Lecture 1: Intro to Gender

Psychology, Gender and Intersectionality

Psychology and Traditional Understanding

Stable and binary category (male/female)
Pushing back on the narrative and gaining an understanding of diversity
Difference emphasized over similarities
- Problem because we draw very firm boundaries, making knowledge limited
High individualistic perspective by focusing on individual trait instead of a social system
Majority of research is on the white man

Questioning Gender as a Neutral Category

“Whose gender gets normalized, understood and socially accepted?”
Psychology doesn’t describe gender but helps reflect cultural values and power structures
Social construction and context-dependent but that leaves many marginalized communities to be shunned as they aren’t a dominant group

Intersectionality: Origins and Meaning (Crenshaw)

Created intersectionality due to the isolation, lack of research, and no hearings from black women
- How Black women were disregarding in feminist lenses and racialize
Used to describe overlapping systems of oppression
Created and furthered the understanding that gender cannot be understood separately from race, class, sexuality or ability
“Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism” (Crenshaw, 1991)

Crenshaw’s TED Talk: The Urgency of Intersectionality

Intersectionality makes invisible experiences visible and is used as a tool of survival
Is a concrete understanding of how to better understand people and a system
If ignored, people tend to become in danger and fall through the cracks of systems
“When we don’t see a problem, we can’t fix a problem” (Crenshaw, 2016)
Silence and neutrality reinforce harm

Limits of Studying Gender in Isolation

When psychology studies gender without race, class, sexuality, or ability it forms an understanding of gender with those who are the most privileged
This is one-size-fits-all fails marginalized groups as it gives erasure to lived experiences, and isolated/oppression in law and policy

Shields: Gender as an Intersectional System

Built off of Crenshaws work
Gender is always intersectional, it is never alone or isolated
Identities are mutually constitutive, if you choose to ignore the factors you are ignoring an entire group of people
Psychological research must reflect complexity
- “Who is marginalized? Who is the standard?”
“Gender is not a stand-alone category” (Shields, 2008)

Hyde: The Gender Similarities Hypothesis

Men and women are more alike, challenges the understanding that men and women are fundamentally different
Perspective challenges the reasoning as to why psychology has focused on differences (small and big) rather than similarities
“Gender differences are overinflated in both popular and scientific discourse” (Hyde, 2005)

Tensions and Connections Across the Readings

Hyde challenges gender essentialism
Crenshaw and Shields challenge gender isolation
- Similarity =/ equality or sameness of experience
- Structural power, racism, ableism, and colonialism shape how gender is lived and understood
Power and context still matter

Responsibilities in learning and practice