Download CHAPTER 12: THE GENDER ORDER AND SEXUALITY

SOCI 100: Introduction to Sociology
Instructor: Deniz Yükseker
Spring 2013
1- Definitions: Sex, gender, gender
stratification, gender roles, gender identity,
patriarchy, sexism
2- Gender differences: biology or culture?
3- Gender stratification in global perspective
4- Women’s movements and feminism
Gender stratification: males’ and females’
unequal access to property, power and prestige
Sex: biological characteristics that distinguish
females and males
Gender: the behaviors and attitudes that a
society considers proper for its males and
females; masculinity (erkeklik) and femininity
(kadınlık)
The meanings of masculinity and femininity,
of being a man or a woman show great
variety from society to society.
Biological sex is made up of the following:
Chromosome make-up, reproductive
organs, external genitals, hormonal
states, internal genitals, secondary sex
characteristics
Female: XX chromosomes, vagina, ovaries,
estrogen hormones, breast development.
Male: XY chromosomes, penis and testicles,
testosterone hormones
Hermaphrodite (derived from the Greek
Hermaphroditus – offspring of Hermes and
Aphrodite): a human being with some
combination of female and male internal and
external genitalia
 Sex
is a biological category
 Gender is a socially constructed category
Gender role: learning and performing the
socially accepted characteristics for a
given gender.
It is possible to have cross-cutting gender
identities and roles.
Example: transvestism
Gender performance: “doing gender”: the
ways in masculinities and femininities are
acted out.
“Gender is not simply an aspect of what
one is, but also, it is something that one
does.”
Gender identity: subjective state in which a
person comes to say “I am a man” or “I am a
woman”
Transgender: having the gender identity
opposite to one’s biological sex
Transsexualism: surgically altering one’s sex
(genitals) to match it with the sex that one
believes one belongs to.
Homosexuality: being sexually attracted to
people of one’s own sex
Warning: homosexuality and transsexuality are
not the same thing. Homosexuality is about
sexual orientation; transsexuality is about
gender identity
Sociolobiology: a field of biology which
claims that most social facts are related
to human biology
Sociobiologists argue that gender
differences between men and women are
biologically determined.
Examples: men are naturally more
aggressive; motherhood is natural to
women; men are naturally inclined to be
promiscuous (have sex with too many
women), etc.
Sociologists argue against sociobiology:
Of course, there is a biological substratum
of gender and sex.
But historical and anthropological studies
show us that there are significant
variations in human experience across
cultures and historical periods.
What it means to be a woman, a man; to be
masculine, feminine; the meaning of
family, marriage or mothering changes
greatly from one culture to another.
Examples?
GENDER STRATIFICATION
Gender stratification: a society’s
unequal distribution of wealth,
power and prestige between men
and women.
Sexism: the belief that men are
innately superior to women.
Historically, sexist ideologists have
justified the social domination of
women by men.
Patriarchy: a social order in which
some men dominate, oppress and
exploit women and other men.
The nature and strength of patriarchy
change from society to society and
also across different historical
periods.
There is not a single type of
patriarchy that has existed across all
human history.
Women are subordinated to men in the
economy and society:
 They
are concentrated in low-paying, lowprestige jobs;
 Some laws may discriminate against women
 There is violence against women, including
sexual violence
 Women have less education than men
 There are gender inequalities in health and
access to healthcare
 Media portrayals of women might be negative
or emphasize traditional gender roles
 They have less access to political power
Gender Empowerment Measure (Developed by
the UN): an indicator of opportunities for
women based on:
 female share of parliamentary
representation;
 proportions of legislators, senior officials,
managers, professional and technical
employees who are women;
 ratio of female to male earnings.
See:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2007200
8_GEM.pdf
What is Turkey’s ranking in GEM?
In many places in the world, women’s and
girls’ access to healthcare is worse than men.
Women and girls may also be unhealthier than
men and boys due to nutritional differences.
Nobel laurate economist Amartya Sen argued in
1990 that there might be 100 million “girls
missing” in the world population, especially
in South Asia and North Africa.
Find out why. Read:
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/gender/gender_morta
lity.php
Gender inequalities in health can be reflected
in the sex ratio (the ratio of females to
males) in populations.
See the following maps:
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/gender/gratio.html
Maternal mortality
Excess males in primary education
Excess males in secondary education
Excess males in tertiary education
Everywhere in the world, women earn less than men for
similar jobs, even in industrialized countries.
Moreover, women are often concentrated in jobs that are
lower skilled and pay lower wages.
What are some examples?
Why is this the case?
Discrimination against women in hiring, in the workplace
Sexual harrassment
Negligence of the needs of women who work
Any act of gender-based violence that results in,
physical, sexual, or psychological harm or
suffering to women, including threats of such
acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty,
whether occurring in public or private life.
(from “The Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women” adopted by the UN in
1993)
About one fifth of the world’s female population
has been physically or sexually abused by a man
or men at some point in their lives.
Forms of violence against women:

Domestic violence

Sexual violence

Economic violence

Psychological violence

Petpetration of violence in the media
Many states support patriarchy in society through laws
and formal politics.
Examples from Turkey:
The old criminal law’s clauses on rape and “honor”
killings
The old Civil Code’s clauses on men as head of family,
custody of children born to unmarried women, on
family names of women, etc.
Women are misrepresented in the media and
public culture in many ways:
 Objectification of the female body in
advertisements and in films
 Until the 1980s, women used to be portrayed in
films as dumb trouble-makers, too emotional,
and too fragile
 In films, main protagonists were usually male;
women used to play roles that emphasize sexual
attractiveness
 TV commercials portray women in traditional
gender roles
 Books, magazines and TV propagate “the beauty
myth,” which is an unattainable standard of
SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF
GENDER STRATIFICATION
Different roles for men (hunting) and women
(mothering, gathering) started in hunting and
gathering societies, and later on, they were
institutionalized into a gender division of
labor.
By contrast, in industrial society men’s
physical strength is no longer important in
organizing society. Therefore gender
inequalities have gradually narrowed in
industrialized societies
Why were men the hunters?
Is this explanation satisfactory and conclusive?
How can we criticize it?
FEMINISM AND THE WOMEN’S
MOVEMENT
Feminism: the advocacy of social equality
for the sexes, in opposition to patriarchy
and sexism.
“First wave” feminism: 19th century and
early 20th century: campaign for equality
of men and women before the law, for
the right to vote, and for equality in
education.
First feminist text: Mary Wollstonecraft
(1792) A Vindication of the Rights of
Women.
“Second wave” feminism: 1970s onwards.
need for change: feminists are
deliberately political. They emphasize
positive social change for the purpose of
gender justice
 eliminating gender stratification
 ending sexual violence
 promoting sexual autonomy for women
 women should control their sexuality,
their bodies and reproduction

Some figures on Turkey and comparing Turkey
For the Global Gender Gap Index, see:
http://reports.weforum.org/global-gendergap-report-2012/
Girls’ and Boys’ Schooling in Turkey
Primary Education
Year
20002001
20052006
20112012
Secondary Education
Schooling
Ratio
Boys
Girls
Schooling
Ratio
95.28
99.58
90.79
43.95
48.49 39.18
89.77
92.29
98.56
56.63
61.13 51.95
98.67
98.77
98.56
67.37
68.53 66.14
Boys
Girls
*Schooling ratio is calculated by (total number of students / total
population in the theoretical age group)*100
Physical Violence against Women in Turkey: Slapping, shoving,
beating by the husband
All of
Turkey
Eastern Turkey (23
provinces)
Never
65.5
60.5
Only once
6.7
3.6
Several times
8.2
9.7
Occasionally
6.1
11.1
Frequently
4.1
4.5
Used to happen in the past
9.1
10.5
Source: Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yeşim Arat: Türkiye’de Kadına Yönelik Şiddet
Sexual Violence (percentage): With what frequency have
you been forced into sexual relations against your will?
Never
81.9
Once
0.6
Several times
3.0
Occasionally
5.9
Often
3.2
Only in the past
1.4
No response
3.9
Source: Ayşe Gül Altınay and Yeşim Arat: Türkiye’de Kadına Yönelik Şiddet
INDICATORS
Economic Participation
and Opportunity
GLOBAL GENDER GAP INDEX AND
FEMALE/MALE RATIOS OF THE INDICATORS
KAZAKHST
IRAN
TURKEY
BRAZIL
AN
Rank Ratio Rank Ratio Rank Ratio Rank Ratio
130 0.41 129 0.41 73 0.65 19 0.76
Labor force participation 122 0.44 125 0.35 72 0.75 18 0.91
Wage equality for
similar work (survey)
Estimated earned
income (PPP US$)
Legislators, senior
officials and managers
Professional and
technical workers
87
0.63 85 0.63 120 0.52 14 0.77
130 0.21 121 0.30 64 0.61 63 0.61
97
0.15 103 0.11 30 0.56 21 0.62
97
0.50 93 0.63
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