Theoretical Perspectives: Biological Explanation

Essentialism Vs. Constructionism

What explains gender differences? NATURE or NURTURE?

Essentialism

- The mode of thinking that assumes that all manifestations of gender difference are
innate and transcultural and historical.
Social Constructionism

- Sexuality, sexual meanings, sexual identities and gender relations are socially defined
and controlled.
- Sexual behavior and sexual meanings are subject to the forces of culture.

BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

4 Subgroups of Biological Theorists:

1. Sociobiologists, sometimes called as Darwinian Psychologists (unit of

analysis- genes)

2. Endocrinologists, physiologists, physiological psychologists, etc. (focus on

pre-natal hormones)

3. Medical and Social Scientists (sex hormones after the period of puberty)

4. Researchers who study brain organization

Sociobiology: Darwin with a twist

 influenced by Darwin’s Law of Natural Selection (On the Origin of Species, 1859)
 Sociobiology is the brainchild of entomologist Edward Wilson (1975); It emerged as a
discipline in the 1970s.
 Wilson (1975 as cited in Nielsen 1990) defines Sociobiology as ‘a systematic study
of the biological basis of social behavior and social organization in all kinds of
organisms, including humans.’
  Wilson’s view is that evolution also favors certain genetically based psychological
traits and tendencies (e.g. male aggression) if they ENHANCE the odds of an
individual passing along his or her genes.

Basic principles:

INCLUSIVE FITNESS

 ‘behaviors that contribute to the survival and reproduction of organisms with genes
similar to one’s own.
 Reproductive success or ‘fitness’-the differences in the reproductive efficiency of
sexes explains the double standard in sexual infidelity.
 Male can copulate with number of different females at the same time while the
female gets pregnant in 9 months.
 The female needs to maintain sexual fidelity so as the male will stay and will be
reassured that he is the father of the offspring.
 This explains why women are ‘choosy’ in choosing a partner and in why male
adultery seems more ‘natural’ than females.
 Male and female have different strategies in maximizing their reproductive fitness.
(The female ‘invest’ more.)

PARENTAL INVESTMENT

 the behavior toward one’s offspring that increases the chances of survival at
the cost of a parent’s ability to invest in other offspring.’
 The female have greater investment in producing eggs and gestating embryos than
by males in producing sperms. (Biologist Ruth Huggard mentioned that this is difficult
to verify.)

SEXUAL OR MATE SELECTION

 virtually all members of the sex has greater parental investment.

 The Male reproductive success depends on:

> Their possession of traits that female finds attractive. (Parental

Investment Potential)
 > Their success in male-male competition. Because men have
competed with men for sexual access to women, men have evolved to
favor VIOLENCE & COMPETITION.

Wilson’s Explanation of POLYGYNY:

 The male’s relatively lesser investment in sperm production means that they will be
polygynous and invest less in parenthood (assuming all factors are constant).
 IF the physical environment is extremely harsh it will lead to a monogamous
arrangement instead of a polygynous pattern. Female sexuality is restricted in this
scenario because the male needs to ensure that he is caring for his own offspring.
 Weaknesses/Critic of this perspective:
 Stephen Jay Gould (1980) pointed out that ‘whatever influence genes do have on
human behavior is bound to be exceedingly complicated.’ ( thus, inconclusive to say
that biological basis could explain social behavior)

REDUCTIONISM

 Sociobiology explains complex social phenomena using basic biological processes

(e.g. Embryo reproduction).
 Sociobiologists are guilty of:
> ANTHROPOMORPHIZING (ascribing human attributes to animals) birds and
other species. (Remember that Wilson is an entomologist. His study focused
on insects.)
 The Essentialist-Constructivist Debate

THE FIVE SEXES

Why Male and Female Are Not Enough – by ANN FAUSTO-STERLING

 In her article, ‘The Five Sexes,’ Fausto-Sterling challenges the conventional
way of categorizing people as exclusively ‘male’ or ‘female’
 Fausto-Sterling examined how management of intersexed person is not
based solely on biology but on societal pressures/expectations.
 The article provided a glimpse of the intellectual debate on Nature vs.
Nurture.
Western culture is deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes
 “Biologically speaking, there are many gradations running from female to male.”
 One can argue that spectrum lie at least five sexes – and perhaps even more

The Mysterious case of Levi Suydam

 In a period, when women were not allowed to vote, being a true hermaphrodite
challenged the rule.
 Levi Suydam is a 23 year old resident of Salisbury, Connecticut .
 S/he was more female than male and thus could not be allowed to cast a ballot
 To settle the dispute on whether Suydam is a female or male, Dr. William James
Barry was tasked to examine Suydam.
 Based on Dr. Barry’s diagnosis, Suydam was allowed to vote.
 However, after the premature diagnosis, it was discovered that Suydam
menstruated regularly and had a vaginal opening
Sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even
five categories
Medical literature uses the term intersex as a catch-all for 3 major subgroups with
some mixture of male and female characteristics.
Sex is a vast, infinitely malleable continuum that defies the constraints of even
five categories
3 major subgroups of intersex:
 HERMS- the so-called true hermaphrodites who possess one testis and one
ovary;
 MERMS- the so-called male pseudohermaphrodites who have testes and
some aspects of the female genitalia but no ovaries.
 FERMS- the so-called female pseudohermaphrodites who have ovaries and
some aspects of the male genitalia but lack testes

John Money
 Psychologist of Johns Hopkins University; specialist in the study of congenital
sexual-organ defects.
 He suggested that intersexuals may constitute as many as four percent of births.
 One of the known psychologist/sexologist who believed that a person could be
raised different from his/her biological sex.
 His most celebrated case, John/Joan, challenges his research on sex
reassignment.
 In 1967 John was turned into a girl by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
 John/Joan suffered in an accident (loss his penis) during a circumcision when he
was only 8 months.
 John’s penis was burned during the circumcision, when the electro-cautery
needle (a device used to seal blood vessels as it cuts) malfunctioned. Though it
is uncertain if it was really a mechanical malfunction or doctor’s error.
 In December,1966, the parents of John saw Dr. John Money on a TV program,
promoting the Johns Hopkins Hospital as the world’s first Gender Identity Clinic.
 “He was saying that it could be that babies are born neutral and you can change
their gender. Something told me that I should get in touch with this Dr. Money.”
-John’s Mother
 John/Joan experienced the journey from boy to girl and back again. He
undergone 2 phalloplasty to reconstruct his penis. He got married and had three
adopted children.
 Dr. John Money was one of the experts who advised the sex reassignment of
John. Thus, the surgery was done plus a 12-year program of social, mental and
hormonal conditioning.
  According to Money, the primary factor that determined an intersexual child’s
gender identity was not biological traits but the way that the child was raised.

Intersexed person
 Infants with ambiguous sex organs are entered into a program of hormonal and
surgical management.
 The main reason is that for them to have a “normal” life as heterosexual males or
females.
Hermaphrodite
 Comes from the Greek names ‘Hermes’ and ‘Aphrodite.’
 HERMES –the messenger of the gods, patron of music, controller of dreams or
the protector of livestock.
 Aphrodite- the goddess of sexual love and beauty
 According to Greek mythology, those two Gods parented Hermaphroditus, who at
age 15 became half male and half female when his body fused with the body of a
nymph he fell in love with.

INTERSEXUALITY ITSELF IS OLD NEWS

 According to Plato, there once were 3 sexes- male, female and hermaphrodite-
but the third sex was lost with time.
 The Jewish books of laws (TALMUD and TOSEFTA) provided regulations for
people of ‘mixed sex’.
 At the end of the Middle ages in Europe, hermaphrodites were compelled to
choose their sex/gender and ‘stick with it’

Modern Anglo-Saxon legal systems require that newborns be registered as either

male or female
STATE LAWS Control Sex determination
 Illinois- the state requires a certification from the performing physician that a sex
reassignment was made, before any changes in the birth certificate.
New York Academy of Medicine has taken an opposite view
 Even if the external genitalia was altered, the chromosomal sex remains the
same

Hugh H. Young (1937)

  One of his more interesting cases was a hermaphrodite named Emma who had
grown up as a female; Emma had both a penis-size clitoris and a vagina.
 Urologist, Johns Hopkins University
 He published a book on intersexuality entitled, “Genital Abnormalities,
Hermaphroditism and Related Adrenal Diseases.”
DEWHURST AND GORDON (1969)
 In their book, “The Intersexual Disorders,” they provided medical and surgical
approaches to intersexuality.
THE scientific dogma on intersexuality
 “Without medical care, hermaphrodites are doomed to a life of misery.” (Fausto-
Sterling, 1993)
Where does the Misery Comes from?
 Science able to discipline the ‘unruly bodies’ of the hermaphrodites through sex
reassignment.
 On whether the misery is brought by medical complications or a societal pressure
‘to belong’ (in either male or female category) is still a contested terrain.
Why a need for sex reassignment?
 “The answers seem to lie in a cultural need to maintain clear distinctions between
the sexes.” (Fausto-Sterling)
The central mission of medical treatment would be to preserve life.
 Thus, hermaphrodites would be concerned primarily not about whether they can
conform to society but about whether they might develop potentially life-
threatening conditions.
 The treatment of intersexuality provides a clear example of what the French
historian Michel Foucault has called biopower
 Foucault explained how knowledge (such as in biochemistry, embryology, etc.)
has able to control our body.
 The irony of freeing the intersex from ‘misery,’ by imposing a certain kind of
discipline in the body.
 The scientific community has avoided contemplating the alternative route of
unimpeded intersexuality.
 Fausto-Sterling questioned the intention of science in reassigning an intersex into
either male or female.
 What is the purpose of the reassignment? Is it to save the intersex against life
threatening conditions or to save him/her from society’s ‘sex code’ that only
allows male and female existence?
 Intersexuality confronts scientists/ scholars on the debate between
essentialism and constructivism

Essentialist View
 Sexuality is a biological drive or instinct; female and male nature are
fundamentally different.
 The mode of thinking that assumes that all manifestations of gender
difference are innate and transcultural and historical.
 Donald Simons (1979) attempted to demonstrate that there is a female
human nature and a male human nature that are distinctly different.
 Freud’s theory of sexuality is essentialist in that it describes sexual libido as
an innate biological drive.

Social Constructionist View

 Sexuality, sexual meanings, sexual identities and gender relations are socially
defined and controlled.
 Sexual behaviour and sexual meanings are subject to the forces of culture.
It is not a simple nature vs. nurture

 Can we account for all gender differences as product of biology? Is biology our
destiny?
Does society shapes gender (or even sex)?
Given that gender is socially constructed, can we get away from biology?
What explains gender differences? NATURE or NURTURE?
 The answer depends on whether one adheres to an essentialist view, a
constructivist view or a compromise between the two.
Theoretical Perspectives: Social Structural Theories
Social Structural Theories
 Gender theories that look into the structure in the analysis of gender difference or
inequality.
1. Functionalism
2. Materialist Explanation

“Ecological Determinism”
Proponent: Marvin Harris
- He studied horticultural societies and found:
1) there is high female infanticide and a shortage of women.
(Among the Yanomamo, war is intended to capture women for wives.)
-the shortage of women is further exacerbated by Polygyny.
2.) The relative worth of women and men is measured in terms of pure
biological efficiency. Females are more valuable than men.
Question: Why female infanticide and not male? Why male dominance if
women are valuable?
 The practice & culture of war to maintain ecological balance (carrying capacity)
contributes to population decrease on various ways:
1. increase male combat deaths
2. uninhabited territories in effect be potentially productive after one claim/
possessed it.
3. devaluation of women is necessary because sex is a reward for male
bravery.

 Women should be socialized as rewards because it they see themselves important,

they will not allow female infanticide thus affecting the population.
 War and sexism will only stop when their functions are fulfilled by other alternatives

“Isolated Nuclear Family”- Talcott Parsons

 In 1955, Parsons described the family (isolated nuclear family) as composed of
husband, wife and dependent children. It is isolated because:
1. they live apart from relatives
2. They are economically independent
3. Prior to industrialization, they provide education, care for the sick,
production of food and clothing.
“Isolated Nuclear Family”- Talcott Parsons
GENDER ROLES:
1. Instrumental roles- leadership, decision-making; productive role;
traditionally for the father/husband
2. Expressive roles- housework, childcare, sees emotional needs of the
family; reproductive role; traditionally for the mother/wife
-MEN are STATUS-GIVERS & WAGES EARNERS
CRITICISM:
> The question is, FUNCTIONAL FOR WHOM? Are the males synonymous
with society?
 For Harris’ Theory, the Yanomamo do not represent all the horticultural
societies, in fact they are even described as extremely aggressive compared
to other groups.

Materialist Explanations:
1. “The Origin of the Family”- Friedrich Engels
2. Conflict Theory of Sex Stratification - Patricia Collins
3. “General Theory of Gender Stratification”-Rae Lesser Blumberg

“The Origin of the Family”- Friedrich Engels

 Engels located the origin of male dominance in the historical transition from
subsistence to surplus production.
 Characterized by the shift from communal to private property in combination with the
discovery of paternity and inheritance.

From private property comes:

1. monogamy,
2. virginity of women before marriage,
3. heirs, &
4. Fidelity of women during marriage and other restrictions on women’s
sexual activity.
Conflict Theory of Sex Stratification- Patricia Collins
RESOURCES determines sex status. Resources include:
1.) physical strength and sexual attractiveness &
2.) economic control.
 Ideas are used to justify power interests, that they are the results of stratification
rather than the cause of it.
4 major assumptions:
1. Human beings have strong sexual and aggressive drives.
2. People struggle for as much dominance as their resources permits.
3. Males are physically dominant over females because they are
generally larger and females are more vulnerable because of child bearing.
4. Changes in resources lead to changes in the ability to dominate.

Collin’s societal type:

 Collins showed power struggle between sexes in these types of societies.
1. Foraging & horticultural societies
- low tech; low degree of economic productivity> little stratification
- marriage is not political/economic but based on PERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS.
2. Agrarian Society
- fortified household in the stratified society
- household is the basic social, political and economic unit that provides needs for its
members.
-male dominance is at its peak.
-Marriage is an exchange system (women are property to be exchange.)
- Female chastity is enforced by males who wanted to protect their property.
3. Industrial society
- private household in a market economy
-separation of work from household
-the use of force by men diminishes but they are still the head of the household
-women trade their resources (sexuality) in exchange for financial support and status
  Virginity is valuable and promiscuity lowered the economic value of women.
4. Advanced market economy
- the existence of employment opportunities created venues for women’s relative
power.
- in this era, physical attractiveness is needed since both sexes gain financial
security. The only way to negotiate in the sexual market is to increase one’s sex
appeal.
- Both sexes will actively seek the best political situation possible, given their
respective resources.
- The sexual market was based on personal qualities rather than on institutionalized
arrangements.
“General Theory of Gender Stratification”-Rae Lesser Blumberg
4 types of power:
1. Power of force or coercion,
2. power of property
3. Political power, &
4. Ideational forms of power
4 types of power:
 These are major determinants of social status, which is conceptualized in terms of
privileges. Status is translated then to LIFE OPTIONS.
 Determinant of women’s relative status is their relative economic power.
 He elaborated the precondition for and determinants of women’s economic power.
 It is not child rearing that impedes women’s participation in production rather the
DEMAND FOR FEMALE LABOR (which is determined by the following variables):
1. Strategic indispensability of work- the value of women’s productive
contribution to the total system
2. Kinship- specifically inheritance, residence rules and patterns of descent
rules.
3. Society’s dominant mode of production- foraging, industrial, agrarian,
etc.

 Women are better off on relations of production that are communal rather than
private.
 Women’s relative power determines women’s relative status
 Economic macro level power is male dominated, women’s exercise of power is more
at the micro level.
 Less value is given to women’s work
  It is an issue of supply and demand and not on its compatibility to childcare.

CRITICISM: In effect, reproductive work is seen secondary to productive work.

Theoretical Perspectives: Socialization Theories
Socialization Theories
> Sometimes called Identification Theories, Social Learning Explanations or
Sex-Typing Theories
The Process of Sex-Typing
Sex-typing- used to describe how individuals learn and develop the behavior,
personality characteristics, emotional responses, attitudes and beliefs considered
appropriate for their sex.

4 theoretical strands in sex-typing:

1. Freudian and Neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theory
2. Social Learning Theories
3. Cognitive Development Theories
4. Gender Schema Theory
 Most of these theories hold that gender is learned.
 Gender is a product of childhood socialization.
 SOCIALIZATION - `the process of by which society`s values and norms, including
those pertaining to gender, are taught and learned.’
 An example of these theories includes Sigmund Freud’s Identification theory,
which explain the process of acquiring gender through the child’s identification
with the same sex parent.

Classical Psychoanalytic Theory and the Neo Freudian

 Classical Psychoanalytic theory became popular in the late 19th century and
early 20th century.
 Proponent: Sigmund Freud
 Neo-Freudians- Theorists who reinterpreted Sigmund Freud’s theory.
- Nancy Chodorow
- -Dorothy Dinnerstein
- -Gayle Rubin
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
  Born on May 1856 in Moravia (now Pribor, Czechoslovakia) as Sigismund
Schlomo Freud
 The eldest of the 8 children of Jakob Freud and Amalia Nathanson.
 At the age of 17, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna in 1873.
 He became a student of Ernst Brucke in Physiology.
 Lived in Vienna until Nazi occupation in 1938
 Had medical background- wanted to do “neurophysiological research”
 He gave up his interest in research to pursue general medicine in the General
Hospital in Vienna.
 He developed ‘free association’, which is the fundamental rule of
pyschoanalysis.
 Early 1900s published many works--
- Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
- The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
- 1905 concept of sexual drive being most powerful personality component
 1906 Psychoanalytic Society formed
 Many works burned in Nazi occupation (starting 1933)
 Left Austria, fled to England 1938
 Died of jaw cancer 1939

3 Levels of Awareness
 Conscious
 Preconscious
 Unconscious
Conscious
 Current contents of your mind that you actively think of
 What we call working memory
 Easily accessed all the time
Preconscious
 Contents of the mind you are not currently aware of
 Thoughts, memories, knowledge, wishes, feelings
 Available for easy access when needed
Unconscious
 Contents kept out of conscious awareness
 Not accessible at all
 Processes that actively keep these thoughts from awareness
Freudian Components of Personality
 The Id
 The Ego
 The Superego

Id
 Resides completely at the unconscious level
 Acts under the pleasure principle
- immediate gratification, not willing to compromise
- Generates all of the personality’s energy
Superego
 The moralist and idealistic part of the personality
 Resides in preconscious
 Operates on “ideal principle”
- Begins forming at 4-5 yrs of age
- initially formed from environment and others (society, family etc)
- Internalized conventions and morals
 Essentially your “conscience”
Ego
 Resides in all levels of awareness
 Operates under “reality principle”
 Attempts negotiation between Id and Superego to satisfy both realistically
Psychosexual Development
 Stages of development in which conflict over Id’s impulses plays out
 Ego must control these impulses
 If not resolved, psychological issues can emerge later in life

Psychosexual Stages
 Oral Stage (0-18 months)
- Pleasure centering around the mouth (sucking, biting etc)
- Focus: weaning- becoming less dependent
- Not resolved? aggression or dependency later in life-- fixation with oral
activities (smoking, drinking, nail biting etc.
 Anal (18-35 months)
- Fixation on bowel and bladder elimination
- Focus: search for control
- Not resolved? anal retentive (rigid and obsessive personality) or anal
expulsive (messy and disorganized personality)
  Phallic (3-6 years)
- Focus: genital area and difference between males and females
- Electra Complex or Oedipus Complex

Complexes in the Phallic Stage

 Oedipus Complex (boys)
- Unconscious sexual desires towards mother; father is the competition
- Simultaneously fears the dad: “castration anxiety”
 Electra Complex (girls)
- Unconscious sexual desires towards father and mother is the competition
- Penis envy
 Resolution?
- Kid identifies with same sex parent
Development of gender identification in boys and girls according to Freud’s
theory:
BOY: Oedipus complex
- Has intense attraction to mother.
- Sees father as his rival and feels hostile towards him.
- Projects these hostile feelings onto the father thus believing that his father
sees him as rival.
- Fears his father will castrate him (CASTRATION ANXIETY)
- To resolve this overwhelming fear, he identifies with his father and stamps out
his own desire for his mother.
Results:
- Masculine identification contempt or fear towards women strong superego.

GIRL: Electra complex

- Is originally bonded emotionally with mother.
- Notice her own lack of penis, has penis envy, sense of inferiority.
- Blames her mother for the lack of penis and so withdraws affection from her.
- Eventually replaces her wish for a penis with a wish for a child.
- To obtain a child, takes her father as a love object and so becomes jealous of
her mother.
- Gradually realizes she cannot possess her father.
- Reestablishes feminine identification with her mother and tries to become an
attractive love object for another man.
Result:
- Feminine identification, rejection of clitoral sexuality.
- Sexual attractiveness as main source of self-esteem, feeling of inferiority, wish of
child, weak superego, contempt for other women.

 Latency (6 yrs to puberty)

- Sexual interest is repressed
- Kids play with same sex (others-- until puberty)
- Marks the beginning of intellectual and social development

 Genital (puberty and beyond)

- Sexual urges awaken
- If developed “properly” develop these urges towards opposite sex.
- The onset of adult sexual desires.

Freud: criticisms and critiques

 The theory is generally PHALLOCENTRIC and ESSENTIALIST
 Relationship of childhood development and adult personality are more
complex than what Freud assumed.
 There is gender bias in accounting for male and female sexuality.
 Freud neglect the role of socialization after childhood.
 He studied very few people so not representative sample
 Process of psychoanalysis interviewing- exhibit preconceived notions and
biases
 His measures/methods were untreatable.
 One’s personality is fixed and unchanging
 Obsessed with sex and aggression

Neo-Freudian Theories
 1970s- as the sex-role theory wane, the Neo-Freudian emerged.
 Freud’s inconsistencies in his theory are subject to two interpretations:
- 1.] The penis is superior because it presumed greater capacity for self-
gratification through masturbation.
- 2.] The greater value attached to the penis is the result of the greater
social value attached to being male.
 - [The inconsistencies then lie on the question of which is superior, the
male per se or the penis? Which among the two is the source of
superiority?]
 Nancy Chodorow is a feminist sociologist widely cited in the United States. Her
theory begins with the observation that ‘infant and toddler caretaking is done
overwhelmingly by women.’
 The ‘primary love object’ is the female or the mother. In other Neo-Freudians
like Dinnerstein, the mother is the FIRST PARENT.

Nancy Chodorow: Reproduction of Mothering

- The difference of gender socialization in her theory is as follows:
- For Girls: They grew into women whose primary concern is with
INTERPERSONAL CONNECTION and NURTURANCE.
- For Boys: They mature into men who focus on INDIVIDUATION, DENIAL OF
AFFECT/EMOTION, and strive to prove themselves through SOCIAL
ACHEIVEMENT.
- Pre-oedipal stage is different for boys and girls. Mother does identify more
with their girl child than the boy.
- “RELATIONAL IDENTITY” = you formulate one’s identity through interaction
and experience with other person. In the case of the child, this developed with
the female parent. The process of DIFFERENTIATION is really a way of
being connected to others [me and not me].
- part of this interactional process is the unconscious internalization of
experiences as part of one’s personality.
- both sexes initially take in a female mother, GIRLS maintain their PRIMARY
IDENTIFICATION while BOYS eventually differentiate and separate
themselves from the mother so as to establish the male self. It is difficult for
boys to develop masculine identity because of the absence of the father all
the time. Therefore, the boy’s identification is POSITIONAL rather than
PERSONAL because he identifies with social roles rather than the
person.
- The GIRLS don’t have difficulties in identifying therefore they are more secure
compared to the boys; the only concern they got is on how to transfer the
sexual love from the mother to the father.
- Sex/gender system- Personality differences between the sexes;
> Devaluation of females and feminine traits by males. (or)
> Females continue to parent>>>>Sex/gender system
- Girls are more concern to relational issues thus leading to INDIVIDUATION
PROBLEM were the ability to be connected with others interferes with the
need for a strong sense of individual identity.
 - Men gain socio-cultural superiority but always remain psychologically
defensive and insecure.
- Chodorow believed that there is a need to change the social arrangement and
this is possible because initially men’s PRIMARY IDENTIFICATION is with
their mothers.
CRITICISMS:
1. it is ahistorical and culture and class-specific. Ideas are only applicable to western
nuclear family and not on foraging societies where parenting is communal.
2. Social structural and historical variables better explain why women mother rather
than psychological factors.

Dorothy Dinnersten on “Mermaids and Minotaurs”

 She gave emphasis on the oedipal crisis and enforced heterosexualism and
the relation of these to larger concerns such as human as self-creating and
destiny controlling beings. She links these issues with the idea of the
FEMALE AS THE FIRST PARENT.
1. The mother can both satisfy and frustrate the child. It is inevitable that the infant
experiences frustration. E.g. of frustration is the realization that he or she is separate
from the mother or the nurturer and that the mother is shared with other people like
siblings and the father. Moreover, it is traumatic to realize that there are sexual mores
and rules to follow.
RESOLUTION to these dilemmas:
GIRLS-the resolution is to be disloyal to their own sex because they realized they
must compete with the members of them on sex for ties to members of the opposite
sex.
BOY- has a sharper and clear-cut dilemma, torn between staying on his primary
identification or gives it up by identifying with the father.
 BOTH children transfer their loyalty to the father.
 With the lost of the FIRST PARENT [our primary love] we substitute male
tyranny.
2. The fear of re-experiencing anxiety we reject bodily pleasures altogether.
3. People engage in an almost anxious enterprise of mastering and controlling, all of
which is done to console ourselves for that earlier sense of loss.
  Dinnerstein believed that the social arrangement could change by making
both male and females as FIRST PARENTS.
 Criticism: tend to generalized micro phenomena [sex linked personality] to
macro phenomena [political system]

GAYLE RUBIN in her ‘TRAFFIC IN WOMEN’

SEX-GENDER SYSTEM
- arrangements that transform raw human material into heterosexual gendered
people. She focuses on the sexual division of labor as one component of this.
 PHALLUS [penis] according to Rubin is a symbol of dominance.
 CASTRATION ANXIETY- is not the fear of castration but the fear of the
MEANING attached to BEING A WOMAN.
 PHALLUS ENVY- the girl wants the power and status attached to the penis
rather than wanting the actual thing.
 Rubin adopts Freud’s analysis as an accurate description of how gender is
socially constructed and reconstructed.
 She integrates Freudian theory with Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory.
THE ELEMENTARY STRUCTURE OF KINSHIP – Claude Levi Strauss
1. INCEST TABOO
> the key to kinship; the socially imposed cultural rule that says children cannot
become sexually partnered with their parents and/or depending on culture,
with other family members.
> Societal function: incest taboos force one to go outside the immediate family
for a sexual partner known as the RULE OF EXOGAMY thus creating a basis
for social formation and a prerequisite for group power and strength [through
alliances]
2. GIFTS [on pre-state societies]
> in gift giving and receiving none of the party benefits materially because the
gifts are always of equal value. This tends to establish trust, friendship and
solidarity among groups.
  3. DIVISION OF LABOR BY SEX
> guarantees economic interdependence between males and females and
therefore supports a standard of heterosexuality.
> Strauss saw the exchange aspect of MARRIAGE: considered marriage as the
basic form of gift exchange and WOMEN as the most precious gifts.
  REVOLUTION OF KINSHIP- the change in the basis and structure of one’s most
personal and intimate experiences.
How can this revolution happen?
1. Change in division of labor by sex. Men should also be involved in child care. 
2. Eliminate the obligation of heterosexuality because this created the differential
evaluation of sexes [allowing the same sex relation will lessen the value of the male
anatomical structure.]
3. Elimination of men’s right to women.

Social Learning Theory

Assumptions of the Social Learning Theory
1. Parents and others treat male and female children differently.
2. Girls and boys act like or are in other ways similar to their same sex parents.
3. Girls and boys choose same-sex persons, especially their parents as models.
2 Basic Learning Processes: [learning-acquisition on new behaviors.]
1. Operant Conditioning
> the process whereby the results of certain behaviors determine the probability
of their recurrence. Inappropriate behaviors are likely to be punished and
appropriate ones are rewarded.
> Parents are shapers of child’s verbal expression and overt behavior. Some of
this shaping is based on sex assignment.
 2. Imitation or modeling
> this is not necessarily mutually exclusive with operant conditioning. Girls
choose their mothers as models while boys choose their fathers as models.
They imitate their models without rewards.
CRITICISMS:
 Operant conditioning-we behave even without encouragement.
 Imitation- our model is not always the same sex; experiments show that with
both models available, the child chooses more powerful, dominant or more
rewarding model rather than the same sex.
Cognitive Development Theory
> The child not his/her parents are the shaper of his/her own behavior.
> Major proponents: Lawrence Kohlberg and Jean Piaget

 Lawrence Kohlberg sees sex-typing as part of the intellectual development. He

emphasized the importance of sex-labeling-calling the child a girl or a boy. With
this the child form a sense of self that is sex-specific prior to behaving sex
appropriate ways.
SCHEMA- mental categories
> At first the child cues such as anatomy, hair, and dress are presented. Then
the child used this schema to label themselves and later on they apply the
schema to others.
> Sex-typed behaviors occur after the child develops a stable sexual identity.
Criticism: It fails to explain why sex will have a primacy over other categories such as
race, religion, etc. Moreover, it downplays the role of culture in gender socialization.

Gender Schema Theory

Proponent: Sandra Bern
> It is not true that cross-culturally children have the built-in capacity to organize
perceptions on the basis of sex.
> This theory integrates the cognitive development theory and the social learning
theory.
> The theory that gender-role development is influenced by the formation of
schemas, or mental representations, of masculinity and femininity.
> GENDER SCHEMATIC PROCESSING- when a generalized readiness by the
child to encode and organize information according to culture’s definitions of
maleness and femaleness leads to sex-typing.
> Sex - typing is mediated by the child’s own cognitive processing. This processing
comes from community’s sex differentiated practices.
Steps:
o The child learns the cultural definition of maleness and femaleness.
o The child learns to apply to her /himself only the things appropriate to
his/her own sex.
o The continuously encode and organize information in terms of the evolving
gender schema.
SEX becomes a COGNITIVE SCHEMA when:
1. The social network makes it nucleus of the large associative networks. [if the
culture contains many sex related associations]
2. If the social context gives the category broad functional significance. [if they are
made relevant]
> Bern recognizes the socially constructed nature of sex-stereotyping, unlike
Kohlberg and others who take sexual dimorphism as universal given.
 An example of how a child forms a schema associated with gender. A girl is offered
a choice of 4 toys to play with.

CRITICISMS:
1. little or no recognition and no explanation of status and power differences
between sexes.
2. Like the social learning theories, it fails to answer why parents, teachers, media
and the general culture socialize boys and girls differently.
History of Women’s Movement and Feminism
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES: SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT FEMINISM

The “F” Word

> Feminism was derived from the French word ‘feminisme’ in the 19th century.
> It use to denote two things: 1) a medical term that describe the feminisation of
the male body, & 2) women with masculine traits.
> Today feminism is defined as, ‘a political stance of someone committed to
changing the social position of women.
> Though the coinage of the term is fairly recent, there are significant number of
people considered as ‘feminists’ in the 18th century.

Feminism as theory and movement

> ‘Theorizing is seen as a more open-minded activity, using…lenses by which we
can more fully comprehend reality in its multiple dimensions’(Pineda-Ofreneo,
Narciso-Apuan & Estrada-Claudio, 1997, p. 30).
> Feminism is a movement that aims to transform society.
Timeline: Feminism across different epoch
Various Stands of Feminism
> Liberal Feminism
> Marxist Feminism
> Radical Feminism
> Socialist Feminism
> Third World Feminism
> Ecofeminism
Liberal Feminism
> Significant Events
- 1780`s – Mary Wollstnecraft and Judith Sargent Murray pushed for the
equal rights to education.
- 1840 - women delegates were prohibited from speaking publicly and were
separated from men during the First International Anti-Slavery Conference
in London. As a reaction, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
organized a conference in the U.S on women`s rights.
- July 19-20, 1848 – the Seneca Falls conference happened in New York,
where 300 women participated.
Second wave of Feminist Movement
- 1963 - Betty Friedan in `Feminine Mystique` argued that women were
not happy inside the home.
- 1964 – the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
dismissed issue of sexual equality and did not include the word `sex’ in
the title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- 1966 – as a reaction to what transpired in 1964, the National
Organization of Women was formed.
Liberal Feminism (Philippines)
 The first 2 formal Women’s Organization in the country were formed in the
1900s:
- Asosacion Feminista Filipina
- Asosacion Feminista Ilonga (1906)
 In 1909, a feminist magazine entitled, ‘Filipina’ was founded with Constancia
Poblete as editor.
 May 14, 1937- Filipina women were allowed to vote.
Basic Ideas:
- All men and women are created equal.
- Women’s reasoning capacity is similar to men.
 - There should be fair MERITOCRACY.
- Women just as well as men have the right to vote, access to education, jobs,
etc.
Liberal Feminism
- Source of Inequality: Sexist Socialization and Social Discrimination
- Strategies:
> Equal opportunities for men and women
> Legal Reforms
> Education as a means of social change.
> Weakness of this strand: Oblivious to issues of racial, class and national
oppression.

Marxist Feminism (Philippines)

 Marxist feminism in the Philippines could be traced as part of the National
Democratic Front.

Basic Ideas:
1. Capitalism benefits from women’s subordination
2. Women are the second-class workers and as the RESERVED labor force in a
capitalist system.
3. The private-public dichotomy is beneficial for capitalist because men were free
from domestic responsibilities.
> Source of Oppression: CAPITALISM
> Strategies:
 - Eradicate Capitalism
- Shift to Socialism
> Weakness of this Strand: there is a tendency to reduce gender oppression to
class oppression
Radical Feminism
 1967- radical feminists launched the women’s liberation movement which
relied on ‘rap’ or consciousness-raising groups.
 One of the known protest of the radical feminists in the U.S. are the protests
against Miss America pageants in 1968 &1969.
Basic Ideas:
> Women and men are fundamentally different.
> The personal is political.’ For women to be free, they need to control their
own bodies.
> All hierarchies must be eliminated and society must be completely altered.
 Source of Oppression: Patriarchy, sexism, heterosexism.
 Strategies:
- Development of Counterinstitution (e.g. crisis center) and consciousness-
raising groups.
- Separatism
- Women`s culture/ spaces
 Weaknesses of this Strand: Patriarchy is biologically-based; women have
different sexual orientations.

Socialist Feminism (Philippines)

Different Socialist Feminist groups in the Phils:
 PILIPINA (1981)
 KALAYAAN (1983)- formed by women with roots in the National Democratic
movement.
 DSWP (1987)- associated with the Partido Demokratiko- Sosyalista ng
Pilipinas (PDSP)
 SARILAYA (1994)- stands for ‘Kasarian-Kalayaan’ or Gender Liberation
Basic Ideas:
 Socialist feminism is also known as Gendered Marxism; It combined the
arguments of Marxist and Radical Feminism.
 Women’s work is devalued because it is separated from the production of
surplus value.
 Women’s oppression is caused by their economic dependence.
  Source of Oppression: Patriarchy and Capitalism
 Strategies: Transform gender relations in both the productive and
reproductive sphere (public/private)
 Weakness of this strand: Insufficient materialism
Third World Feminism
Basic Ideas:
 Third World Feminism is also known as TWO-THIRDS WORLD FEMINISM.
 It focuses on the development paradigms (Rich nations- poor nations divide)
that put women at a greater disadvantage.
 Women are commodified in tourism, entertainment and even marriage.
 Increased violence against women due to militarization in society and sexism
in the workplace.
 Source of Oppression: National Oppression, Colonialism, Imperialism
 Strategies: Gender-fair development, Women’s participation in nationalist
liberation.
 Weakness of this strand: Culture-specific

Ecofeminism
 Ecofeminism was launched in 1974 in Francoise d’Euabonne’s La Feminisme
ou la Mort (Feminism or Death).
 The book provided the foundation of ecofeminism.
Basic Ideas:
 It tends to unite feminist thoughts and ecological concerns.
 As long as oppression is culturally valued, it will continuously be imposed to
anyone who does not resist.
 It tries to bring new consciousness of humans’ interdependence with all other
life forms.
 Source of inequality: Violence of men; Patriarchy; Culture-Nature divide
 Strategies: Voluntary simplicity and consumer liberation, Sustainable
livelihood, Environmental preservation and conservation
 Weakness of this strand: Too specific; it further divides men (culture) and
women (nature).
 The ‘women’s movement’ is a collage of many movements that span more than
150 years.
 Different strands have different issues and different strategies to transform
gender relations in society.
Masculinity Studies/ QUEER Theories
MEN’s MOVEMENT
 Emerged as the time of the Women’s Liberation Movement as a reaction to
Feminism
 1970s - MALE LIBERATIONIST or the PRO-FEMINIST: This is the period when
the Men’s Consciousness-raising groups emerged. It is an acknowledgement of
men and their potential to be the oppressors and with great opportunities for
power. These are separatists’ groups who wanted to understand the way in
which they are socialized as ‘men.’
 June 10, 1973 - The first conference of men against sexism in the UK was held
in London.
 Men in relation to feminism called themselves ‘Anti-Sexist’ or ‘Pro-feminists’
 Many of the men’s groups that support the feminist agenda had quite clear
Socialist leanings.
 1980s - (The New Man Era) Men Against Sexism: There is a heated debate on
Men’s role within feminism. Some men wished to be called ‘Feminist’ thus
pushed the debate for a controversial question as to what are the motives of men
behind this. Are the ‘pro-feminists’ and ‘anti-sexists’ labels not enough?
 1990s - (The New Lad Era). The New Men’s Movement: there is a renewed
media onslaught on Feminism by men who claimed that they were victims in a
reverse sex war.
 MYTHOPOETIC MOVEMENT- this movement calls men to retreat from
contemporary masculinity into their primitive selves. Example of this is Robert
Bly’s Iron John (1991). The ‘Iron John Movement’ implies that feminism has
softened men. They believed that the men are in crisis, because they loss their
‘traditionally Masculine’ rights and identities and because of changing
employment patterns.
 Today, there seems to be less evidence of men’s movement continuing, much
less those which bear strong links to feminist movements.
 Masculinity becomes more of a theoretical site (only found in writings).

GAY MOVEMENT (in the United States)

 1920s-1930s - Existence of Urban gay subcultures in the U.S.
 1940s - Many cities in the U.S. saw their first gay bars.
 1950s - Massive firing of gays and lesbians in the Government.
  1953 - President Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive order barring all gay
men and lesbians from all federal jobs.
 1950s-1960s - Gays and lesbians started to organized.
 1969 - Stonewall Rebellion; almost overnight a massive grassroots gay liberation
movement was born.
 1970 - 5,000 gay men and lesbians marched in New York City to commemorate
the first anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion.
 1973 - Almost 800 gay and lesbian organizations were formed in the U.S.; they
grew in thousands in the 1990s.
 October 1987 - Over 600,000 LGBT marched in Washington to demand equality.
 HARVEY BERNARD MILK- the first openly gay man to be elected in public
office in California; In 2002 he was hailed as ‘the most famous and most
significant open LGBT official ever elected in the U.S. He received a posthumous
award, ‘The Presidential Medal of Freedom,’ in 2009.

Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality

 Postmodern/poststructuralist theories are critique of modernity;
 Foucault’s theorizing is exemplified by his anti-hierarchical notion of power; In the
History of Sexuality, he analyzed the historical transition from ARS EROTICA to
SCIENTIA SEXUALIS (Science of Sex). According to him, ‘Sexual practice had
little secrecy in the beginning of 17th century. It was a period when bodies, ‘made
a display of themselves’ (his notion of ars erotica).
 It was during the Victorian Era, when sexuality became restrained, mute and
hypocritical. Sexuality was carefully confined; it moved into the home (specifically
into the PARENT’s BEDROOM). When speaking about ‘sex’ as a subject,
SILENCE became a general rule.
 However, Foucault argued that there is no total obliteration of sex. This is evident
in the presence of social places of TOLERANCE such as the brothels and mental
hospitals. The prostitutes, the pimps, the clients and the psychiatrists were
coined by Foucault as the ‘other victorians’ because their presence or existence
is a defiance of the ‘general rule’ or the rule of silence.
 How is repression related to Foucault’s notion of power?
 “It is in the nature of power to be repressive and to be especially careful in
repressing useless energies, the intensity of pleasures, and the irregular modes
of behavior.”
 The Power-Knowledge-Pleasure Regime: this sustains the discourse on
human sexuality in our part of the world.
 THE DISCURSIVE FACT: Sex is ‘put into discourse’ (Foucault’s notion of
Scientia Sexualis). In his chapter, entitled the Repressive Hypothesis, he
mentioned that there is continuous proliferation of discourses of sex in the 18th
 century. There is multiplication of discourse concerning sex in the ‘field of
exercise of power’ itself.
 By ‘field of exercise of power’ Foucault is pertaining to the various ways of
knowing such as science (particularly the medical and the social sciences),
literature and religion in the form of Confessions of Catholics. It is in this period
when, according to Foucault, sex (as it is or ars erotica) was transformed into
discourse (or the scientia sexualis).
 Censhorship of sex literally means regulation of sex through public discourse.

R.W. Connell’s Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity

 R.W. Connell (who is known before as Robert Connell) authored books which
include GENDER (2005), MASCULINITIES (1995).
 He is one of the most cited poststructuralists in the U.S., who looks into the
relational character of masculinity and femininity. The succeeding discussions
came from his article (published in Feminist Frontiers) entitled, “Hegemonic
Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity”
 Femininity and masculinity’s relationship centered on a single structural fact=
THE GLOBAL DOMINANCE OF MEN OVER WOMEN---This is the basis for
DIFFERENTIATION.
 HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY- is always in relation to subordinated masculinities
and emphasized femininity.
 EMPHASIZED FEMININITY- ‘femininity which is defined around COMPLIANCE
to subordination (to men) and is oriented to accommodate the interests and
desires of men. Other forms of femininities are ‘defined centrally by strategies of
resistance or forms of non-compliance.’ Other forms of femininities are defined
by COMPLEX STRATEGIC combinations of compliance, resistance and co-
operation.
 HEGEMONY: “A social ascendancy achieved in a play of social forces that
extends beyond contests of brute power into the organization of private life and
cultural practices.” --- power not by force but is derived and embedded within
culture.
 By Hegemony, Connell posited that:
> It does not refer to ascendancy based on force (thus, the connection
between hegemonic masculinity and patriarchal violence is close, though
not simple);
> It does not mean TOTAL cultural dominance, or the obliteration of
alternatives. It is an ascendancy achieved within a BALANCE OF
FORCES, that is ‘a state of play’ (Other groups are subordinated rather
than eliminated)
Hegemonic Masculinity is different from the male ‘sex-role’ (found in sex-role
theory/socialization theory):
1. The cultural ideals of masculinity need not correspond at all to the actual
personalities of the majority of men.
2. Hegemonic masculinity is very public; the public face of hegemonic masculinity is not
necessarily what powerful men are, but what SUSTAINS their power and what large
numbers of men are motivated to SUPPORT.
 The notion of HEGEMONY generally implies a large measure of CONSENT
(individuals are accomplices/ collaborators in sustaining what is hegemonic)
 ‘Achieving hegemony may consist precisely in preventing alternatives gaining
cultural definition and recognition as alternatives, confining them to ghettos, to
privacy and to unconsciousness.
WHY DO WE COLLABORATE WITH HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY?
1. Fantasy Gratification- Most men benefit from the subordination of women.
2. There is likely to be a kind of FIT between hegemonic masculinity and emphasized
femininity. The MAINTENANCE OF PRACTICES (such as DOMESTICITY,
MISOGYNY, and HETEROSEXUAL ATTRACTION) institutionalized men’s dominance
over women.
3. Hegemonic Masculinity is constructed in relation to women and to subordinated
masculinities.
 The most important feature of contemporary hegemonic masculinity is that, it is
HETEROSEXUAL.
 No pressure is set up to negate or subordinate other forms of femininity in the
way hegemonic masculinity must negate other masculinities.
 The construction of femininity cannot avoid the global dominance of heterosexual
men; either one will comply or resist to this dominance.
 All forms of femininities in this society are constructed in the context of the overall
subordination of women to men.
IMPLICATIONS:
1) The concentration of social power in the hands of men limited ‘scope for women to
construct institutionalized power relationships over other women’;
2) The organization of a hegemonic form around dominance over the other sex is
ABSENT from the social construction of femininity (Dominance could be in the form of
the following: Power, Authority, Aggression, and Technology----these are all absent to
the construction of femininity).
PATTERNS OF EMPHASIZED FEMININITY:
1. Sociability rather than technical competence
2. Fragility in mating scenes
3. Compliance with men’s desire for titillation
4. Ego-stroking in office relationship
5. Acceptance of marriage and childcare as a response to labor-market
discrimination against women. (e.g. Sexual receptivity of young women and
motherhood of older women)
 EMPHASIZED FEMININITY- as a construction is very public though its
CONTENT is specifically linked with the private realm of the HOME and the
BEDROOM; A kind of femininity which is performed and performed especially to
men. It emphasized compliance, nurturance and empathy--- not the kind of
virtues that would establish hegemony over other kinds of femininities.
 Because emphasized femininity is practiced, it prevents the cultural articulation of
other femininities.