Gender and Society Final Exam

What are the 7 instructions for ‘Growing Up Masculine’

1. Don’t be feminine

2. Be successful

3. Be aggressive

4. Be heterosexual

5. Be interested in sex

6. Be self-reliant

7. Transcend traditional views of masculinity

What are the 5 instructions for ‘Growing Up Feminine’

1. Appearance counts

2. Be sensitive and caring

3. Endure negative treatment by others

4. Be superwoman (have it all)

5. There is no single meaning of feminine anymore

Boys’ academic tendencies

Boys’ verbal skills mature later (they may be frustrated by the emphasis on reading and writing in early school)

Personal choices affect academic performance (because boys spend less time preparing for classes and more time on sports)

Girls’ academic tendencies

Girls face prejudice in particular fields, such as the sciences

As they become more aware of themselves as gendered, girls shy away from seeming overly smart or ambitious

How many laws determine how sensitive subjects are taught in schools

Between 2017 and 2024, over 110 laws were enacted across the US to determine how race, racism, sexuality, and gender identity are taught.

Title IX

The section of the Educational Amendment of 1972 that makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex

Three parts of Title IX that apply to athletics

1. Girls must get equal opportunity to participate in sports

2. Colleges must provide female athletes with athletic scholarships proportional to their participation

3. Schools are required to provide female and male athletes with equivalent equipment and supplies, practice times, etc.

Gendered practices in sports

Girls are told they can’t do high-level sports

Male athletes and coaches of men’s teams get more support, financial and otherwise

Male athletes are more likely to get prime schedules and venues for practice

Gendered expectations for school faculty

Women faculty are expected to provide more emotional labour for students

Many women faculty have to deal with sexual harassment

Women are outnumbered by men

The gender wage gap persists among faculty

Gender biases in hiring and promotions

Women’s performance tends to be more closely scrutinized and judged by stricter standards

Men have to give more convincing demonstrations of incompetence to be judged by others as incompetent

Men tend to be judged on whether they show promise, whereas women tend to be judged by their accomplishments

THIS SUBTLE GENDER BIAS IS CALLED INVISIBLE HAND DISCRIMINATION

The Male Deficit Model

Asserts that men are less skilled than women in developing and sustaining personal relationships.

Researchers believe masculine styles of building and maintaining relationships are inadequate.

What are the assumptions of the Male Deficit Model

1. Emotional talk is the hallmark of intimacy

2. Women are the experts at building intimacy

3. Media represents men as emotionally lacking

The Alternate Paths Model

Masculine and feminine ways of creating and expressing closeness are viewed as different from each other and equally valid

What are the arguments of the Alternate Paths Model

1. Men DO NOT LACK feelings or emotional depth, but masculine socialization limits men’s opportunities to practice emotional talk

2. Men do express closeness but in different ways than women (like by doing things together)

Feminine friendships

Women regard talk as the primary way to build and enrich friendships

Women have higher expectations for their friends in matters related to trust

Women tend to invite close friends into many parts of their lives

Masculine friendships

Boys learn to ground their friendships in shared activities, particularly sports

Male friendships involve instrumental reciprocity (Jonah helps Jake fix his car, and Jake helps Jonah with a computer problem)

Men’s friendships involve “covert intimacy”(affection in less obvious ways), men signal affection by teasing one another

Many men have different friends for various spheres of their life

Friendships across gender

For women, a benefit of friendships with men is companionship that is less emotionally intense.

For men, the benefit of closeness with women is overt emotional and expressive support

In friendships, men receive more benefits—in the form of attention, response, and support—than they offer in return

Gender influences four dimensions of romantic relationships:

1. Modes of expressing care

2. Needs for autonomy and connection

3. Responsibility for relational maintenance

4. Gendered power dynamics

Gendered Modes of Expressing Care

Men believe that doing something helpful is expressing care

Feminine modes are more emotionally expressive and talk-focused

Gendered Preferences for Autonomy and Connection

Men tend to want greater autonomy and less connection than women

Men are more comfortable when they have some distance , whereas women tend to be more comfortable with close connections

Gendered Responsibility for Relational Maintenance

Both men and women tend to assume that women have primary responsibility for keeping relationships on track

Psychological Responsibility: Responsibility to remember, plan, think ahead, organize, etc. Women assume greater psychological responsibility for the home and children.

Gendered Power Dynamics

The belief that men have more power than women is reflected in the distribution of labor in the home. Housework and the care of children or parents are done primarily by women

Second shift: Homemaking and child care performed by women in addition to their job

Four gendered stereotypes of women in the workplace

1. sex object

2. mother

3. child

4. iron maiden (competent because they get the job done but unlikable)

Three stereotypes of men in the workplace

1. Sturdy oak (never reliant on others)

2. Fighter (warrior who goes to battle, can’t be anything less than ruthless)

3. Breadwinner

Informal gendered practices in workplaces

1. Women face unwelcoming environments that might be overly masculine

2. The old boy network

3. Mentoring relationships are usually between two men

4. Glass ceilings and walls limiting advancement for women (walls is a metaphor for gender segregation on the job, in which women are placed in “pink collar” positions)

Five efforts to reduce discrimination in schools and the workforce

1. Laws that prohibit discrimination

2. Affirmative action policies

3. Quotas (percentage of women or minorities who must be admitted to schools, hired in certain positions, or promoted to certain levels)

4. Goals (A company could establish the goal of awarding 30% of its promotions to women by the year 2027)

5. Diversity training

Gendered intimidation

Stalking, sexist comments, masturbating in someone’s presence, or other behaviours that lead people, because of their gender, to feel humiliated, vulnerable, or unsafe

Two broad categories of sexual harassment

Quid pro quo harassment: “this for that”. A professor might promise a student a good grade in exchange for a date. Depends on power differences.

Hostile environment harassment: Conduct that has sexual overtones and that interferes with a person’s ability to perform a job or gain an education or that creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive working environment. Often between peers.

Informed consent

Consent given by a legal adult with normal mental abilities whose judgment is not impaired by circumstances, including alcohol or other drugs.

The Cycle of Intimate Partner Violence

Stage 1 Tension: One partner experiences mounting tension.

Stage 2 Explosion: Tension erupts, sometimes facilitated by alcohol or drugs.

Stage 3 Remorse: The violent partner appears contrite and remorseful.

Stage 4 Honeymoon: The violent partner acts devoted in order to convince the victim that the assault won’t happen again

Female genital mutilation

Partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons

Over 230 million girls and women worldwide have experienced this.

Long-term concerns include sterility, incontinence, pain during intercourse and complications in childbirth

Intersex surgeries

Various medically unnecessary operations that assign a binary sex (male/female) to a child born intersex.

Intersex surgeries risk scarring, nerve damage, incontinence, loss of sensation, as well as psychological trauma

Reproductive violence

Coerced or discriminatory infringement on reproductive rights

Anything that inhibits an individual’s free choice of whether, when, and with whom to reproduce, become a parent, and parent existing children

Two cultural foundations of gendered violence

1. The Normalization of Violence in Media

2. The Normalization of Violence by Institutions

Three ways citizens can affect public awareness and policy

Direct power (entering politics)

Agenda setting (state your opinions publicly on some platform)

Voice (One means of enacting voice is adopting a traitorous identity)

What are two counter movements to gendered violence

1. Right To Be

2. Take Back the Night

Both hold marches and encourage activism