Social Essay

Gender and SexualityGender and SexualityPage 2Angela BarianTodd Schoepflin, Niagara UniversityGender and SexualityA N G E L A B A R I A NT O D D S C H O E P F L I N , N I A G A R A U N I V E R S I T YSOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDERNature, nurture, neither?Social construction of genderIntersectional perspectives of genderINEQUALITIES AND PROGRESSFeminismInstitutional inequalityGender and violenceSEXUALITIESThe creation of sexualityIntersectional sexualitiesThe social control of sexualityGender and SexualityPage 3INTRODUCTIONIn 2013, retired Army veteran Jamie Shupe changed their legal identity from male to female (Shupe’spreferred pronouns are their and they). Assigned male at birth, Shupe remembers their mother slapping themas a child for being “a sissy.”1 Shupe was a married father when they decided they’d had enough: “I was in adeep, dark depression because I had boxed myself into this male identity that I couldn’t stand anymore.”2Shupe started taking hormones and for a while lived as a transgender woman. Transgender refers to peoplewhose gender identity and expression are different from what they were assigned at birth.3 But they didn’tfeel “fully female” either.4 So in 2016, Jamie Shupe petitioned to be the first person in the history of theUnited States to be legally recognized as non-binary (that is, not exclusively masculine or feminine). Theywon. Following that decision, Shupe’s home state of Oregon became the first state to officially offer gender-neutral driver’s licenses. As of July 2017, residents can have an “X” in the gender box on their state-issuedID.5 In court, Shupe said, “I can’t divorce my male side with my female side. And you’re just going to haveto acknowledge that sex and gender is a spectrum, not two poles.”6While societies have always seen gender expressions that move beyond the male-female binary, arecent Time article notes that this gender flexibility has moved from being marginalized to being morewidely accepted.7 A survey from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reports that“20% of millennials identify as something other than strictly straight and cisgender (someone whose genderis in line with the sex they were assigned at birth).”8 This is compared to just 7% of baby boomers, thegeneration born between 1946 and 1964. Social understandings of gender and sexuality continue to evolve inways that have profound effects on our daily lives.You could make a case that gender is the primary way people organize the social world. Before birth,parents prepare nurseries in pink or blue and use social media for elaborate reveals of whether the baby willbe a boy or a girl. Elementary school teachers use gender to line students up and pit them against each otherin competitions. Kids are teased by each other and even adults with a song that contains a gender-basedscript about marriage, family, and sexual orientation: “Rob and Mary sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Firstcomes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.” Fast-forward to high school, whereprom kings and queens are crowned; then to a baby shower, a space usually reserved for women, althoughoccasionally a couple allows men and women to attend in a “Jack and Jill” format. Gender matters before thecradle and all the way to the grave.In this chapter, we have two goals. First, we provide you with a sociological lens on gender andsexuality. We consider how, despite being firmly rooted in minds and bodies, gender and sexuality are alsoGender and SexualityPage 4profoundly social. Second, we explore how gender and sexuality intersect with other social relations tocreate a multitude of experiences and unequal interactions and institutions.SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER What is sex? What is gender? What does it mean for gender to be a social construction? How do diverse bodies, identities, and expressions complicate social constructions of both gender andsex?Nature, nurture, neither?In 2009, runner Caster Semenya won a gold medal in the women’s 800-meter race at the WorldChampionships. Semenya smashed the previous African record and improved her own personal best by eightseconds in eight months, an almost unheard-of feat.9 But there were whispers: Semenya’s time was too fast.And just look at her, one of the other athletes said. The track & field governing body expressed suspicionabout whether she qualified to run with women. Later that year, Caster Semenya went through “genderverification testing.”10 The purpose of the testing, said officials, was to determine if Semenya is “really” awoman. For almost a year, she was unable to compete while tests were administered and analyzed. While theresults of the so-called gender test were never revealed, Semenya was cleared to compete with other women.She later won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics. But why was her case so difficult? Why did it take solong for the committee to affirm that, as she and her father maintained all along, she’s a woman? Let’sconsider some sociological concepts of genderbefore returning to Caster Semenya.We can start with a comment made by astudent in one of our classes: “You are what yourbirth certificate says you are.” In the student’seyes, you’re either male or female, just as a birthcertificate indicates. End of story. But it’s not sosimple. The certificate tells us a biological fact. Ittells us nothing about society. Sex refers to thedifferent biological and physiologicalcharacteristics of males and females, such as Sociologists focus on the way the social environment shapes gender. (Source)https://pixabay.com/en/world-business-save-global-green-2081907/
Gender and SexualityPage 5reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormones. Gender refers to the socially-constructed characteristicsof women and men – such as norms, roles, and relationships among and between groups of women andmen.11You may be familiar with the terms nature and nurture, with nature referring to biologicalinfluences and nurture referring to social ones. Both are crucial to understanding sex and gender, but thesociological perspective focuses on how the social world impacts our gender development. In Biology 101,you may spend a lot of time talking about the role that genes play in influencing our appearance or ourbehavior. But in sociology, we devote much of our attention to how the social environment shapes everyaspect of us – including its impact on our genes and how they function.Think of the phrase “boys will be boys.” The expression suggests that certain behaviors areinevitable for boys. But it doesn’t account for how the traits we attribute to boys are learned. Throughsocialization, we learn about gender from family, peers, teachers, coaches, and other influential people inour lives. We also learn gender messages from media; commercials, TV shows, movies, songs, video games,internet memes, and magazines all have something to say about gender.Consider the link between girls and the color pink. We aren’t born with color preferences, we learnthem. Believe it or not, in the early 1900s, pink was considered a boy’s color and blue a girl’s color. It wasn’tuntil the 1940s that the colors became gender-coded in the way we know them today.12 We now take thecolor scheme for granted because it’s in the fabric of society. Browse the toy aisles at Target and Wal-Martand you’ll see pink products marketed toward girls. Pink is a primary Victoria’s Secret color. You can buy apink and black Muddy Girl Compact Bolt-Action Rifle at Cabela’s. Meanwhile, clothes, bikes, and toys forboys are awash in blue and gray. People have choices in what they buy, of course, and many of us stray fromthe color norms, but the notion of boy colors and girl colors remains entrenched in American society.Let’s think about the Caster Semenya case again.Her situation reveals a lot about social expectations about“what it means” to be a man or a woman: what you’resupposed to look like, how you’re supposed to sound, howstrong you are, how emotional you are, what your interestsare. These are gender norms, or social definitions ofbehavior assigned to particular sex categories. While gendernorms can and do change through time, place, and context,the thing they have in common is that they are socially-determined and socially-enforced. Most of us are treatedaccording to how we’re perceived. And these genderperceptions are generally assumed to match our biologicalsex.Gender and SexualityPage 6But perceptions can be deceiving. The Intersex Society of North America notes, “If you ask experts atmedical centers how often a child is born so noticeablyatypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sexdifferentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births.”13 And genitals are only one of many ways that we determine sex differences. InSemenya’s case, though her test results weren’t revealed, there is speculation that she had higher levels oftestosterone, a hormone associated with muscular size and strength, aggression, and other traits, than mostwomen. Do you know your testosterone level? Most people don’t, and so wouldn’t know if they haveunusually high or low levels. Below is a table of the frequency of variations in sexual development. To putthe stats in perspective, consider that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is estimated to occur in 0.2 to 1.5 infants forevery 1,000 live births in certain areas of the United States;14 about one in 3,500 babies is born with cysticfibrosis;15about one in 1,574 babies is born with a cleft palate without a cleft lip;16 and Down Syndrome isestimated to occur in about one in every 700 births. The point? Intersex conditions are relatively rare – butnot as rare as we think they are.Table 1: Frequencies of Sex Variations, by Number of Births17Sex Variation FrequencyNot XX and not XY One in 1,666 birthsAndrogen Insensitivity Syndrome One in 13,000 birthsGonadal dysgenesis (abnormal growth ordevelopment)One in 150,000 birthsVaginal agenesis (lack of development) One in 6,000 birthsCongenital Adrenal Hyperplasia One in 13,000 birthsKlinefelter Syndrome One in 1,000 birthsOvotestes One in 83,000 birthsIdiopathic (no discernable medical cause) One in 110,000 birthsFor Caster Semenya, social assumptions had severe consequences – she was unable to participate inher sport for nearly a year. But there are everyday expectations for all of us, even if our identity matcheswhat society assumes about us.The social construction of genderCaster Semenya. Source: Wikimedia Commonshttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caster_Semenya_London_2012.jpg#/media/File:Caster_Semenya_London_2012.jpg
Gender and SexualityPage 7As the Semenya example illustrates, what is considered gender-appropriate is determinedcollectively. In the language of sociology, we say that these notions are socially constructed. The socialconstruction of gender refers to how meanings of gender are created through social interaction and socialnorms. Teaching, learning, performing, and policing gender behavior in light of expectations of appropriateconduct are also part of the ongoing process of social construction. Giving a name to a baby is one way a sexcategory becomes a gender status, and babies and children are then treated according to that gender status.When children learn to talk, they refer to themselves by their gender. This is all part of the socialconstruction of gender.18Here’s another example: have you ever heard someone speak and noticed that the person raises his orher voice at the end of each sentence, making everything sound as if it were a question? Linguists call thishigh-rising terminal; you may know it as “uptalk.” What about ending sentences with words spoken in a low,almost croaky tone? That’s referred to as vocal fry. And if modern linguistic research is any indication, youprobably associate both vocal fry and uptalking with women, particularly young women.These speech patterns have social consequences. People who use vocal fry are seen as lesstrustworthy, less competent, and less educated than those who don’t, and their prospects for landing a job canbe affected by the way they talk.19 People who use both vocal fry and uptalking are even more disadvantageddue to stereotypes about the kind of people who use them.This is an example of the social construction of gender, or the ways in which we create genderedmeaning through (in this case, literal) communication. Research shows that both men and women use uptalkoften, and there’s no evidence that women use vocal fry any more than men do. 20 But what matters is thatthese ways of speaking are associated with women. The social construction of gender implies that thesevocal techniques have gendered meaning attached to them. Men talk like this; women talk like that. Whetherthis and that are actually different in the overall population isn’t what matters; the important thing is thatvocal fry and uptalking are associated with women, affecting the way women and men who use thesetechniques are perceived.The example of speech patterns suggests that we shouldn’t think of gender as something that we are(male or female). Instead, think of gender as something that we do, every single day. We do gender in theway we talk, gesture, dress, and sit. Look at Instagram and see if you observe men and women posing indifferent ways. Remember when the duckface selfie was popular? Girls and women more often used it. Andmaybe you notice that a common pose for men in pictures is to cross their arms. As you go about your day,look at how men and women take up space. You might see men with their legs extended from a couch orchair, while women may sit in ways that make their bodies take up less space.21Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed the idea that we do gender. They suggested that weperform actions that produce gender; we do gender in interactions with others, and we take into considerationwhat is believed to be appropriate for our gender.22Gender and SexualityPage 8West and Zimmerman understood that we do gender knowing that we will be judged by others; weare held accountable for our gender performances. A girl might be reprimanded for not crossing her legswhen wearing a dress. “That’s not ladylike,” a parent might say. Men are encouraged by their peers to “manup” if they haven’t followed norms of masculinity. A boy who shows interest in a Barbie might be told“Boys don’t play with dolls!” We’re evaluated for our gender behavior. In her research at a high school, C.J.Pascoe found that boys frequently called each other “faggot” as a way of policing each other’s masculinity.23If boys engaged in behavior that wasn’t regarded as masculine at this high school – dancing, caring aboutclothing, being emotional – the insult was used against them.Sociologists, then, don’t view gender as an innate, biologically-determined characteristic. We focuson gender as socially and culturally influenced and as subject to change. Gender isn’t a fact, says JudithButler, author of Gender Trouble. Gender is produced. Think of gender as an unspoken agreement toperform gender in socially acceptable ways, and our performances are so believable that gender behaviorappears to be natural. The way we act sustains and reinforces the ideas we have created about gender.24 Straytoo far outside the lines and you risk being ostracized. We have words for those who perform gender out ofline with our expectations. Think of the dweeb, the wimp, the dork. Perhaps you picture a skinny, awkwardguy who isn’t cool, who dresses and walks in ways that make him stand out and invite ridicule. We havemore words for people who are thought to be doing masculinity wrong: douchebag, dick, prick, pussy,asshole. These may be used as general insults, but often they’re applied specifically to men as gender insults.A Google Image search for “masculine man.”In contrast, a muscular, self-assured man may find himself being praised by others. But is this alwaysthe case? Does a man have to look and act like Channing Tatum or Taye Diggs to be considered masculine?Not always. A guy may find other types of masculinity that work for him, such as the class clown who getsby on his comedic skills. Nerds aren’t normally celebrated as models of masculinity, but it helps to inventsomething and become a billionaire, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Celebrities are more likely toGender and SexualityPage 9stretch the boundaries of gender, perhaps because they feel more freedom to express gender with less fear ofbacklash. For example, the musician Young Thug wore a long ruffled dress for the cover art of his album No,My Name Is Jeffery. He also modeled women’s clothing for a Calvin Klein campaign, saying: “In my world,of course, it don’t matter, you know, you could be a gangster with a dress or you could be a gangster withbaggy pants. I feel like there’s no such thing as gender.”25 While we disagree with his assertion there’s nosuch thing as gender, he certainly resists gendered clothing norms. Another example is Jaden Smith, whofrequently dresses in ways that don’t conform with gender norms. Talking about his fashion choices, Smithsaid: “So, you know, in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won’t get beat up and kidswon’t get mad at him.”26 These are examples of widening the ideas of what Black masculinity is, says writerMikelle Street.27Widening the boundaries of gender is one way of challenging the gender binary, the classificationsystem that allows for only two separate gender categories. The gender binary is just one of many gendersystems, and there’s ample evidence that even within this strict binary system, there has always been someroom for change, growth, and flexibility. Gender terms change over time to represent different ways of doinggender: girly-girl, tomboy, emo, metrosexual. Within show business, we have particularly seen andwelcomed non-conforming expressions of gender and sexuality. Artists like David Bowie wore makeup anddresses and wore an androgynous style, incorporating both feminine and masculine characteristics. In 1984,Prince’s song “I Would Die 4 U” proclaimed, “I’m not a woman; I’m not a man. I am something that you’llnever understand.” In 1981, his “Controversy” lyrics asked, “Am I Black or White? Am I straight or gay?”Can you think of current examples of non-binary gender expression?David Bowie. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)Let’s return to the student who asserted that gender is what your birth certificate says you are. Forthis student, gender is fixed, and gender is binary; you are either a man or a woman. The reality is that peopleexperience gender in complex, nuanced ways. For example, Mack Beggs is a transgender wrestler who wonhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David_Bowie_Young_Americans_Tour_1974_A.jpg#/media/File:David_Bowie_Young_Americans_Tour_1974_A.jpg
Gender and SexualityPage 10the Texas state high school girls’ wrestling championship in 2017. Although he identifies as male and wantsto wrestle boys, he competes against girls because Texas law requires students to wrestle in accordance withthe gender listed on birth certificates. He has endured slurs and insults, including being called “fag” and “it.”When he was younger, Mack struggled with suicidal thoughts and engaged in self-harm. Reflecting back towhen he was younger, Mack says: “I was angry as in why I got made like this. Why do I have to feel thisway? I couldn’t figure out my identity.” His mother has been supportive: “I knew that something wasdifferent when he was five he had asked why God gave him girl parts instead of boy parts,” she explained inan interview.28 That Mack was legally required to wrestle opponents based on his birth gender illustrates thepower of the gender binary system. However, his desire to wrestle opponents based on his identity (and hisfamily’s acceptance of him) represents a shift away from the gender binary.Institutions and organizations are also acknowledging that not everyone fits into a strict genderbinary. Originally, Facebook had only two options for gender: male or female. In 2014, it expanded thegender options to 58 different labels,29 including transgender and cisgender, the broad classifiers “neither,”“other,” and “non-binary,” and many more specific ones (for definitions of each, look at this explainer fromThe Daily Beast). By 2015, Facebook opened up the list even more. The company’s diversity page states,“Now, if you do not identify with the pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your own.As before, you can add up to ten gender terms and also have the ability to control the audience with whomyou would like to share your custom gender. We recognize that some people face challenges sharing theirtrue gender identity with others, and this setting gives people the ability to express themselves in an authenticway.”30Intersectional perspectives on genderWhen actress Patricia Arquette won the Best Actress Oscar in 2015, she used her time on the podiumand backstage to highlight the wage gap between men and women, even in Hollywood. Arquette’sstatements became controversial, however, because of the way she talked about various marginalized groupsin America. She said:It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make.The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. It’sinexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countriesand we don’t…. It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all thegay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.31Her comments seem like the type of earnest expression that would garner praise from the audience, so whywere they controversial? As feminist author Amanda Marcotte noted, “gay people and all the people ofcolor” are categories that also include women.Arquette’s words suggested that all women find themselves in the same position. A differentperspective, called intersectionality, refers to the ways in which different types of social relations are linkedtogether in complex ways, creating very different experiences for different groups of people. Developed byhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/what-each-of-facebooks-51-new-gender-options-means
Gender and SexualityPage 11legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality argues that gender, race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality,geography, and other characteristics intersect and interact to shape individual experience.32 In practicalterms, this means gender can never be examined or understood in a vacuum. We always have other identities,interactions, and relations that affect who we are and how we experience the world.When it comes to the intersection of raceand masculinity, for example, certain ideas andimages are so common we don’t have to thinktwice about them. As Mark Anthony Neal says,“The example I always use is if we see a Blackman with a basketball, we don’t even have toprocess that. We’ve seen it so many times in ourlives, we know exactly what that means.” Incontrast, the sight of a Black man with a violinwould give us pause and lead to questions: Howdid he get the violin? Does he know how to playit? His point is that some images and definitionsof Black masculinity are easily defined, whileothers are not immediately grasped.33Consider Barack Obama’s relatively quick rise to become America’s first Black president. To do so,he had to make America comfortable with the idea of a Black man being president. Part of what made thatpossible, Neal argues, is that Obama represented an exceptional Black man who stood in contrast tolongstanding stereotypes of African-Americanmen as lazy and irresponsible. He describesObama’s performance of masculinity as nearly flawless. The only stronger performance of a Black man ascommander-in-chief we might imagine is Will Smith portraying an American president in a blockbustermovie.34Sociological research also shows how femininity intersects with ethnicity, religion, and nationality.In “We Don’t Sleep Around Like White Girls Do,” sociologist Yen Le Espiritu examines how immigrantfamilies from the Philippines “claim through gender the power denied them by racism.”35 Espiritu’s Filipinosubjects rarely identified themselves as Americans because they equated American-ness with Whiteness.Feeling marginalized and not fully American, they noted differences in gender norms between cultures. Theyargued that Americans – especially American women – lack sexual morality: “In America… sex isnothing.”36 The “ideal Filipina” was constructed to be “everything American women were not: she issexually modest and dedicated to her family; they are sexually promiscuous and uncaring.”37 This created alot of restrictions on and expectations about young Filipina-American women, who struggled between theirparents’ ways and American ways. (Of course, restrictions on and expectations for young women’s sexualityis not restricted to Filipino families; research on the topic spans the globe, through many generations.) Thesefamilies held up these gender norms as a means to regain the power they’d been denied because of their race.Kimberlè Crenshaw developed the idea of intersectionality.(Source: Wikimedia Commons)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kimberl%C3%A9_Crenshaw_Laura_Flanders_2017.png#/media/File:Kimberl%C3%A9_Crenshaw_Laura_Flanders_2017.png
Gender and SexualityPage 12The young women were expected to uphold the image of a “good Filipino girl.” In doing this, the youngwomen weren’t only keepers of the home; they were protectors of cultural authenticity. They were expectedto maintain gendered norms and ethnocultural ones (ethnocultural refers to cultural influences of the ethnicgroups to which we belong).Espiritu’s work is a great example of an intersectional lens on gender. To understand people’sexperiences, we can’t separate out gender relations and remove race or ethnicity from the equation. We can’teliminate the generational divide between immigrant parents and their American-born children, or forget toaccount for geography, language, or time period. All of these factors together intersect to create our everydaygendered reality. The same is true for you, whatever your story.President Obama with a staff member’s daughter in the White House. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)Review Sheet: Sociological perspectives of genderKey Pointshttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barack_Obama_with_Ella_Rhodes.jpg#/media/File:Barack_Obama_with_Ella_Rhodes.jpg
Gender and SexualityPage 13• The sociological perspective focuses on how the social world impacts our genderdevelopment. Gender is learned from family, peers, teachers, media, and other sources inour environment.• Meanings of gender are created through social interaction. We socially construct ideasabout appropriate gender behaviors. We’re held accountable for our gender conduct andare at risk of judgment if we challenge gender norms.• Gender is socially and culturally influenced and is subject to change.• Gender can’t be understood in isolation from our other identities and social relations. Wemust consider how gender intersects and interacts with race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality,geography, etc. to shape our experiences and treatment in society.Key People• Candace West & Don Zimmerman• Judith Butler• CJ Pascoe• Judith Lorber• Kimberlè Crenshaw• Mark Anthony Neal• Yen Le EspirituKey Terms• Transgender – People whose gender identity and expression are different from whatthey were assigned at birth.• Cisgender – Someone whose gender is in line with the sex they were assigned at birth.• Gender – Socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles,and relationships of and between groups of women and men.• Socialization – Ongoing social process whereby we learn social norms.• Gender norms – Social definitions of behavior that society assigns to particular sexcategories.• Social construction of gender – Process whereby meanings of gender are createdthrough social interaction and social norms.• Doing gender – Our activity that produces gender, in interaction with others and withconsideration of what is thought to be appropriate for our gender category.• Gender binary – System that allows only two gender categories.• Androgynous – Incorporating both feminine and masculine characteristics.• Intersectionality – Social theory that examines how social relations are inextricablylinked.• Ethnocultural – Cultural influences of the ethnic groups to which we belong that affectour behavior.INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESSGender and SexualityPage 14 What are examples of feminist principles? What is intersectional feminism? How is inequality entrenched in social institutions like the workplace? What progress has been made toward gender equality? What else can we do?FeminismWe’ve discussed how gender is a social construction thatmay change over time or context. Because gender divides peopleinto categories, people who fall into those categories canexperience the world differently, with tangible consequences fortheir lives and life chances.The most notable consequence is persistent genderinequality, where individuals or groups are treated and perceiveddifferently based upon their gender. Because of persistentinequality in social, political, economic, and interpersonal status,feminism has a long history. Feminism is usually used in thesingular form, but it refers to a collection of movements thatadvocate for equality for all sexes and genders. In the U.S., thesemovements stem from a broad coalition of women who fought forthe right to vote, receive an education, have custody of theirchildren, own property, get married and divorced when theywished, and have the same career choices as men. Today there are multiple feminisms, and people of allgenders call themselves feminist.The term also often comes with negative associations. In Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay recalls anargument with a man she was dating in which he said to her, “Don’t raise your voice to me,” beforecontinuing by giving his opinion about how women should talk to men. This confused Gay because shehadn’t raised her voice, nor had anyone said something like that to her before. The man concluded by asking,“You’re some kind of feminist, aren’t you?”His “accusation” reflects the stereotypical idea that feminists are simply angry women, rather thanpassionate individuals or activists who are concerned with achieving equality between all genders. Somefundamental feminist principles are equal pay for equal work, reproductive freedom, reducing all forms ofharassment and violence against women, and improving the treatment and status of women throughout theworld.(Source: Wikimedia Commons)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_mural_on_an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_LCCN2013633913.tif#/media/File:Rosie_the_Riveter_mural_on_an_abandoned_building_in_Sacramento,_California_LCCN2013633913.tif
Gender and SexualityPage 15But these principles don’t encompass all of feminism. Intersectional feminists like bell hooks remindus that we can’t divorce gender from other social relations. In her book Feminist Theory: From Margin toCenter, hooks is critical of feminist ideas that becamepopular in the 1960s, such as the work of BettyFriedan.38 Friedan spoke of “the problem that has noname” in her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique.39 Theproblem was being dissatisfied with the life of a stay-at-home wife. There was a yearning for somethingmore, a longing to have a career. But this feminismfocused on White women of the middle and upperclasses. As hooks pointed out, it ignored poor Whitewomen and women who weren’t White; these womenoften had to work to help support the family, even ifthey would have loved the opportunity to stay home with their children. Middle-class and upper-class womenhave more choices, advantages, and opportunities than do poor White women and women of color. And thechoices and opportunities for women of color are constrained not only by sexism but also racism.Feminists of color note that reproductive rights in the U.S. are usually discussed in terms of beingable to prevent pregnancy. However, the U.S. also has a long history of coerced and forced sterilization andcontraception of Native American and African American women.40 Some women were sterilized withouttheir knowledge or consent while having other surgical procedures. These forced sterilizations were socommon, civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer dubbed them “Mississippi Appendectomies.”41Another example of intersectional feminism is LGBTQ feminists noting that the discourse on comingout typically encourages people to openly acknowledge their sexuality to spread awareness and “refuse tohide.” But for some people coming out is not only difficult, but dangerous. Alan Pelaez Lopez explains thatsome undocumented LGBTQ people feel they can’t come out – being undocumented is stressful enough onits own. Some LGBTQ folks live in areas where theydon’t have a community they can turn to when theyfeel alone. Others have families with religious orcultural traditions that mean choosing between comingout and having a place to live and food to eat.42 Intersectional feminism stresses the importance of taking allsocial relations into consideration, so we don’t erase the full set of people’s experiences. An inclusivefeminism takes into account the needs of all women and their differences along lines of race, social class,religion, gender expression, body type, and (dis)ability.43Institutional inequalityImagine you’re in a meeting at work. You make a suggestion, but no one really responds. A fewminutes later, Sam from accounting makes the same suggestion and your boss says, “That’s a great idea.Good work, Sam.” You begin to wonder: Did the boss like Sam’s suggestion because he phrased it better? OrIntersectionality means that we should understandpeople as more than one thing – even conflictingthings – at the same time. (Source)https://pixabay.com/en/smile-color-laugh-black-1485850/
Gender and SexualityPage 16because Sam is a man and you’re a woman? Later in the meeting, someone notices the coffee pot is emptyand asks you to refill it. You wonder: Is your coworker asking you because you’re sitting close to the coffee?Or does the person think it’s your job? At the end of the meeting, as you get up to leave, the boss tells youthat you’re doing a good job and rests his hand on your lower back as he tells the room that he’s proud ofyou. Again, you wonder: Is he just being friendly? Would he make the same kind of physical contact withSam from accounting?This description of a work meeting might sound far-fetched, but sociologists have documentedextensive work-based gender inequality. For women in corporate environments, it’s not uncommon to havetheir authority questioned, be interrupted in meetings, face expectations that they be nice and nevercomplain, and experience unwanted sexual advances.An article on gender in the technology industry, “Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?”,described women who had dealt with all of these issues.44 Regarding the expectation to be nice and notcomplain, software engineer Tracy Chou’s experience was that men who worked as engineers were not heldto the same standard; excuses were made for male engineers who were difficult co-workers. The techindustry is male-dominated, and gender norms have been slow to change. “I am angry that things are nobetter for a 22-year-old at the beginning of her career than they were for me 25 years ago when I was juststarting out,” says Bethanye Blount, one of the women mentioned in the article.Results from a survey of 210 women in the technology industry (specifically Silicon Valley) indicatethat the experiences of the women in the article aren’t uncommon:45• 47% of the women reported being asked to do lower-level tasks that male colleagues were not askedto do, such as taking notes and ordering food;• 87% experienced demeaning comments from male colleagues;• 66% felt excluded from networking opportunities because of their gender;Gender and SexualityPage 17• 60% reported unwanted sexual advances (many coming from a superior).With experiences like this, it’s not surprising that women leave the tech industry at more than twice therate men do. Women hold approximately 25% of computing and mathematical jobs in the U.S., and thepercentage of computer and information science majors who are women is lower now (18%) than at its peakin 1984 (37%).46Women are not only treated differently than men, they’re also paid less. For full-time and part-timeworkers in the U.S., women earned 83% as much as men in 2015. This disparity in pay is amplified when weconsider race and ethnicity as well. White men have higher hourly wages than women of all races, but thehighest earners of all groups are Asian-American men. The wage gap has narrowed significantly in recentdecades, but some groups of women have made much more progress than others. For example, Whitewomen earned 60 cents for every dollar earned by White men in 1980; it’s now 82 cents. In comparison,Black women earned 56 cents for every dollar earned by White men in 1980; this has only increased to 65cents.47One reason for this wage gap is that many jobs in the U.S. economy are low-paying and more likelyto be held by women. The low-wage jobs that women mostly do – food preparation, restaurant servers,cosmetology, cleaning, housekeeping, teaching assistants, child care, elderly care, home care aides, officework, cashiers – are projected to increase. Women of color are heavily represented in these low-wage jobs.There are fewer low-wage jobs “for men,” and they pay more. Examples include carpet installers,construction laborers, drywall installers, janitors, painters, roofers, stock clerks, taxi drivers, butchers, headcooks, equipment cleaners, maintenance workers, and security guards.48The tech industry is male-dominated, which can present challenges for women. (Source)Gender and SexualityPage 18Figure 1: Ratio of Women’s to Men’s Earnings, 1980-2009(Source: Wikipedia Commons)As Jessica Schieder and Elise Gould point out, the sorting of men and women into differentoccupations is partly shaped by discrimination and social norms. Ideas and expectations about whatconstitutes “men’s work” and “women’s work” impact our choices to pursue particular careers. Familymembers, peers, and mentors encourage or discourage our job interests. And when women enter a professionin greater numbers, the pay in that field tends to decline; when greater numbers of men enter a profession,wages go up. For example, computer programming, a set of jobs initially held primarily by women, becamemore lucrative as it became more male-dominated.49Figure 2: Mothers’ Earnings Compared to Fathers’ Earnings, by Statehttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Gender_pay_gap,_1980-2009.001.png#/media/File:US_Gender_pay_gap,_1980-2009.001.png
Gender and SexualityPage 19Sociologists’ work shows us that inequalities are more complicated than we often assume. Take themotherhood penalty, the systematic disadvantages in wages, benefits, and other career factors that areassociated with motherhood. Studies of mothers who work show that the costs of raising a child aredisproportionately felt by women.50 Michelle Budig and Paula England showed that the wage penaltyincreases with the number of children, with a 7% wage penalty per child.51 Further, Shelley J. Correll,Gender and SexualityPage 20Stephen Benard, and In Paik’s work shows that not only were mothers perceived as less competent at theirjobs, but fathers were sometimes seen as more competent. Fathers’ paychecks sometimes even increasedfrom being a parent. This benefit in wages and perceived competence is called the fatherhood bonus. CheckFigure 2: there isn’t a single state where mothers, on average, make as much as fathers.52Class interacts with the motherhood penalty and fatherhood bonus. The bias is strongest at theextremes. High-income men enjoy the biggest wage bump, while poor women suffer the biggest penalty. Inother words, as Michelle Budig puts it, “[f]amilies with lower resources are bearing more of the economiccosts of raising kids.”53Race matters, too. Rebecca Glauber’s research suggests that for married White and Latino men,having a child is associated with increased wages. But married Black men get a smaller fatherhood bonus, onaverage, than White and Latino men do.54 Glauber also found no motherhood wage penalty for Hispanicwomen, and a wage penalty for Black women only after they have at least two children. However, all Whitemothers experienced a wage penalty. One reason for these racial differences might be that motherhood andwork haven’t historically been separate in Black and Hispanic families, which might increase overallmotivation to work. Glauber also suggests that there might be a “floor” to the motherhood wage penalty.That is, African-American and Hispanic/Latino women already earn less than White women; there may notbe much room for their wages to fall even more.55 Overall, Glauber’s work indicates that race and genderintersect with workplace experiences to create and support gendered inequalities.There are indicators of American women’s progress. For instance, women are more likely to enroll incollege than men are.56 Women now graduate from college at higher rates than men and are more likely toattend graduate school.57 But despite this progress, gender inequality persists in our institutions, and perhapsnowhere is this clearer than in politics.On June 7, 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech after ending her campaign for theDemocratic presidential nomination. She endorsed her competitor, then-Senator Barack Obama. The themeof equality was a key component of her speech. The most memorable part involved her vision of the future:As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave thisEarth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch awoman into the White House. Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glassceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it…and the light is shiningthrough like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the pathwill be a little easier next time.58The glass ceiling is a metaphor to describe barriers that women face in the workplace that preventthem from reaching higher positions. The phrase reportedly originated in 1979 from a conversation betweentwo women who worked for Hewlett-Packard. One of those women, Katherine Lawrence, recalled apresentation she gave that year about corporate culture: “I presented the concept of how in corporateGender and SexualityPage 21America, the official policy is one way—the sky’s the limit—but in actuality, the sky had a glass ceiling forwomen.”59The term became popular after it was used in a 1986 special report in the Wall Street Journal thatfocused on obstacles women encountered in corporate America.60 The report mentioned several problems:being excluded from an important meeting or informal networking session that takes place between men on agolf course, not being offered an executive position even after a series of promotions, blatant stereotypesabout women being unfit for management, and assumptions that women would prioritize family over career.Clinton came close again to breaking through the glass ceiling when most polls indicated she wasgoing to beat Donald Trump in the 2016 election to become the first female president of the United States.Love him or hate him, let this sink in: Trump won the presidency despite it coming to light that he said thatfame enabled him to treat women any way he wanted. In 2005, when he was nearly 60 years old, he wasrecorded saying: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful…I just start kissing them. It’s like amagnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Trump released a statement describing his words as locker-room banter, saying “I apologize if anyone was offended.”61Put all of your powers of imagination to use for a moment to consider how the American publicwould have reacted had Hillary Clinton been recording saying “You know I’m automaticallyattracted to handsome…I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And whenyou’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the dick. You can do anything.” Wewrite this not for shock value, but rather to seriously contemplate how voters would react to a woman sayingthis. This thought exercise reveals just how salient gender relations are in our political system.Raw statistics reinforce the point. At the statelevel, just 39 women have served as governors in theUnited States. In 2011, Nikki Haley and SusanaMartinez became the first women of color to serve asgovernors.62 There hasn’t yet been an AfricanAmerican woman governor.A strong presence on the Supreme Court is anindicator of impressive progress for women inAmerica. Three of the 9 current Supreme Courtjustices are women: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, SoniaSotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor is the firstLatina to serve on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman – and only the second womanever – to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Yet even on the most prestigious court in the nation, women aretreated differently. A recent examination of transcripts of oral arguments before the Court showed that malejustices interrupt the female justices nearly three times as often as they interrupt other male judges.63Former South Carolina governor and UN AmbassadorNikki Haley. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South_Carolina_Gov._Nikki_Haley_joins_U.S._military_service_members_and_community_business_partners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmetto_Employment,_a_statewide_military_employment_initiative_aimed_at_making_140226-F-XH297-660.jpg#/media/File:South_Carolina_Gov._Nikki_Haley_joins_U.S._military_service_members_and_community_business_partners_for_the_launch_of_Operation_Palmetto_Employment,_a_statewide_military_employment_initiative_aimed_at_making_140226-F-XH297-660.jpg
Gender and SexualityPage 22Social inequalities also affect our bodies. Take the example of life expectancy: there are well-documented differences by gender and race. First, women overall live longer than men. And second, Whiteslive longer than Blacks or Latinos.64Think about Figure 3. On many measures, women in the U.S. and elsewhere experience socialinequalities. Women have higher rates of chronic disease, as well as higher rates of depression and anxiety.65And they’re more likely to be victims of violence.66 Women also generally earn less than men. So if womenare systematically socially disadvantaged in multiple ways, why do they live longer than men? This issimplifying things a bit; if you look at the graph, you can see that Hispanic men have a longer lifeexpectancy than Black women. But in general, women live longer than men. Why?Figure 3: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Hispanic Origin, Race, and Sex, 2006–201267(Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Vital Statistics Reports)According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there may be multiple reasons. First, there couldbe sex-based biological reasons. For example, women’s higher levels of estrogen may protect them againsthigh cholesterol; men’s higher rates of testosterone may leave them vulnerable to cholesterol-relateddisease.68 But WEF also notes that women tend to be more “health-aware”; that is, women are, on average,more in tune with physical and mental symptoms and may be more able to communicate their issues withhealthcare providers. Women are also more likely to go to the doctor when something is wrong.69 Men mayfeel pressure to act in “masculine” ways, which might mean holding in problems and not reaching out forhelp, trying to “tough it out.” It’s perhaps partly due to these reasons that men are also more likely to die bysuicide.70 As with all things human, gender inequality is complex and multi-faceted.Gender and SexualityPage 23Gender inequality, though, isn’t the result of physiology, anatomy, or hormones. It is produced,maintained, and embedded in our institutions.71 If nature caused gender inequality, then that inequality wouldbe the same at all times and in all places. But it isn’t. We don’t all experience gender the same way. This iscause for hope. If we build inequality, we can dismantle it, too.Gender and violenceIn July 2017, author andtransgender rights activist Janet Mockappeared on The Breakfast Club, asyndicated radio show that calls itself “theworld’s most dangerous morning show.”72Mock, a transgender woman, went on theshow to talk about her new book. Theconversation on the show, which alsofeatured comedian Lil Duval and radiopersonality Charlamagne Tha God, revealssomething troubling about gender andviolence:[host] DJ Envy poses a hypothetical question to his guest about dating and sleeping with awoman who discloses that she’s trans after four months of courtship.“This might sound messed up and I don’t care,” Duval says. “She dying. I can’t deal withthat.”“That’s a hate crime,” Charlamagne says. “You can’t do that.”“You manipulated me to believe in this thing,” Duval says, before continuing, “If one did thatto me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’m probably going to want to killthem.”73This conversation exists within a context in which violence and assault are disproportionatelyexperienced by transgender people. In a national study of 1,876 students in grades K-12 who identify astransgender or gender non-conforming, respondents reported high rates of harassment (78%), physicalassault (35%), and sexual assault (12%). The harassment and violence experienced by these K-12 studentscomes not only from other students but also teachers and staff.74 In fact, the Bureau of Justice StatisticsOffice for Victims of Crime reports that one-half to two-thirds of trans people are sexually abused orassaulted at some point in their lives.75 According to the Human Rights Campaign, “…it is clear that fatalviolence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism,homophobia, and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare, and othernecessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.”76Janet Mock. (Source)
Gender and SexualityPage 24The statistics on gender and violence are eye-opening and disturbing. As reported by the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1 in 5 women in the United States experiences rape orattempted rape in her lifetime. For women reporting experiencing a rape, 40% were first victimized beforeage 18, with more than 28% indicating they were first raped between the ages of 11 and 17. Other forms ofsexual violence also occur at high rates; 12.5% of women have experienced sexual coercion (verbal, non-physical pressure that results in unwanted penetration), 27.3% have experienced unwanted sexual contact(such as fondling), and 32.1% have experienced unwanted sexual experiences that didn’t involve physicalcontact (for example, verbal harassment). 77(Source: Provided by the authors using CDC data)Gender is also a key factor in school shootings. When you hear the phrase “school shooting,” whatcomes to mind? Maybe you think of December 14, 2012, the day 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killedtwenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School before shooting himself. Or maybe you’rereminded of April 16, 2007, the date of one of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history;78 23-yearold Seung-Hui Cho walked onto the Virginia Tech campus and opened fire, killing 32 people and injuring 17before killing himself. You might even think back to April 20, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Kleboldstormed into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing twelve students and a teacher. Then they,too, killed themselves.Sociologist Katherine Newman argues that gender plays a significant role in these shootings. Herdata show that a complex mix of social factors, such as rigid social enforcement of masculine stereotypes andbeing rejected and ridiculed by peers and desired romantic partners, contribute to boys’ feelings ofemasculation. These shooters lash out in anger and humiliation through violence, which they use to reframethemselves as powerful and masculine.79 School shootings are overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. In fact,there are so few cases of female mass shooters that they haven’t even been studied.80 But what does thatmean for our understandings of why violence occurs?Feminist sociology of deviance is a diverse area, but scholars share the perspective that traditionalunderstandings of crime and violence are androcentric – they focus mainly on the experiences of men. AsGender and SexualityPage 25sociologist Sally Simpson explains, the field “…is shaped by male experiences and understandings of thesocial world. Such studied realities form the core of ‘general’ theories of crime/deviance without takingfemale experience, as crime participant or victim, into account.”81 So feminist work on crime and violenceattempts to include women.For example, Meda Chesney-Lind’s work focuses on the experiences of young women. She arguesthat juvenile justice systems can criminalize the survival behaviors of young women.82 Girls are more likelythan boys to suffer child sexual abuse. Chesney-Lind shows that some of the delinquent behavior common toyoung girls is survival behavior associated with sexual abuse trauma, like “running away from home,difficulties in school, truancy… early marriage,” and promiscuity.83 Ultimately, Chesney-Lind argues that afeminist perspective on deviance provides a fuller explanation of the causes and context of delinquency.84Did you know that one of the first modern-day school shooters was a teenage girl? On January 29,1979, 16-year old Brenda Spencer went to Grover Cleveland Elementary School near her San Diego homearmed with a .22 rifle and shot across the street, killing the principal and the custodian. Spencer alsowounded eight children and a police officer. When the police asked Spencer why she did it, she replied, “Idon’t like Mondays.”85 In 2014, school administrators at Radnor High School in Wayne, Pennsylvania, founda notebook from a 17-year-old girl. She wrote that she wanted to be the first female “mass” shooter. Fromher notebook: “But imagine the power…The bullets leaving the gun with a loud bang, piercing kids aroundme, the way they collapse, their blood splattering the floor…the screams.”86 And in March 2017, 18-year-oldNicole Cevario was pulled out of her high school class by her father. He was worried about her strangebehavior and read her diary. In it, she revealed plans to bomb her school and shoot teachers and students.Cevario wrote about her admiration for the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings.87 When the policeinvestigated, they found that Cevario had a stockpile of bomb-making materials and a gun.88 Her fathercalled the school in the nick of time; she was pulled out of class on March 23rd, and had planned the attackfor April 5th.The prevailing stereotype is that school shooters are men – especially White men. But young womenare also capable of planning and carrying out violence. But when female shooters commit violence, oftenthese women and girls aren’t recognized as school shooters.89 Since our collective ideas about schoolshooters overlooks those who aren’t White males, our models of prevention and detection might not be asgood as they could be; we risk missing important red flags for women-led mass violence.90 And that has thepotential to be devastating.Gender and SexualityPage 26Review Sheet: Inequalities and progressKey Points• Feminism is concerned with achieving equality between men and women. There aredifferent kinds of feminisms, and people of all genders identify as feminists.Intersectional feminists take into account that gender can’t be separated from other socialrelations.• Gender inequality is produced, maintained, and embedded in our institutions. Sexism inthe workplace is one example.• Women make less money than men. For full-time and part-time workers in the U.S.,women earned 83% as much as men in 2015.• White men have higher wages than women of any race.• Many jobs in the U.S. economy are low-paying and more likely to be held by women.Women of color are heavily represented in the low-wage job sector.• The sorting of men and women into different occupations is partly shaped bydiscrimination and social norms.• Studies of mothers who work show that the costs of raising a child are disproportionatelyfelt by women. In no state do mothers, on average, make as much as fathers.• There are differences in life expectancy based on gender and race. In general, women livelonger than men, and Whites live longer than Blacks or Latinos.• Violence and assault are disproportionately experienced by transgender people.• 1 in 5 women in the U.S. has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.• Girls are more likely than boys to suffer child sexual abuse.Key People• bell hooks• Alan Pelaez Lopez• Judith Lorber• Katherine Newman• Sally Simpson• Meda Chesney-Lind• Jessica Schieder• Elise Gould• Michelle Budig• Paula England• Rebecca GlauberKey Terms• Gender inequality – Unequal treatment and perceptions of individuals or groups basedon gender.• Feminism – Movements that advocate for equality for all sexes and genders.• Glass ceiling – Metaphor for barriers women face in the workplace that prevent themfrom reaching higher positions.Gender and SexualityPage 27• Androcentrism – Centering the lives and experiences of men in our worldview andpractices.• Motherhood penalty – Systematic disadvantages in wages, benefits, and other careerfactors that are associated with motherhood.• Fatherhood bonus – Benefits in wages and perceived competence that fathersexperience in the workplace.SEXUALITIES How is sexuality a social construction? Do our experiences of race, gender, and other social relations affect how we experience and understandsexuality? How do we socially regulate sexual expression?The creation of sexuality“I was born this way.” This is the refrain of Lady Gaga’s hugely popular 2011 hit, which assertedthat the performer’s sexuality was with her from birth. Americans sang along, but did we agree with her?For the past 40 years, the Gallup polling organization has askedAmericans whether gay and lesbian people are “born that way” orwhether their sexual preferences are due to factors such as theirupbringing and environment. When Gallup first collected data on thisquestion in 1977, 13% of Americans selected “born with it” and 56%selected “upbringing/environment” (the remaining respondents answered“both,” “neither,” or “no opinion”). In 2016, 46% of Americans thoughtgay and lesbians were born that way, while 33% selected“upbringing/environment.” Only 12% answered “both.”91More and more Americans agree with Lady Gaga. But are theyright? The problem with the “born this way” idea, according tosociologist Shamus Khan, is that it overstates the significance ofbiology.92 Khan doesn’t claim that biology has no influence on sexualbehavior, but argues that it’s impossible to understand our sexualitywithout paying more attention to our culture. The 12% of Americans who answered “both” to the Gallup pollquestion about sexuality probably got it right: sexuality is influenced by both biology and environment.Lady Gaga. (Source: WikimediaCommons)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Gaga_JWT_Montreal_BM,_2017-11-03_(cropped).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_Gaga_JWT_Montreal_BM,_2017-11-03_(cropped).jpg
Gender and SexualityPage 28Let’s redirect our focus to ponder other questions about sexuality: What kinds of sexual behaviors areappropriate? Who is an acceptable sexual partner, and at what age? Is there a “right” age to have sex for thefirst time? The answers to these kinds of questions are shaped by society.Appropriate sexual behavior varies historically and culturally. Khan gives the example of pederasty,in which adult men form sexual relationships with boys; it was practiced in ancient Greece. This seemsshocking in our society today, but sexual behaviors and expressions, like gender, change over time and arenot the same across cultures. Our understanding of sex, sexuality, and gender evolves and shifts, and willcontinue to change.Like gender, sociologists think of sexuality as a social construction. Rather than seeing sexuality as“natural,” Ruth Hubbard encourages us to understand it as something we’re taught to express in sociallyacceptable ways.93 Parents may teach their children that sex is about becoming mothers and fathers, or theymight teach their kids about “responsible” sexual conduct. But what does being sexually responsible actuallymean? We may learn that we should avoid sexually transmitted diseases, or shouldn’t get pregnant “tooyoung.” These ideas can be driven by religion, tradition, local culture, or practical health concerns. Oursociety guides (and often limits) our ideas about sexual behavior.During adolescence, we’re introduced to different ideas about sex from our peers. Popular culturesoaks us with images about sex and reinforces notions of what being sexy supposedly means. People whoconsume pornography are presented with a set of ideas about what sexual activity looks like. All of thisinformation constructs our beliefs about what it means to be a sexual person in our society.Together we construct the meaning of labels such as “gay,” “lesbian,” “homosexual,” “heterosexual,”“bisexual,” and “pansexual,” and create distinctions between sexually acceptable and unacceptablebehaviors. Heterosexuality itself was invented, as there was a time that men and women weren’t thought tobe sexual beings, or heterosexuals. In the first half of the 1800s, sexual activity between men and womenwas supposed to serve the purpose of creating children; sex was for reproduction, not pleasure. This periodwas characterized by a production economy, focused on manufacturing and otherwise producing items tosell. In this economy, the body was viewed as an instrument of work, and sex was a means for reproduction.Erotic desire and a “healthy” interest in sex didn’t exist as we know them today. As Jonathan Ned Katzexplains, ideas of men and women as erotic beings emerged in the second half of the 1800s, as the economyshifted to one based on consumption of goods and services.94 As a result, the body began to be seendifferently. By the late 19th century, medical professionals believed men and women naturally had a healthylibido and sexual pleasure was considered normal, even necessary. A shift away from believing sex wasprimarily for reproduction and toward viewing sex as pleasurable paralleled the economic shift from aproduction-based economy to a consumer-based economy. In a consumer society, pleasure is valued. Weseek pleasure from what we buy. This value extends to our bodies; we see our bodies as avenues toexperience pleasure.Gender and SexualityPage 29The word “heterosexual” firstappeared in the United States in an 1892medical article by Dr. James G. Kiernan.But his conception of “heterosexual” wasdifferent from how we think of it today.Kiernan, who still viewed procreation as theproper purpose of sex, regardedheterosexuals as perverted because theyweren’t exclusively having sex in order toget pregnant. He deemed their sexualdesires to be abnormal because of theirinterest in sexual pleasure.95 Kiernan’sarticle was also one of the earliest to use theword “homosexual,” a group he alsobelieved were deviant. Whereasheterosexuals were deviant because theydidn’t always have sex for the purpose of reproduction, Kiernan considered homosexuals deviant becausetheir sexual desire diverged from gender norms.In the first section of the chapter, we explained how individuals “do gender” in everyday life. Just asgender can be seen as a routine, daily set of activities, so can our sexual identity. For instance, we may act inways to deliberately project our sexual identity and let others know we are heterosexual or homosexual.Think back to the example of Donald Trump boasting about doing whatever he wants to women. It’simpossible to know why a prominent individual would make that statement, but one interpretation is thatbragging to another man about his behavior with women reinforced his identity as a heterosexual man.In some cases, people deliberately distance themselves from homosexuality to cement theirheterosexual status.96 Perhaps you’ve used the phrase “no homo” or heard someone else saying it. One use ofthis expression is as a follow up to a compliment that one man gives to another. After saying something niceabout what a friend is wearing, a man might immediately say “no homo” to make it clear that he has nohomosexual inclinations. The phrase serves the dual purpose of projecting heterosexuality while designatinghomosexuality as a second-class status. It’s an everyday example of doing sexuality.Intersectional sexualitiesSara Baartman was one of the most famous women of the 1800s. At the age of 19, she signed papersallowing herself to be taken from her home in Capetown, South Africa, to London, England, to be part of the“human freak show circuit.”97 A member of the Khoikhoi (an indigenous group from southwestern Africa),Baartman’s body was displayed mainly for White Europeans of the time. She did elaborate four-hourperformances where she sang and danced in multiple languages (she spoke at least four).98 Used as a symbolof colonialism, in which one country politically and economically controls the people and resources ofOlivia Chow, a former Toronto mayoral candidate, at a Pride Parade.(Source: Wikimedia Commons)Gender and SexualityPage 30another geographic area, Baartman’s body was presented as “the quintessential Black female erotic body.”99She was labeled as hypersexual and “exotic” and objectified to such a degree that her genitalia and buttockswere preserved and kept on display in Paris after she died in 1816. They remained on display for more than150 years; her body was only returned to South Africa for a proper burial in 2002. Baartman may be gone,but the lore surrounding her life became a leading stereotype of Black female sexuality. Just as people’sexperiences of gender vary, so do experiences of sexuality.Notions of sexuality rooted in culture have political consequences. One example is the way thatBlack sexualities have been used to justify racism. The Jezebel caricature portrayed Black women as highlysexual and “lusty.”100 Similarly, the Brute caricature portrayed Black men as savage sexual predators.101These sexualized caricatures were used to justify slavery and later the Jim Crow system of discrimination,which legally enforced segregation between Blacks and Whites in the southern U.S. Since Black womenwere convincingly portrayed as over-sexualized and tempting, their continued rape by slave owners could bejustified.102 Once Black men were convincingly portrayed as dangerous predators, then lynching ormurdering Black men for even looking at a White woman could be justified.103 Scholars like bell hooks andPatricia Hill Collins stress that these extremely sexualized images still exist, though in softer or subtlerforms. Modern images, instead of being mobilized to justify colonialism, are used to justify capitalism: weuse racialized bodies to sell stuff. 104We see racialized sexual stereotypes of all sorts. Take this beer ad, for example, which plays on theidea of Latinas as “hot.” A recent studyshows that the predominant image ofLatinas in American media is highlysexualized, or “hot,”105 while Latinomen are overwhelmingly portrayed asdominant and “macho.”106 SinceLatinos are the most underrepresentedgroup in American film, even a singleportrayal can make a big impact.107These images and stereotypeshelp rationalize and reproduce socialinequalities. Think about whatstereotypes do: they oversimplify things. They reduce the world’s complexity and make social relations morestraightforward. The trouble is, stereotypes are distorted, one-sided, and exaggerated. The more we’resurrounded by these distorted images, the more they become part of our everyday understanding. And themore they’re part of our landscape, the more likely we are to believe them. So breaking through harmfulsocial stereotypes is an important part of creating a fairer world for everyone.(Source)http://pinkdollads.blogspot.com/
Gender and SexualityPage 31The social control of sexualityPuberty, the process of becoming a sexually mature individual, is a biological event. Once we gothrough it, we’re theoretically capable of sexual reproduction (though sometimes not entirely). But in theU.S., it’s now typical for people to wait to have children until years after they are biologically able to do so.Among U.S. women who have ever had a child, their average age at first childbirth is 23; among men whoever have children, it’s almost 26.108 And that’s only the average. We see wide variation by race, class,education level, and region. The average age has been increasing over time, as well.Figure 4: Average Age of First-Time Moms by RaceFor good or ill, a number of demographic, economic, and cultural factors help determine when ourpotential fertility is expressed. In sociological terms, we say that social and cultural institutions exert socialcontrol over sexuality. Social control refers to the way we enforce normative behaviors through socialinteraction, values and worldviews, and laws.In the case of sexuality, institutional social control exerts itself in multiple areas of life, many ofwhich we don’t even realize. Consider the example of erectile dysfunction (ED), a condition in which menhave trouble achieving or maintaining a penile erection. Sounds pretty medical, doesn’t it? But scholars likeLeonore Tiefer argue that our sexuality has been medicalized, a process in which society understands ordefines a problem in medical terms. This usually means that we use medical language to describe it and rely(Source: CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System)Gender and SexualityPage 32on medicine to treat it.109 Alcoholism, pregnancy, attention-deficit disorder, and even baldness were allinitially understood as social problems, but became understood as medical disorders.Tiefer argues that the medicalization of ED was helpful for some men because it led to thedevelopment and marketing of drugs that can help men get and keep a reliable erection. But medicalizationalso creates problems. The medicalization of erections (or lack of them) perpetuates the idea that there is anideal erection that all men should have. Additionally, all the attention given to ED continues to stressphallocentrism, or a worldview that centers the phallus (the symbolic ideal of the penis) in sexual acts andsociety more broadly. The medicalization of ED draws our attention toward it, so much so that penile-vaginalintercourse is understood as the only sex act worth our attention.110 Medicalization provide us with aframework of medical intervention and a framework of understanding: What’s important to us? What’snormal or abnormal? Who or what is responsible? What’s the best way to solve it? These collectiveunderstandings are a form of social control: they enforce certain sexual behaviors and sexuality-relatedworldviews.Let’s take another example: sex education. An article about individuals’ memories of sex ed containsthe following anecdote:…I do not remember learning much about actual “safe sex.” I do remember, however… myteacher passing a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup around class, telling us to “do whatever wewanted to it.” After people had licked it, thrown it on the ground, stuck their pencil into it,etc., she claimed that “having sex with more than one person is exactly the same. No onewants to eat this peanut butter cup, so why would someone want to have sex with you if youhave been ‘passed around.’”111This lesson, and variations of it, are taught in schools across the United States. It raises a question: what isthe purpose of sex education? And what does it have to do with the social control of sexuality?In abstinence-only sex education,students are taught that abstinence is expectedof them. It has an eight-point legal definitionoutlined in Section 510(b) of Title V of theSocial Security Act, but the main characteristicis that abstinence-only education “has as itsexclusive purpose teaching the social,psychological, and health gains to be realizedby abstaining from sexual activity.”112 Note theword “exclusive”; these programs areforbidden from including certain information.For example, they are generally not allowed to(Source)Gender and SexualityPage 33provide students with information about contraception (like condoms), other than to note failure rates.113Comprehensive sex education generally “stresses the importance of waiting to have sex” whileoffering information about how contraception works, so students can avoid unwanted pregnancies andsexually-transmitted infections.114 Information about sexually transmitted infections is critical; in 2018, theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention reported that rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis hadincreased for four straight years, hitting an all-time high in 2017.115 Comprehensive sex ed programstypically include a wider variety of information for students and a range of ethical perspectives on sexuality.In the case of abstinence-only education, we can see how social control works. An institution (theschool system) attempts to socialize a population (kids and teens) to adopt specific behaviors.Comprehensive sex education may not stress behavioral changes up front, but it too attempts to enforcecertain behaviors, like using condoms. As Émile Durkheim taught us, this type of social control exists inevery society (though in different forms) as a way for societies to regulate themselves.116 But there arestruggles and disagreements over what or who needs controlling. Sexuality may be inextricably linked to ourbodies, but cultural factors have a lot to do with the ways in which we express that sexuality.As we conclude this chapter, our hope is that you’ve begun to think about the ways in which genderand sexuality are not simply unchanging facts of biology, but social relations that we actively construct,experience, and express. Sociologist Sam Richards once said, “My students often ask me, ‘What issociology?’ And I tell them, ‘It’s the study of the ways in which human beings are shaped by things that theydon’t see’.”117 While we all experience gender and sexuality, we can’t fully understand them unless weexamine intersections between the smallest and largest aspects of social life. From our individual personalhistories to historical power relations, from everyday interactions to large-scale institutions, our job is tostudy how a wide range of social forces shape us. As you continue to think about the sociology of gender andsexuality, we hope you will keep digging to discover all those factors we don’t see.Review Sheet: SexualitiesKey Points• In a 2016 Gallup poll, when asked if being gay or lesbian is something a person is bornwith or due to factors such as upbringing and environment, 46% answered “born with,”33% answered “environment,” and 12% answered “both.”• The word “heterosexual” first appeared in the U.S. in a medical journal article in 1892.• What we deem to be sexually appropriate behavior varies historically and culturally.Sexual behaviors and expressions change through time and aren’t exactly the same acrosscultures.• Like gender, sexuality is a social construction.• Similar to how we can understand gender as activity that we “do” in everyday life, wecan think of sexual identity as a routine, daily accomplishment that we intentionallyperform.Gender and SexualityPage 34• Racialized sexual stereotypes perpetuate social, economic, and cultural inequalities.• Among women who have ever had a child, the average age of first childbirth is 23 yearsold in the U.S.; among men who ever have children, it’s almost 26 years old.• Our social and cultural institutions exert social control over our sexuality.• 2017 was the 4th consecutive year of increasing rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, andsyphilis.Key People• Shamus Khan• Ruth Hubbard• Jonathan Ned Katz• Sara Baartman• Patricia Hill Collins• Leonore TieferKey Terms• Jezebel caricature – Stereotypical image that portrays Black women as extremelysexualized.• Brute caricature – Stereotypical image that portrays Black men as savage sexualpredators, especially of White women.• Puberty – Process of becoming sexually mature.• Social control – The way we enforce normative behaviors through social interactions,values and worldviews, and laws.• Medicalized – When society understands a problem in medical terms.• Phallocentrism – Worldview that centers the phallus in both sexual acts and societymore broadly.• Phallus – Symbolic societal idea of the penis.Gender and SexualityPage 35REFERENCES1 O’Hara, Mary Emily. 2017, July 4. “Oregon Issues First Gender-Neutral State ID Cards.” NBC News, retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/oregon-issues-first-gender-neutral-state-id-cards-n7778012 Foden-Vencil, Kristian. 2016, June 17. “Neither Male Nor Female: Oregon Resident Legally Recognized As Third Gender.”NPR, retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2016/06/17/482480188/neither-male-nor-female-oregon-resident-legally-recognized-as-third-gender3 https://www.glaad.org/reference/4 Foden-Vencil, 2016.5 O’Hara, 20176 Woodstock, Molly. 2017, February 20. “Male? 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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/
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https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/
https://www.elephantinthevalley.com/Racial, gender wage gaps persist in U.S. despite some progressRacial, gender wage gaps persist in U.S. despite some progressWomen’s college enrollment gains leave men behindWomen’s college enrollment gains leave men behind
Gender and SexualityPage 3757 Bidwell, Allie. October 31, 2014. “Women More Likely to Graduate College, but Still Earn Less than Men.” U.S. News &World Report. Retrieved at: https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/10/31/women-more-likely-to-graduate-college-but-still-earn-less-than-men58 Speech transcript retrieved at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/politics/07text-clinton.html59 Zimmer, Ben. April 3, 2015. “The Phrase ‘Glass Ceiling’ Stretches Back Decades; A Possible Start: A Conversationbetween Two Women in 1979.” Wall Street Journal.60 Hymowitz, Carol and Timothy D. Schellhardt. March 24, 1986. “The Glass Ceiling: Why Women Can’t Seem to BreakThe Invisible Barrier that Blocks Them From the Top Jobs.” Wall Street Journal.61 Fahrenthold, David. October 8, 2016. “Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation about Women in 2005.”Washington Post, retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html?utm_term=.e24363c14bf462 http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/history-women-governors63 Jacobi, Tonja and Dylan Schweers. April 11, 2017. “Female Supreme Court Justices Are Interrupted More by MaleJustices and Advocates”. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved at: https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates64 Elizabeth Arias, Elizabeth; Melonie Heron; and Jiaquan Xu. November 28, 2016. “United States Life Tables, 2012.”Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_08.pdf65 Albert ,Paul R. 2015. “Why Is Depression More Prevalent in Women?” Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience. 40(4): 219-221. doi:10.1503/jpn.150205. Retreived from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478054/66 Catalano, Shannan; Erica Smith; Howard Snyder; and Michael Rand. September 2009. “Female Victims of Violence.” USDepartment of Justice, retrieved from https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf67 Elizabeth Arias, Elizabeth; Melonie Heron; and Jiaquan Xu. November 28, 2016. “United States Life Tables, 2012.”Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_08.pdf68 Assari, Shervin. March 14, 2017. “Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?” World Economic Forum, retrieved fromhttps://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men69 Assari, 2017.70World Health Organization. 2002. Retrieved fromhttp://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/factsheets/en/selfdirectedviolfacts.pdf71 Lorber, Judith. 2010. “’Night to His Day’: The Social Construction of Gender.” Pp. 54-65 in Race, Class, and Gender inthe United States, Paula S. Rothenberg, ed. Eighth edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.72 Retrrieved from http://thebreakfastclub.iheart.com/73 Mock, Janet. 2017, July 21. “Dear Men of “The Breakfast Club”: Trans Women Aren’t a Prop, Ploy, or Sexual Predators.”Allure.com, retrieved from https://www.allure.com/story/janet-mock-response-the-breakfast-club-trans-women [emphasismine] 74 Grant, Jaime M., Lisa A. Mottet, Justin Tanis, Jack Harrison, Jody L. Herman, and Mara Keisling. Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. Washington: National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 2011. Retrieved at: http://www.thetaskforce.org/static_html/downloads/reports/reports/ntds_full.pdf75 Unknown author. June 2014. “Responding to Transgender Victims of Sexual Assault.” Retrieved fromhttps://www.ovc.gov/pubs/forge/sexual_numbers.html76 Unknown author. “Violence against the Transgender Community in 2017.” Retrieved fromhttp://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-201777 https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/SV-Prevention-Technical-Package.pdf78 Peralta, Eyder. 2016, June 12. “A List of the Deadliest Mass Shootings In Modern U.S. History.” Retrieved fromhttp://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/12/481768384/a-list-of-the-deadliest-mass-shootings-in-u-s-history79 Newman, Katharine S., Cybelle Fox, Wendy Roth, Jal Mehta, & David Harding. 2005. Rampage: The Social Roots ofSchool Shootings. New York: Basic Books 125-154.80 Pappas, Stephanie. 2015, December 14. “Why Female Mass Shooters are So Rare.” Retrieved fromhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-female-mass-shooters-are-so-rare_us_566ecefde4b0fccee16f177081 Simpson, Sally S. 1989. “Feminist Theory, Crime, and Justice.” Criminology, 27: 605–632, p. 605.82 Chesney-Lind, Meda. 1989. “Girls’ Crime and Woman’s Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency.” Crime& Delinquency, 35(1): 5-29, p. 20-24.83 Chesney-Lind, 1989, p. 21.84 Chesney-Lind, 1989.85 Mikkelson, Barbara. “I Don’t Like Mondays.” 2015, March 6. Snopes.com. Retrieved fromhttp://www.snopes.com/music/songs/mondays.asphttps://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/10/31/women-more-likely-to-graduate-college-but-still-earn-less-than-men
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/10/31/women-more-likely-to-graduate-college-but-still-earn-less-than-men


http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/history-women-governors
https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates
https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates
https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates
https://www.allure.com/story/janet-mock-response-the-breakfast-club-trans-women
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
https://aeon.co/essays/why-should-gay-rights-depend-on-being-born-this-way
https://aeon.co/essays/why-should-gay-rights-depend-on-being-born-this-way
https://aeon.co/essays/why-should-gay-rights-depend-on-being-born-this-way



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/sex-ed-horror-stories-sexual-education-misinformation_n_3095039.html
https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/impacts-four-title-v-section-510-abstinence-education-programs/title-v-section-510-funding
https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/impacts-four-title-v-section-510-abstinence-education-programs/title-v-section-510-funding
Gender and SexualityPage 39114 See https://advocatesforyouth.org/resources/fact-sheets/sexuality-education-2/ and https://www.aclu.org/other/what-research-shows-government-funded-abstinence-only-programs-dont-make- grade 115 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018 (August 28). “New CDC Analysis Shows Steep and Sustained Increasesin STDs in Recent Years.” Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2018/press-release-2018-std-prevention-conference.html116 Suicide117https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy/transcript?language=enCover Photo via FlikrSexuality Education
https://www.aclu.org/other/what-research-shows-government-funded-abstinence-only-programs-dont-make-grade
https://www.aclu.org/other/what-research-shows-government-funded-abstinence-only-programs-dont-make-grade
https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2018/press-release-2018-std-prevention-conference.html
https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2018/press-release-2018-std-prevention-conference.html


sociological perspectives of gender
Nature, nurture, neither?
Social construction of gender
Intersectional perspectives of gender
inequalities and progress
Feminism
Institutional inequality
Gender and violence
sexualities
The creation of sexuality
Intersectional sexualities
The social control of sexuality
Introduction
sociological perspectives of gender
Nature, nurture, neither?
The social construction of gender
Intersectional perspectives on gender
inequalities and progress
Feminism
Institutional inequality
Gender and violence
sexualities
The creation of sexuality
Intersectional sexualities
The social control of sexuality
references
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