Assignment Lecture 3: Gender

Lidia Martínez Lería / 10-03-2022 / Session: Gender / r0875111

Take-aways

1.It is a mistake to think that our biology exists without our cultural experience and that our cultural
self is not constantly entangled with our biology. The various forms of interaction between biological
and sociocultural factors give rise to social roles, which are patterns of behavior expected of a person
in a given setting. These interactions depend primarily on the division of labor within society and the
ways in which boys and girls are socialized into gender-typical roles. Such socialization promotes the
development of personality traits and skills so that men and women can carry out their family and
work roles in a "proper" manner. The expectations that accompany these gender roles exist in the
minds of individuals and are also shared with others, producing the social consensus from which
social structure and culture emerge. However, these gender roles are not inevitably trapped in the
1950s American way, but can change.

2. Testosterone, like other hormones, affects our brains, bodies and behavior. But it does not have
the power that is so often assumed. Social information translates into changes in the levels of
hormones which modulate the behavioral neural network, so that behavior adjusts to the perceived
social environment. It is known that the same stimulus can affect hormone production differently
depending on the person's ability to cope with it. This coping capacity is shaped by experiences,
gender expectations and such widespread statements as "men don't have the right hormones to take
care of babies" or "women don't have the right hormones to be leaders." Women seeking access to
male-dominated roles face cultural incongruence between people's beliefs about what it takes to
excel in those roles and stereotypes about women's attributes. As a result, women's representation
is increasingly lower as we climb the corporate ladder, thus preserving some degree of gender
hierarchy or patriarchy.

Applications

1.Gender must be redefined and restructured by abandoning a binary opposition probably inherited
from Plato and perpetuated to the present day. Gender is assumed as a category but the differences
between the sexes are not so regular. For example, intersexuals are obvious cases that do not
conform to this binary model. The resulting lack of correspondence with social norms leads to
oppression and suffering for these individuals. If we want to end this system the only solution is
feminist education and ultimately the abolition of gender. This may sound utopian but it can be
achieved with small changes such as not knowing the sex of our baby to avoid creating expectations
about his or her appearance or personality or, for example, not separating clothing stores into areas
for men and women.

2. Furthermore, If we want to propose an effective change towards gender equality, we must try to
intervene on androventrist beliefs about status that legitimize social inequalities based on sex in the
workplace. If we take into account that even highly qualified women may be judged as lacking the
necessary attributes to occupy high positions, there is a systematic error in assessing whether or not
women deserve to be promoted, known as the "gender promotion gap", which is basically that
women are less likely to be promoted into higher level positions.
Companies usually use the nine box rating system, which evaluates employees on the basis of their
on-the-job performance and potential. It has been proven that there is a strong potential assessment
bias against women that feeds the glass ceiling effect. In order to reduce this bias, algorithms or
machine learning could be used to analyze the performance and potential of employees, regardless
of their gender, to select who deserves to be promoted.