Accessing Readings: ongoing issues

1
Lecture 4

• Accessing Readings ongoing issues
• Artifact Presentations individual, not group
• Today
• Sex and gender definitions (handouts)
• Readings
• (1) CP Doing gender. http//web.clas.ufl.edu/use
  rs/kjoos/spring03/ syg2000/0226_doinggendernotes.h
  tml
• (2) SMUO Dozier, R. (2005). Beards,
  breasts, and bodies Doing sex in a gendered
  world. Gender and Society, 19 (3), 297-316.
• (3) SMUO Deutsch, F. (2007). Undoing gender.
  Gender and Society, 21 (1), 106-127.
• Group work

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Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics
Refresher (http//www.ftmguide.org/hormonebasics.h
tmlsexcharacteristics)

• "Primary sex characteristics" refer to physical
  characteristics present in the human body that
  are directly involved in reproductive function
  namely the gonads and their accessory structures.
  The development of primary sex characteristics
  happens to the fetus in the womb.
• "Secondary sex characteristics" refer to physical
  characteristics that are typically associated
  with "males"/"men" and "females"/"women" but are
  not necessarily related to reproductive function.
  Examples would include facial hair growth and
  deepening of the voice in men, and growth of
  breasts and increased fat deposits around the
  hips in women. The development of secondary sex
  characteristics usually begins at puberty, as the
  levels and patterns of secretion of the sex
  hormones in the body begins to change at that
  time.

• The androgen testosterone (and its derivative
  dihydrotestosterone DHT) is responsible for
  producing masculine secondary sex characteristics
  such as facial hair growth, deepening of the
  voice, increased body hair growth, and increased
  muscle development.
• Estrogen and progesterone play a vital role in
  the menstrual cycle in females. Estrogen is also
  mainly responsible for producing feminine
  secondary sex characteristics such as breast
  development, and increased body fat deposits
  around the hip and thigh areas.

3

• Next few slides include information from
  Roughgarden, J. (2004). Evolution's rainbow
  Diversity, gender, and sexuality in nature and
  people (pp. 13-29). Berkely, CA University of
  California Press. (this is not one of your
  readingsnot on exam)

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Roughgarden Sex and Diversity She helps set
the stage for when we received/gave official
labeling

• All species have genetic diversity their
  biological rainbow (Roughgarden, 2004, p. 13).
• Darwin founded evolutionary biology On the
  Origin of Species. Remember Darwin had to be
  careful in how far he contradicted the church
  (and his devout wife!) which believed that God
  had pre-destined the species on the earth in
  contrast, Darwin was beginning to understand the
  evolution of species. At that time, in the
  1800s, empirical science was developing the
  Linnaean system of classification (insert strong
  gender stereotyping here) Anyone remember it
  from grade 7? Hint start with domain.
• (photo http//darwin-online.org.uk)

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Carl Linnaeus classification of living things

• Domain
• Kingdom (?doing gender?)
• Phylum
• Subphylum
• Class
• Subclass
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

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Roughgarden says when we classify natural things,
we are always aware of those which do not meet
the official criteria of that class. we exclude
in what we include

• She notes that Darwin viewed females as
  naturally shopping around for mates with
  desirable genes while rejecting those with
  inferior genes (p. 15).

• So, she challenges how evolutionary biologists
  classify those which are impure or freaks in
  this rainbow of diversity.

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How does scientific evidence hold up to this
example

• How male must a male mouse be?

8
Diversity and Sex

• Roughgarden raises these points
• Geckoes are an all-female species they clone
  themselves, and need no male counterpart
• Video Clip
• (photo http//www.repticzone.com/photogallery/Gec
  kos1.html)
• So, why arent all species female? sexual
  reproduction (Male Female) cuts the population
  growth rate in half. This way, the ecology does
  not become oversaturated with certain species
  one theory.
• Clonally (all-female) species originated from
  sexual species
• Two theories as to why sex works
• Diversity-Affirming Theory diversity is good and
  sex keeps propelling that diversity along.
  Environments change over time, and
  interests/reasons for choosing a mate change
  right along with the environment.
• Diversity-Repressing Theory diversity is bad and
  sex keeps the population cut back when families
  containing bad mutations die off.

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So, how does this relate to humans?

• Roughgarden notes
• It is difficult for many societies and groups to
  affirm/support diversity. think of any?
• Both terms sex and gender imply male and
  female according to biological or natural
  terms

• But, we use these as social terms as well.
• To challenge the universality of labels of
  male/female and sex/gender, Roughgarden urges us
  to problematize the taken for granted divisions
  of sex and gender.

10

• As Roughgarden has pointed out, sex and gender
  are not necessarily divisions of inherent
  features of species there is a case for how sex
  and gender happen within society.

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Dozier, R. (2005). Beards, breasts, and bodies
Doing sex in a gendered world. Gender and
Society, 19 (3), 297-316.

• Dozier Sex, gender, and sexuality, then, are
  all to varying degrees socially interpreted, and
  all contribute to an overarching concept of
  gender that relies on both perceived sex and
  behaviors and their attribution as masculine or
  feminine (p. 300).
• What does this mean?

12
The study

• On the changing behaviors and interactions of
  Female-To-Male (FTM) transitioners and how those
  are perceived by others
• To show that masculinity and femininity are not
  necessarily innately linked to male and female,
  respectively
• To emphasize the importance to include the body
  in transgender interaction studies.

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Main findings

• These transmen why is this a spelling error in
  MS PowerPoint? felt that being perceived a man
  was enlightening
• Informant, Joe I remember one time walking up
  the hill it was like nine oclock, and this
  woman was walking in front of me, and she kept
  looking back, and I thought, What the hell is
  wrong with that girl? And then I stopped in my
  tracks. When I looked at her face clearly under
  the light, she was afraid. So I crossed the
  street (p. 307).
• BUT, there are more pressures once judged as
  male pressure to conform to misogyny at work,
  for example. This is compounded by homosexuality,
  effemininity, race or ethnicity.
• What ideals are at play here?

• The more the FTMs were recognized socially
  physically and behaviorally as male, the more
  comfortable they were with expressions of
  traditionally female behaviour, such as putting
  on nail polish. This macro-level indication meant
  a reduction in the hypervigilance at a
  micro-level over time
• Informant, Pete It was very apparent how
  masculine a woman I wasand now its like Ive
  turned into this flaming queen like 90 percent of
  the time (p. 305).

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Moving on to doing or undoing gender

• As Roughgarden has pointed out, sex and gender
  are not necessarily divisions of inherent
  features of species there is a case for how sex
  and gender happen within society once
  constructions of gender ideals are formed through
  interaction!

15
West and Zimmerman 1987

• Wrote landmark article on Doing Gender

• Here, the key concept is that of accountability
  people come to be required to be accountable for
  every action they perform to be appropriate to
  ones sex category. Any type of social
  interaction and activity are potentially
  subject to doing gender reinforcing the
  notion of essential difference between females
  and males. Gender differences are made to
  appear natural and essential through doing
  gender. EXAMPLES?

• Gender is not so much as a set of traits
  residing within individuals, but as something
  people do in their social interactions. It is
  embedded in every aspect of everyday interactions
  that ones actions in doing gender simultaneously
  produces, reproduces, sustains and legitimates
  the social meanings accorded to gender.

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Moving on to Deutsch, 2007 (20 years later)

• Undoing Gender is a response to West and
  Zimmermans theory that gender is something
  within interactions according to the
  accountability of the person being judged.
• Deutsch we need to ask, now, how to un-do
  gender.
• Is there such a thing as un-doing anything, or is
  that just do-ing something else

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So, how do we undo gender?

• Deutsch
• If interaction is the site of doing gender, it
  can be the site of undoing it. Look closer at
  what is happening at the interaction level to
  raise new questions.
• Equality policies, structure of organizations,
  divisions of labour
• What knowledges are produced and reproduced?
• What does culture bring to an interaction?
• Are people willing to adjust their behaviour?
• Who is oppressed?
• What are women and men willing to surrender?
• What can we learn from the language used to
  identify/account for gender?

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So, how do we undo gender? Should we? Deutsch
praises W Z for introducing 4 important points

• Take some (mental) notes for group work on the
  following clips
• Consider the doing gender in this video clip

• Consider how gender is both done and undone
  in this clip

19
See Smith and Marx handout
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Feminism is said to be closely anchored in
Marxism because of the variable oppression (from
Marx and Smith reading on Personal Webpage)

• Marxs analysis assumed that women were
  subordinate to men due to their absence from the
  production line in general, though they did
  figure prominently in the textile industry. The
  home was not counted as gross national/domestic
  product, and is still not counted in GNP/GDP.
• Until only about 50 years ago, Marxists believed
  gender equality would occur when women had the
  same foothold in production as men.
• Feminists of the 1970s finally challenged with
  their claim that the woman question of Marxists
  was anchored in how women related to the economy
  versus the feminist question of how women related
  to men.

• But, many feminists still looked to the Marxist
  analysis to understand oppression, despite its
  deep flaws ---- just like psychologists still
  study and apply Freuds theories, we must be
  careful of the babes we throw out with the
  bathwater.
• So, feminism took a woman-centered approach,
  questioned not only Marxism but sociology in
  general --- one of those feminists is Dorothy
  Smith ---- whose main question is
• How can we affect social change to produce a
  more humane social world (p. 210)?

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Dorothy Smith - Her central theories She wanted
to develop a sociology FOR women, rather than
about women. Until the 1970s, and still existing
in some camps today, women were not included or
used in sociological language!

• RELATIONS OF RULING Text is the medium through
  which the ruling apparatus organizes, regulates,
  and directs society. Examples?
• WE NEED TO GUARD AGAINST THAT IN SOCIOLOGY
  ITSELF. FOR MOST OF RECORDED WESTERN AND SIMILAR
  HISTORIES, WOMEN AND OTHER GENDERS HAVE BEEN
  EXCLUDED FROM TEXT, MISREPRESENTED AND
  UNDERPRESENTED IN TEXT, AND EXCLUDED FROM USING
  AND PRODUCING TEXT.
• KNOWLEDGE Smith believed that femininity and
  masculinity were social productions of textual
  and symbolic discourse. Knowledge is located both
  local to the individual and beyond.
• CLASS, RELIGION, AND RACE THESE VARIABLES
  COMPOUND GENDER RELATIONS MARGINALITY,
  PREJUDICE, RACISM, AGISM, STEREOTYPING,
  EXCLUSION

• SOCIETY is where people may be understood as
  expert practitioners of their own lives (p.
  216). We cannot assume that we know their
  experiences.
• How does this resonate with your experience?
• BIFURCATED CONSCIOUSNESS Two ways of knowing how
  to be in this world
• 1. IN THE BODY AND SPACE THAT YOUR BODY OCCUPIES
  (THE MATERIAL AND LOCAL)
• 2. ALL SPACE BEYOND YOUR BODY (ABSTRACTED BY
  OTHERS).
• PEOPLE ARE CONFUSED BY HOW THEY FEEL ON THE
  INSIDE AND THAT WHICH OTHERS EXPECT FROM THEM
  TO WHICH THEY FEEL THEY MUST BE ACCOUNTABLE TO,
  OR PAY A HIGH PRICE.
• STANDPOINT OF WOMEN (AND OTHERS) (p. 214) The
  only way to enter the abstracted conceptual mode
  of working is to pass through and make use of the
  concretely and immediately experienced a fact
  that official sociology obscures and ignores.
  This means that we cannot assume we know and
  understand anyones experience at least
  completely, though we can feel sympathetic.

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Group work one question per group

• If we un-do gender, will we create a homogenous
  society? Is it possible to undo gender
  differences? If so, will there be neither men nor
  women something else? Is that good or bad for
  society as we know it in the westernized world?
• 2. Does transexuality undo gender, or transform
  it doing gender?
• 3. If female humans did not need males to
  reproduce, what would society look like? What
  would have to change? What would stay the same?
• 4. Is there a moral difference between sex change
  surgery and other surgeries such as breast
  implant surgery or penile enhancement implants?
  Which, if any, should be paid for with public
  monies?

• Choose any concepts from Marx and/or Smith to
  begin to understand these issues and respond to
  these questions

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THE MUDDY WATERS OF GENDER, SEX, AND NATURE

• dOTH FLOW..

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Next Class

• CP Strathern, M. (1995). No nature, no culture
  The Hagen case. In C. MacCormack and Marilyn
  Strathern (Eds.), Nature,Culture and Gender (pp.
  175-222). New York, NY Cambridge University
  Press.