SOCSCIE 2115

GENDER IDENTITY

AGENDER - may have no gender at all.

Other terms;

● neutral gender
● null-gender
● genderless
● neutrois

ANDROGYNE – both masculine and feminine or between

masculine and feminine. SEXUAL ORIENTATION GENDER IDENTITY

BIGENDER - has two genders.

-masculine and feminine roles.

BUTCH - Women, especially lesbians, tend to use this term to

describe the way they express masculinity.
 DOES GENDER MATTER?

- Harvard University president Larry Summers

suggested that differences in innate aptitude rather
than discrimination were more likely to be to blame
for the failure of women to advance in scientific
careers.
- Lawrence argued that, even in a utopian world free
of bias, women would still be under-represented in
science because they are innately different from
men.
- Lawrence draws from the work of Simon
Baron-Cohen in arguing that males are ‘on average’
biologically predisposed to systematize, to analyse
 and to be more forgetful of others, whereas females
are ‘on average’ innately designed to empathize, to
communicate and to care for others.
- Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield states in his
new book, Manliness , that women don’t like to
compete, are risk adverse, less abstract and too
emotional.
IN DENIAL
- Valian suggests that we all have a strong desire
to believe that the world is fair. Remarkably,
women are as likely as men to deny the
existence of gender-based bias.
- Accomplished women who manage to make it to
the top may ‘pull up the ladder behind them’,
perversely believing that if other women are less
successful, then one’s own success seems even
greater.
- Another explanation is a phenomenon known as
‘denial of personal disadvantage’, in which
women compare their advancement with other
women rather than with men.
TABOO OR UNTRUE?
- There is no scientific support, either, for the
contention that women are innately less
competitive.
- A 2002 study did find a gender gap in
competitiveness in financial tournaments, but the
authors suggested that this was due to differences in
self confidence rather than ability.
- Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz
sympathizes so strongly with this view that he plans
to teach a course next year called ‘Taboo’.
- In a culture where women’s abilities are not
respected, women cannot effectively learn, advance,
lead or participate in society in a fulfilling way.
TAKE ACTIONS
- Comments by Summers and others have made it
clear that discrimination remains
under-recognized problem that is far from solved
- To paraphrase Martin Luther King, a first-class
scientific enterprise cannot be built upon a
foundation of second-class citizens. If women and
minorities are to achieve their full potential, all of us
need to be far more proactive.
SPEAK OUT
1. Enhance leadership diversity in academic and
scientific institutions.
2. The importance of diverse faculty role models
cannot be overstated.
3. There should be less silence in the face of
discrimination.
4. Enhance fairness in competitive selection processes.
As the revamped NIH Pioneer Award demonstrates,
a few small changes can make a significant difference
in outcome.
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER
- Self-confidence is crucial in advancing and enjoying a
research career. From an early age, girls receive
messages that they are not good enough to do
science subjects or will be less liked if they are good
at them.
RETHINKING WOMEN'S BIOLOGY
by RUTH HUBBARD
“One isn’t born a woman, one becomes a woman.” (Simone
de Beauvoir, 1953)
● Society “socially constructs” us.
● As we get older, we try to fit the role put in front of
us.
● Women’s biology have been mostly described by
men as being “natural” for us to be self-serving.
● “weak, overemotional, at the mercy of our raging
hormones”
● Women are just “walking ovaries and wombs”
19th century claims:
• Women can’t be educated because their
brains are too small.
• Women should devote their energy towards
the proper functioning of their ovaries and
wombs.
BODY, BUILD, AND STRENGTH
Height
● When men and women pair together, it is preferable
that women are shorter than men.
● Height is a social variable
Weight
an
• "Changes in style not just clothing but of
body shape are generated because entire
industries depend on our not liking the way
we look so that we will buy the products
that promise to change it.”
• “There is more pressure on women to look
“right”, and what is “right” changes
frequently and sometimes quite drastically.”
Limit the Strength
• Because there are natural limits to
women’s strength, there are natural
differences between men and women
strength.
The Work
• Today, work is defined as mostly what men
call work, while what woman do in the
workplace and the home is often ignored.
• This creates a continuous cycle of
oppression.
The Difference
- We can not know whether such biological
differences exist because biology and society are
interdependent and cannot be sorted out.
- We cannot vary gender and hold the environment
constant.
THE FIVE SEXES: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough
by ANNE FAUSTO-STERLING
Culture, Language and History
● CULTURE
- Western culture is deeply committed to the idea that there
are only two sexes.
● LANGUAGE
- Western languages have no words to refer to someone
outside of the male-female binary.
● HISTORY
HERMAPHRODITE- comes from the Greek names HERMES,
variously known as the messenger of the gods, the patron of
music, the controller of dreams or the protector of livestock.
APHRODITE- the goddess of sexual love and beauty
FIVE SEXES: Doctors have identified five sexes including
● Male
● Female
● Hermaphrodite
● Male pseudo hermaphrodite
● Female pseudo hermaphrodite
INTERSEX - means which a person born with reproductive or
sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the boxes of “male” or
“female”.
1. TRUE HERMAPHRODITES
- "herms." who possess one testis and one ovary.
2. MALE PSEUDOHERMAPHRODITE "merms"
- who have testes and some aspects of the female
genitalia but no ovaries
3. FEMALE PSEUDOHERMAPHRODITE “ferms"
- who have ovaries and some aspects of the male
genitalia but luck testes.
MEDICAL PRACTICES
- During the 20th century the medical establishment
grew in its understanding and treatment of intersex
conditions. The standard practice was for doctors to
assist parents in choosing a sexual assignment of
male or female to the intersexed child as early as
possible.
- Imagine a future in which society doesn't punish
people for not conforming to traditional gender roles
and no one is forced to identify as either male or
female.
CHAPTER 3 – BODIES
The gender binary might be an ideology, but there are
real differences between men and women, right?
DEFINING DIFFERENCE
Definition 1: Sex differences are real if we can measure them
- Zell and his colleagues noted differences on 61
percent of characteristics. These are real in that the
studies they included in their summary really
observed them in real life. They are observed
differences: findings from surveys, experiments, and
other types of studies that detect differences
between men and women. Is this what we mean by
“real”?
- Maybe not. There are lots of reasons why differences
might be observed, and we might consider some of
those observations to be more indicative of an
underlying truth than others. For example, people
sometimes act differently if they’re being observed.
Women smile more often than men, and men are
more likely to engage in heroic helping behavior than
women, but only if they know they’re being
watched. When people think they’re alone or acting
without an audience, sex differences can fade or
disappear. People also lie.
- Observed differences may also be quite obviously
the result of social and cultural conditions. We might
observe that women are more likely to carry a purse
and have long hair and men are more likely to carry a
wallet and wear their hair short. That’s real, but
these are simply learned differences, ones that are a
result of how we’re raised (for example, religion or
parenting) or our sociocultural environment (like
education or media consumption). For example, that
parents tend to see their sons as big, strong, and
active and their daughters as little, pretty, and cute,
then treat them accordingly
- Is that what we’re getting at when we’re asking the
question about real differences? Probably not. Some
differences are simply a result of how we’re treated.
The differences Zell and his colleagues observed,
then, are real in that we really observed them, but
they don’t necessarily stand up when we poke and
prod at them. Some are quite obviously just norms
for men and women, unrelated to anything but
culture. Others can shift, reverse, and disappear
when we manipulate the conditions of the data
collection. Perhaps what we need is a definition that
carries more heft and stands up under such
examination.
Definition 2: Sex differences are real if they are observed in
all or most contemporary and historical cultures
- The majority of research on sex differences,
however—in fact, the majority of research on
behavioral differences of all kinds—uses subjects
only from societies that are Western, educated,
industrialized, rich, and democratic, five words that
add up to the acronym WEIRD.13 And it turns out
these samples really are weird: only 12 percent of
the world’s population lives in such a country and
the people who do have been shown to be quite
unusual compared to everyone else. When we do
research that compares across cultures (over time
 and across countries and subcultures within a (rate of blood flow, metabolism of glucose, and
country), we discover that our weird samples have neurotransmitter levels).
resulted in unusual findings, ones that don’t stand up
when we do research elsewhere. Definition 4: Sex differences are real if they are biological
- Let’s take math ability as an example. and immutable
Disparities in skill emerged in high school, with boys
● We’re sexually dimorphic in that we reproduce
scoring slightly higher than girls on the math portion
sexually, and the process of making us reproductively
of the SAT, the standardized test for college
male and female appears to lead to some other
admissions.16 In the intervening twenty years,
average differences. But on the spectrum of
however, the gap has narrowed as girls have started
high-to-low sexual dimorphism, we’re on the low
to take math classes at the same rate as boys. This
side. We’re of a similar size and weight, we have
equivalence in test results suggests that the
(almost) all the same appendages, we have the same
difference in performance in the 1990s had more to
desires, traits, and physical and cognitive abilities,
do with training and practice than gender.
even if there are some average differences here and
- If we look at mathematical abilities across developed
there.
nations, girls do about as well as boys in about half
the countries. So, whether men or women appear to THEORIES REGARDING WHY HUMAN MALES AND FEMALES
be better at math depends on what country you’re ARE SO MUCH ALIKE
looking at.
If you look a bit closer at the data, though, you’ll also SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE SEXES
discover that this is true only if you compare boys to
a. Biocultural interaction- Biocultural interaction is about
the girls in their own country. Math ability varies so
widely across societies that sometimes girls who do how our bodies respond to our cultural environment and vice
worse than boys in their own country do significantly versa.
better than boys in other countries. For instance,
b. Intersectionality - Another reason why men and women
though Japanese girls do less well than Japanese
are so much alike is because they share so many other
boys, they generally outperform American boys by a
identities in common.
considerable margin. But none of these
generalizations about difference is consistent among c. Evolution - Human males and females evolved to have
groups in any given country, across countries, or different roles in reproduction: one sex carries, delivers, and
even over time in a single population. nurses the babies, and the other contributes new genetic
- In fact, the best predictor of whether boys or girls do material. Given this, it is tempting to look to theories of
better in math is belief. Sex differences in math evolution for straightforward accounts of “real” sex
ability are lowest in countries whose citizens are differences.
least likely to believe that men are better at it. There
is a strong correlation between sex differences in
math ability and the level of gender inequality in a
country (Figure 3.2). The differences diminish, and THE HIJRAS AS NEITHER MAN NOR WOMAN
then disappear, as men and women.
Serena Nanda
Definition 3: Sex differences are real if they are biological
- American Author
● The biological differences between male and female - An anthropologist and professor emeritus
includes the ones cause by our genes, hormones and - Awardee of “The Ruth Benedict Prize” in one of her
our brains. work, Neither Man nor Woman : The Hijras of india

Genes - Individuals defined as genetically female carry XX

chromosomes and genetically male individuals carry XY. What is hijras?
the sex chromosomes themselves—despite being one of
the biological differences between the category’s male
and female—don’t seem to cause all that many ● Are an alternative gender
differences of interest. ● Eunuch (made hijras)
● Hermaphrodite (born hijras)
Hormones- The hormones that Females has is called ● Primarily Implies a Physical Defect
estrogen while males’ hormones are called androgens.
Estrogen sometimes has the same effects in females that
testosterone has in males. During fetal development, for 1. HIJRAS AS NOT MEN
example, it is estrogen, not testosterone, that produces
● We got into the house of all, and never has eunuch
the changes in the male brain that differentiate men from
looked upon a woman with bad eye; we are like
women.
bullocks
● As Eunuch, Hijras are man minus man
Brains - The fetal brain develops in a sex-specific
● The Hijras view them selves as “Not Men”
hormonal environment and there is research suggesting
● As eunuch, Hijras are man plus woman
that sex differences are a consequence. Scientists have
● “I was born man, but not perfect man” – Lakshmi
documented average sex differences, for example, in
● “I was born a man, but my male organ did not work
brain anatomy (the size and shape of its parts),
properly so I become a hijra” – Neelam
composition (characteristics of the tissue), and function
 ● “ We are not like man, we do not have the sexual
desires men have” – Sonya
● “Of course we have the sexual desires” – Kamladevi
2. HIJRAS AS NOT WOMEN
● Hijras performances are most often burlesques of
female behavior
● Hijras also do things that ordinarily only man does. In
Gujarat, smoking hookah( water pipe) and Panjab,
smoking cigarettes
● The Hijras view themselves as not women, at least
not real woman.
THE INVENTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY
JONATHAN NED KATZ - Jonathan Ned Katz is an American
author of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex
attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality
over time.
● The earliest-known use of the word
heterosexual in the United States occurs in an
article by Dr. James G. Kiernan, published in a
Chicago medical journal in May 1892.
● The earliest-known use of the word
heterosexual in the United States occurs in an
article by Dr. James G. Kiernan, published in a
Chicago medical journal in May 1892.
● Heterosexual was not equated here with normal
sex, but with perversion—a definitional tradition
that lasted in middle-class culture into the
1920s.
● The hetero in these heterosexuals referred not
to their interest in a different sex, but to their
desire for two different sexes.
● The “pure homosexuals” he cited were persons
whose “general mental state is that of the
opposite sex.”
KRAFFT-EBING’S

- In the early 1970s numbers of homosexuals began an
exuberant move out of our old secret lives. Breaking
with the old, static, psychological model of
homosexuality’s changing history- and then, slowly,
without premeditation, heterosexuality’s.
- In that era many of us moved from the shamefully
“homosexual” to the affirmatively “gay” and
“lesbian”, making the power of those words one
focus of our political agitating.
THE GENEALOGY OF A SEX CONCEPT
In ancient Greek society, he said, “‘Homosexuals’ and
‘heterosexuals’ in the modern sense did not exist.”
● Krafft-Ebing’s term hetero-sexual makes no
explicit reference to reproduction, though it
always implicitly includes reproductive
desire.
● His twin term, homo-sexual, always signifies
a same-sex desire, pathological because
non-reproductive.
● Krafft-Ebing says, “man has a much more
intense sexual appetite than woman”—a
dominant.
● In other words, Krafft-Ebing suggests that
he typically “loves sensually,” she usually
loves spiritually.

1. HOMOSEXUAL

-The term “homosexual” was only invented in 1869 [the

year’s now been moved back to ’68].

2. HETEROSEXUAL

-The first use of “heterosexual” listed in the Oxford English

Dictionary Supplement dates to 1901. [The most recent
Oxford English Dictionary Supplement takes the date back to
1892, and “hetero-sexual” has also been traced to 1868.]

THE DEBUT OF HETEROSEXUALITY

● In the United States, in the 1890s, the “sexual

instinct” was generally identified as a procreative
desire of men and women. But that reproductive
ideal was beginning to be challenged, quietly but
insistently, in practice and theory, by a new
different-sex pleasure ethic.
● According to that radically new standard, the “sexual
instinct” referred to men’s and women’s erotic desire
for each other, irrespective of its procreative
potential.

KIERNAN’S

● The earliest-known use of the word

heterosexual in the United States occurs in an
article by Dr. James G. Kiernan, published in a
Chicago medical journal in May 1892.