Sex and Gender

Sex definition

observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and males, needed for biological reproduction

Sexual dimorphism definition

marked differences in male and female biology, beyond primary reproductive
organs

Can sexual differences determine the way men and women behave?

The biological nature of men and women should be seen not as a narrow enclosure limiting humans, but rather as a broad base upon which a variety of behavior patterns can be formed

Gender definition

The social categories/traits associated with masculinity and femininity

• Compare: sex is used to describe biological
  males and females

Gender is culturally formed

Differences in behavior between the sexes emerge from culture rather than biology

Gender roles: tasks and activities that a culture assigns to the sexes

• Gender roles vary greatly among different societies, but certain gender roles are more sex- linked than others— cultural generalities

Gender stereotypes

• oversimplified, strongly held ideas of characteristics of men and women

• In any given society, people tend to have some strong ideas about how women and men should behave

Gender identity

• refers to whether a person feels, or is regarded by others as, male, female, or something else

  • Ancient societies may recognize more than two genders

  • Certain types of male servants as “the third gender”

Modern societies may also recognize more than two genders

• Intersex: conditions involving discrepancy between external and internal reproductive organs

• Transgender: a social category that includes individuals whose self-gender identity contradicts their biological sex at birth

Sexual orientation

A person’s habitual sexual attraction to persons of the opposite sex, same sex, or both sexes. It is not decided by ones’ gender identity or biological sex.

• Heterosexuality: attraction to persons of the opposite sex

• Homosexuality: the same sex

• Bisexuality: both sex

• Asexuality: indifference of lack of attraction to either sex

Concepts of understanding gender relations

• Gender stratification (gender inequality): unequal
  distribution of social resources between men and
  women

  • Factors affecting gender stratification:

    • Economic role: contributions to the subsistence

    • Domestic-public dichotomy: contrast between
      work at home and more valued work outside the
      home.

Gender relations in different societies: Foraging societies

• Economic roles of men and women

  • Men and women spend about the same amount of time to gather food, and the economic roles played by different genders are interdependent in most foraging societies.

  • Contribution to the diet by men and women vary in different foraging societies.

• less developed domestic-public dichotomy because of a mobile lifestyle

  • gender relations could change after some groups become sedentary (ex. the Ju/hoansi San in Africa)

• Bilateral kinship: kinship relations among foragers are calculated equally through male and female lines.

  • Aggression and competition discouraged

  • No warfare, no interregional trade

Conclusion: relative gender equality among foragers

Gender relations in different societies: horticultural societies

Two findings based on research on 515 horticultural societies (Martin and Voorhies 1975)

• Women were the main workers

• Women’s social status varied widely among horticulturalists.

  • women’s high status in matrilineal societies

  • male privileges in patrilineal societies

    • warfare and trade led to sharp domestic-public dichotomy in patrilineal societies

Gender relations in different societies: agricultural societies

Women’s role as primary cultivators decreased significantly when the economy was primarily based on agriculture (the feminization of agriculture in the contemporary times is an exception).

• Plow agriculture

• The need for women to care for more children

• Sharp domestic-public dichotomy

Gender relations in different societies: industrial societies

Gender roles have been changing rapidly in industrial societies in response to economic needs of the different stages of industrialism.

Gender relations in different societies: changing gender roles in the United States

• Before 1890

• In the 1890s, 1 million US women holding factory positions

• European immigration in the early 20th century and a new notion about women’s work ability (immigrants took over women’s jobs)

• Changes in during World War II (women were able to work outside the house just as well as men, which changed a lot of people’s opinion on them)

• Increasing female employment and women’s movement

• Female percentage of American workforce: 38% in 1970, 46% in 2011