SO 4518: Femininity and Masculinity

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SO 4518 Femininity and Masculinity
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lecture outline

• general overview of the course
• how different are women and men?

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course overview (1)

• 10 lectures link into a sociological discussion
  of gender
• lectures 1-3
• emergence of gender as a sociological concept
  and its relation to sex which will lead on to a
  map of gender theories

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course overview (2)

• lectures 4-6
• considers how gender has been understood as a
  form of material inequality
• lectures 7-10
• these lectures will focus on the
  cultural/symbolic aspects of gender and we will
  end with a lecture that considers what is the
  future of gender?

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how different are women and men?

• introduction
• sex and the body
• locate the essence of masculinity femininity?
• e.g. birth of sex hormones

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how different are women and men?

• sex differences?
• biological sex?
• five sexes?
• is sex a natural fact?
• summary

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according to Petersen (1998 1)

• The idea that sex, like gender, is a social
  construct is gaining increasing currency in the
  social sciences and humanities

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introduction

• Gender (used from 1970s)
• socially constructed and flexible
  femininity/masculinity
• (explore more fully next week)
• Sex
• physical, anatomical, genital, genetic,
  chromosomal and hormonal differences fixed?
• sexual act, erotic practices

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sex and the body(1)e.g. Laqueur 1990
Oudshoorn 1994 Petersen 1998

• is sex an unequivocal, ahistorical attribute of
  the body?
• medical texts from ancient Greeks late 18C
• one-sex model- emphasise similarities reflect
  patriarchal thinking?
• two-sex model emphasise differences

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sex and the body(2)

• sexualization of different parts of the body
• - e.g. skeleton and pelvis skull and brain
• physiological anatomical facts - social and
  political contexts?
• essence of sex confined to reproductive organs?
  

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locate the essence of masculinity femininity?

• e.g. Nelly Oudshoorn (1994)
• testes (long standing history)
• uterus (mid-19C)
• ovaries
• shift from organs to chemical substances (early
  20 C)
• sex hormones

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birth of female sex hormones?see also Harrison
Hood-Williams 2002

• 1905 first use of the term hormone
• gynaecological clinic
• sex endocrinology and experimental technologies
  materiality of discourse building
• although the idea of dual sex-specific hormones
  was challenged sex differences became
  conceptualised in terms of cyclicity
  (femininity) and stability (masculinity)

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sex differences?e.g. Lorber 1994 Moore 1994
Connell 2002 Kimmel 2000

• bodily differences and social effects are often
  linked through the idea of character dichotomy
• sex differences research shows more similarities
  than differences
• some differences are thought significant whilst
  others are not e.g. genitals but not height
• significance depends on social conditions e.g.
  is strength less important in technological age?

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biological sex?

• chromosomal sex XX (F) or XY (M)
• internal and external morphological sex
• - presence of testes or ovaries
• - presence of penis or vagina
• secondary sex characteristics
• - bodily hair, breasts, body shape,
• hormones now genetics?

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The Five Sexessee Fausto-Sterling 2002
course reader
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is sex a natural fact?(1)e.g. Kessler 1990
Martin 1991 Oudshoorn 1994 Laqueur 1994
Fausto-Sterling 2002 Harrison Hood-Williams
2002

• do scientists own social understandings of gender
  influence their interpretations of data?
• are scientists actively constructing rather than
  discovering reality?
• gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific
  language of biology - women seen as passive and
  men as active
• e.g. The egg and the sperm (Martin 1991)
• impose dual normality on biological variation

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is sex a natural fact?(2)Fausto-Sterling 2002
Martin 1991 Oudshoorn 1994 Harrison
Hood-Williams 2002 Hird 2000

• five sexes better describe variations found?
• 1 in 2000 babies may be intersex chromosomal
  and anatomical sex different http//www.ukia.co.uk
  
• John Money (sexologist) assumes wrong turnings
  must be fixed via surgery for example
  http//www.isna.org/
• social order based around f/m toilets, official
  forms

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summary (1)

• more physical and mental similarities than
  differences between men and women
• why focus on differences, are they really
  significant?
• the sexes are not as distinct as we might think

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summary (2)

• idea of biological facts as determining
  behaviour recent
• debates about what really defines sex
• see discussions about intersex case studies e.g.
  
• Kessler McKenna (1978)
• Butler (1990)
• Harrison Hood-Williams (2002)
• Garfinkel (1967) and Hird (2000)
• intersex cases can help us understand gender as a
  constant achievement
• is gender something we do? (next week)