THEORIES OF GENDER AND SEX

Being male, being female, and being healthy:

In 1971, Broverman and Broverman conducted a groundbreaking study on the traits
mental health workers ascribed to males and females. When asked to name the
characteristics of a female, the list featured words such as unaggressive, gentle,
emotional, tactful, less logical, not ambitious, dependent, passive, and neat. The list
of male characteristics featured words such as aggressive, rough, unemotional, blunt,
logical, direct, active, and sloppy (Seem and Clark 2006). Later, when asked to
describe the characteristics of a healthy person (not gender specific), the list was
nearly identical to that of a male.
This study uncovered the general assumption that being female is associated with
being somewhat unhealthy or not of sound mind. This concept seems extremely
dated, but in 2006, Seem and Clark replicated the study and found similar results.
Again, the characteristics associated with a healthy male were very similar to that of
a healthy (genderless) adult. The list of characteristics associated with being female
broadened somewhat but did not show significant change from the original study
(Seem and Clark 2006). This interpretation of feminine characteristic may help us
one day better understand gender disparities in certain illnesses, such as why one in
eight women can be expected to develop clinical depression in her lifetime (National
Institute of Mental Health 1999). Perhaps these diagnoses are not just a reflection of
women’s health, but also a reflection of society’s labeling of female characteristics,
or the result of institutionalized sexism.

First Wave Feminism (1848-1920)

There was a notable connection between the movement to abolish slavery and the
women’s rights movement. Frederick Douglass was heavily involved in both projects
and believed it was essential for both groups to work together. As a fellow activistic
the pursuit of equality and freedom from arbitrary discrimination, he was asked to
speak at the Convention and to sign the Declaration of Sentiments. Despite this
instance of movement kinship and intersectionality, it is important to note that no
women of color attended the Seneca Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York
from July 19-20, 1848 and advertised itself as “a convention to discuss the social, civil,
and religious condition and rights of woman.”

Second Wave Feminism (1960s-1980s)

Margaret Sanger, birth control advocate from the first wave, lived to see the Food
and Drug Administration approve the combined oral contraceptive pill in 1960,
which was made available in 1961 (she died in 1966). President Kennedy made
women’s rights a key issue of the New Frontier (a slate of ambitious domestic and
foreign policy initiatives), and named women (such as Esther Peterson) to many
high-ranking posts in his administration (1961-1963).
Like first wave feminists, second wave feminists were influenced by other
contemporaneous social movements. During the 1960s, these included the civil
rights movement, anti-war movement, environmental movement, student
movement, gay rights movement, and the farm workers movement.

Third Wave Feminism (1990s-2008)

Popular television shows like Sex in the City (1998-2004) elevated a type of third
wave feminism that merged feminine imagery (i.e., lipstick, high heels, cleavage),
which were previously associated with male oppression, with high powered careers
and robust sex lives. The “grrls” of the third wave stepped onto the stage as strong
and empowered, eschewing victimization and defining feminine beauty for
themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexist patriarchy; they developed a
rhetoric of mimicry, which appropriated derogatory terms like “slut” and “bitch” in
order to subvert sexist culture and deprive it of verbal weapons (Rampton 2015).

Fourth Wave Feminism (2008-present)

Fourth wave feminism is shaped by technology and characterized by the #metoo and
the #timesup movements. Considering that these hashtags were first introduced on
Twitter in 2007, this movement has grown rapidly, as social media activism has
spread interest in and awareness of feminism.

Waves of accusations against men in powerful positions—from Hollywood directors,

to Supreme Court justices, to the President of the United States, have catalyzed
feminists in a way that appears to be fundamentally different compared to previous
iterations.

Feminist Theory

Feminist theory is a type of conflict theory that examines inequalities in gender-

related issues. It uses the conflict approach to examine the maintenance of gender
roles and inequalities. Radical feminism, in particular, considers the role of the family
in perpetuating male dominance. In patriarchal societies, men’s contributions are
seen as more valuable than those of women. Patriarchal perspectives and
arrangements are widespread and taken for granted. As a result, women’s
viewpoints tend to be silenced or marginalized to the point of being discredited or
considered invalid.Sanday’s study of the Indonesian Minangkabau (2004) revealed
that in societies some consider to be matriarchies (where women comprise the
dominant group), women and men tend to work cooperatively rather than
competitively regardless of whether a job is considered feminine by U.S. standards.
The men, however, do not experience the sense of bifurcated consciousness under
this social structure that modern U.S. females encounter (Sanday 2004).

Patriarchy refers to a set of institutional structures (like property rights, access to

positions of power, relationship to sources of income) that are based on the belief
that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories. The key to
patriarchy is what might be called the dominant gender ideology toward sexual
differences: the assumption that physiological sex differences between males and
females are related to differences in their character, behavior, and ability (i.e., their
gender). These differences are used to justify a gendered division of social roles and
inequality in access to rewards, positions of power, and privilege. The question that
feminists ask therefore is: How does this distinction between male and female, and
the attribution of different qualities to each, serve to organize our institutions (e.g.,
the family, law, the occupational structure, religious institutions, the division
between public and private) and to perpetuate inequality between the sexes? One of
the keen sociological insights that emerged within second wave feminism is that “the
personal is political.”

Standpoint Theory

Many of the most immediate and fundamental experiences of social life—from

childbirth to who washes the dishes to the experience of sexual violence—had
simply been invisible or regarded as unimportant politically or socially. From this
standpoint, Smith observed that women’s position in modern society is acutely
divided by the experience of dual consciousness.Every day women crossed a tangible
dividing line when they went from the “particularizing work in relation to children,
spouse, and household” to the institutional world of text-mediated, abstract
concerns at work, or in their dealings with schools, medical systems, or government
bureaucracies. In the abstract world of institutional life, the actualities of local
consciousness and lived life are “obliterated.”

Intersectional Theory

Recall that intersectional theory examines multiple, overlapping identities (black,

Latina, Asian, gay, trans, working class, poor, single parent, working, stay-at-home,
immigrant, undocumented, etc.) and the various lived experiences within the spaces
of overlap and how each of these identifies make an individual’s experience unique.
Intersectional theory combines critical race theory, gender conflict theory, and
critical components of Marx’s class theory. Kimberlé Crenshaw describes it as a
“prism for understanding certain kinds of problems.”

Conflict Theory

According to conflict theory, society is a struggle for dominance among social groups
(like women versus men) that compete for scarce resources. When sociologists
examine gender from this perspective, we can view men as the dominant group and
women as the subordinate group. According to conflict theory, social problems are
created when dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups. Consider the
Women’s Suffrage Movement or the debate over women’s “right to choose” their
reproductive futures. It is difficult for women to rise above men, as dominant group
members create the rules for success and opportunity in society.

Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism aims to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical
role of symbols in human interaction. This is certainly relevant to the discussion of
masculinity and femininity. Imagine that you walk into a bank hoping to get a small
loan for school, a home, or a small business venture. If you meet with a male loan
officer, you may state your case logically by listing all the hard numbers that make
you a qualified applicant as a means of appealing to the analytical characteristics
associated with masculinity. If you meet with a female loan officer, you may make an
emotional appeal by stating your good intentions as a means of appealing to the
caring characteristics associated with femininity.

Because the meanings attached to symbols are socially created and not natural, and
fluid, not static, we act and react to symbols based on the current assigned meaning.
The word gay, for example, once meant “cheerful,” but by the 1960s it carried the
primary meaning of “homosexual.” In transition, it was even known to mean
“careless” or “bright and showing” (Oxford American Dictionary 2010). Furthermore,
the word gay (as it refers to a homosexual), carried a somewhat negative and
unfavorable meaning fifty years ago, but it has since gained more neutral and even
positive connotations. When people perform tasks or possess characteristics based
on the gender role assigned to them, they are said to be doing gender. This notion is
based on the work of West and Zimmerman (1987). Whether we are expressing our
masculinity or femininity, West and Zimmerman argue, we are always “doing
gender.” Thus, gender is something we do or perform, not something we are.

In other words, both gender and sexuality are socially constructed. The social
construction of sexuality refers to the way in which socially created definitions
about the cultural appropriateness of sex-linked behavior shape the way people see
and experience sexuality. This is in marked contrast to theories of sex, gender, and
sexuality that link male and female behavior to biological determinism, or the belief
that men and women behave differently due to differences in their biology.