Louie 2002)
- masculinity isn’t an homogenous thing - different interpretations.
15
Q
Becoming Roller Derby Grrrls:
A
- ‘derby tends to be viewed as a cultural site that reinscribes a sexualised hyperfeminity while unproblematically adopting masculine aggressiveness.
- represents a move away from the female body as solely a space of caring.
- paper argues that roller derby is a space where sexualised hyper femininity and aggressive masculinity is negotiated simultaneously and becomes a practice wherein participants can navigate to challenge and undermine hegemonic notions of gender identity.
- these practices challenge the prevalent notion that to be feminine means to be fragile or passive.
