gender and society

Sex

the biological and physiological characteristics that define humans as male or female, including reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormones.

Gender

the social and cultural roles, behaviors, and expectations associated with being male or female.

CO-CONSTRUCTION

better way to understand the DYNAMIC
relationship between the social and
the biological when regarding sex.

The five layers of sex

chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal, internal genitalia, and external genitalia.

embodiment

the product of complex interactions between an organism and its environment over
time.

what social forces shape gender

gender assignment, gender identity(how we feel about our gender,) and gender expression

one-sex model

model before 17th century belief that there is one sex and multiple genders

two-sex model

model after enlightenment belief that distinguished the female and male sex

gender performativity 

gender is not fixed, but is performed through repetition and social norms. 

operational essentialism

temporary, strategic use of categories for coalition and action

differnce between Butler and Spivak

Butler criticizes essentialism for defining woman and excluding others in doing so, while Spivak argues it can be used as a mechanism to challenge the system of oppression under the binary,

Paris is Burning

Introduced Black and Latinx New York ball
culture to wider audiences
• Popularized concepts like reading, shade,
and realness in mainstream culture
• Became foundational for queer studies and
theories of performativity
• Sparked debate among scholars and cultural
critics
• Criticized for echoing ethnographic traditions
and reproducing power imbalances

The First Wave

wave that fought to vote, to own property/capital, to divorce, to go to college and join the professions (as
doctors, lawyers, professors, ...), to serve on a jury

What was the first wave rooted in

This wave was rooted in ideas that all should be equal

who did the first wave exclude

enslaved people and lower class

when was the first wave

this wave was from 1775-1848

Declaration of Sentiments

this document draws heavily on the language
of the Declaration of
Independence: “all men and
women are created equal,”
“inalienable rights,” or
“consent of the governed.”

Ain’t I a Woman

this speech challenged the Declaration of Sentiments by exposing its racial and class biases.

Harriet Taylor Mills

wrote the Enfranchisement of Women that reinforces the Seneca Falls Declaration's demands for equality in education, work, property, and suffrage, using a systematic
appeal to justice to strengthen the argument.

in the first wave, what declared wrongs

seneca falls convention

in first wave, what reasoned through wrongs of inequality

Taylor Mill

what was the post war shift

women were expected to transition back into domestic roles

The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan’s novel that challenged ideas of women as only wives/mothers and gave voice to educated women.

what were the shifting ideas in the second wave

how to balance work and family and pursuing education

what were the two liberation movements 

labor rooted activists and younger generation

“the personal is political”

idea that personal struggles reveal structural sexism.

NOW

organization founded during second wave and took liberal approach

intersectionality

A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person's identity, like race, class, and gender, combine to create unique experiences

The Combahee River Collective

This Black feminist lesbian organization
helped to define intersectionality

what are the core ideas of intersectional analysis

social inequality, power, relationality, social context, complexity, social justice

daughters of the second wave 

rebecca walker and other daughters of feminsist who want to separate themselves from old ideas of feminism

how was the third wave different

this wave focused on cultural and political diffusion and didn’t focus on policy

what were the principles of the third wave

multiplicity, intersectionality, and nondogmatism

nondogmatism 

the idea of embracing contradictions and not pretending life is simple. 

foiurth wave

this wave of feminism is shaped by digital media, queer positive, and sex positive

what’s wrong with categorizing feminism in waves

focuses on one issue too much, stresses differences, and creates conflict.

We Should All be Feminists- Adichie 

confronts stigma around feminism, shows how sexism affects and harms everyone, and uses her experience in Nigeria to highlight inequalities within out day to day lives for women. 

redstocking manifesto

reading that portrays women as a unified oppressed class whose subjugation by men is political and systemic, calling for collective consciousness-raising and solidarity among women to achieve total liberation from male supremacy.

radical is lesbian

reading that presents lesbianism as a radical rejection of male-defined roles and control, framing it as both a personal and political revolt that centers women’s relationships with one another as essential to achieving true feminist liberation.

There is no hierchy of oppression- audre lorde

reading argues that all forms of oppression—racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia—are interconnected and inseparable, insisting that liberation requires fighting them together rather than ranking or isolating struggles based on identity.

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House- audre lorde

reading argues that feminism must confront and embrace differences of race, class, sexuality, and age to achieve true liberation, warning that relying on patriarchal or exclusionary structures only reproduces oppression and weakens feminist solidarity.

Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference- audre lorde

Lorde argues that Western society’s binary thinking and the “mythical norm” sustain oppression by turning difference into hierarchy, urging feminism to reject false unity and instead embrace race, class, sexuality, and age differences as vital sources of strength and collective liberation.

of spirals and layers

reading where Money writes about models of sex and gender, outlines the stages of sex development from chromosomal sex at fertilization which, alongside social factors like gender fortification and the individual's developing body image, converge to form juvenile and later adult gender identity

Am I a Boy or Girl 

reading that argues that gender identity emerges gradually over the first few years of life through gender assignment and social factors with potential prenatal biological influences, dismissing traditional biological markers (chromosomes, gonads, genitalia) as direct determinants of identity.

when was gender

reading that argues that the concept of gender was invented by John Money to medically enforce the two-sex binary by "correcting" intersex children

who is my opposite

reading argues that the notion of "opposites attract" is a nonsensical and harmful "terror trap" , as it ignores how race, class, and labor have historically created a more complex social structure than a simple two-sex binary in the U.S., a complexity evidenced by the racialized history of sex-segregated public restrooms and analyses of attraction in cultural texts like Soul on Ice and Fight Club

A World without Gender

reading argues that achieving gender equality requires not just changing the dynamics between men and women, but ultimately moving toward a degendered world by abolishing the binary gender categories and boundaries that structure and stratify Western social institutions and everyday life.

Sex Segregated Sports-davis

reading argus that sex-segregated sports and related sex-testing policies, which rely on the unstable, variable, and unmeasurable nature of binary biological sex, are inherently flawed and discriminatory and should be replaced by gender-neutral or functional categories in most contexts to ensure equitable treatment for all athletes.

is paris burning- bell hooks

reading critiques the documentary, arguing that the black gay drag balls it portrays are not a subversive rebellion against patriarchy but a tragic, colonized worship of ruling-class white femininity and power, which the white filmmaker, Jennie Livingston, commodifies into an apolitical spectacle for the entertainment of a white audience.

gender is burning

reading critiques gender performance in the documentary Paris is Burning argues that while the balls offer a necessary space for queer communities of color, the primary goal of the performers—to perfectly emulate white, middle-class femininity—is not a subversive rejection of the social order but a poignant and painful failure of the symbolic that reveals the violence and unattainable nature of the heterosexual matrix it seeks to inhabit.

gender performance

acts that create gender

gender performativity

the ideas that we perform acts to reinforce our gender and mirror what it means to be a man or woman.