We are reading "Gender and Sexuality" by Chris Beasley, a very ambitious complex book as the subject itself.- Here is a sort of summary for Unit 1.- Not terribly acurate.-

1. 1-Gender and Feminism: An overview
Gender: the meaning of the term
Masculinity studies and Feminism studies are both under the umbrella of the term “gender”. Refers to
the process of dividing up people and social practices along the lines of sexed identities.
The gendering process involves creating hierarchies between the divisions it enacts.
One or more categories of sexed identities are privileged or devalued.
Gender in Western society refers to a binary division of human beings and social practices, to the point
of this division even being oppositional. Ex: The opposite sex, two categories regarded as distinct and
opposed.
Both categories also put into hierarchy; one is typically cast as positive and the other negative.
Ex: Buddy, derives from brother, good thing.
No one wants to be a Sissy, derives from sister.
“Bachelor”, masculine category opposed to the feminine equivalent “spinster”.
The binary nature of gender in Western society means that the features of one category exist in relation
to its opposite.
The accounts provided so far indicates the usual contemporary meanings of gender in Feminist and
Masculine studies, these meanings have altered over time and continue to be subject of debate.
Prior to 1960’s: restricted to what is coded in language as masculine or feminine.
Many writers today describe gender in terms of:
-Social Identities. Men and women.
-Social Interactions and institutions that form between groups. Conceives gender as a
structuring process.
Different understanding of the term are evident in what it decribes. In recent time it has been extended
to denote:
-Personality attributes associated with men and women.

2. -Social constructions broadly linked to the male/female distinction.
-The existence of social groups. Men and women.
- Social practices enacted through reiteration rather than natural distinction.
Some analysis rejects any suggestion that is necessarily connected to notions of reproduction.
Attitudes towards gender and social change differ as well, some writers advocate getting rid of gender
and gender categories while others see such categories as a political starting point and suggest that
premature abandonment of marginal group identities may produce political paralysis.
Gender is understood by critical thinkers in the gender/sexuality field it covers or refers to two major
subfields: Feminist and Masculinity studies.
These subfields tend to focus on only two sexes, but recently have begun to allow for more plural sexed
identities.
Debates about the term itself reveal much tension in and between these subfields and provide signals
regarding the current shape of the gender and sexuality field as a whole.
Debates about gender
Debate 1
· Analysis of sexed identities and practices, for discussing social relations within and between
groups identified as men and women
· Shift from women studies to gender studies, disputed by feminists as they argue that it moves
attention from women´s subordination.
· It would seem that the term ¨gender’ as the proper term for the combined field including
Feminist and Masculinity agendas may be problematic on several fronts.
· Masculinity Studies writers are more accepting of the terminology, they are also concern about
retreating from a focus on power relations between men and women.
· Some gay writers are not convinced that their issues can be adequately addressed under the
broad mantle of Gender Studies.
· A number of writers attending to sexuality see the term as not merely describing a particular
socio-historical process of binary division into two sexed categories, but as prescribing such a
division.

3. · Gender is disputed both on the grounds that is associated with the diminution of a focus on
particular sexed identities and with the shoring up of such identities.
· Ongoing discussion to the entire field of gender/ sexuality theory regarding the question of
whether focus on particular identity groups is politically helpful or harmful.
· Discussion about the status of identity politics arises not only in Feminist but also in Sexuality
and Masculinity Studies.
· Identity politics is also a question that highlights the different directions in the Gender/sexuality
field along a Modernist Postmodern continuum.
· The diversity of thinking in the field is crucial for my usage of the continuum in mapping out field
characteristics.
Debate 2
· Term ‘gender” has been criticized because it sets up too sharp a divide between social and
natural/bodily.
· Gender has been used to indicate that nature (bodies) do not necessarily tell you much about
human social organization of sexed identities and practices. Ex: a male body does not necessarily
result in social masculinity, in a personal identity deemed “masculine”.
· Gender was seen as a reference to ‘social construction’. Gender suggested a critique of the wide
range of views that assumed that bodily ‘sex’ determines the self and that biological sex
difference explains human social arrangements.
· Gender was a term that enabled a questioning of biologistic presumptions, such as male bodies
are naturally more aggressive ,women are less mathematical thinkers …etc
· Some writers prefer to use the term ‘sex’ or ‘sexuality’ or ‘sexual difference’ as the coverall term
rather than gender.
· The term Gender has an English-speaking heritage. Gender did not become widespread in
critical thinking on the topic until the 1970’s.
· Term ‘Gender’ used by the author because is the most common term today across the subfield
of Feminist, Sexuality and Masculinity Studies.
· This pragmatic usage should not prevent recognition in which debates reveal different
understandings of the relationship between biology and the social ordering of sexed identities
as well as historical/cultural specificity of theoretical names and traditions.

4. Debate 3
· Writers who justify the usage of the term ‘gender’ as against ‘sex’ or ‘sexuality’ do so as means
of indicating that the differentiation of men and women is not a simple direct expression of
eternal nature.
· Those who dispute its usage reject the biological-social division this seems to imply and refuse
to demarcate (bodily) sex, sexuality and gender.
· Biological sex differences (reproductive), sexuality (erotic, sometimes reproductive), and
gendered social arrangements (sex differences and reproduction) are considered
interconnected in this analysis.
· The links between what is described under the terms gender and sexuality is also question of
debate.
· Most writers of Gender Studies view gender as intertwined with sexuality. Many go so far as to
presume that gender (sexed identities and practices) is the foundation of sexual identities and
practices.
· This approach asserts that gender comes first and that sexuality is shaped by gender.
· Most sexuality writers are unconvinced, Gayle Rubin, 1984, claims that sexuality should be
treated separately from gender. Sexuality theorists in general are much more inclined to assert
that sexuality is prior to gender.
These disputes indicate that the conception of a field of gender/ sexuality theory is not
straightforward but also demonstrates points of difference in orientation between the three
subfields.
Looking at the term ‘gender’ there are ongoing and important debates about it:
1. The question whether we should focus on particular groups/identities, for instance
focus on women rather than gender.
2. The relationship between the social and biological/natural/bodily.
3. The connection between sex, sexed and sexual, in particular between gender and
sexuality.

5. These debates recur in all of the three subfields of Gender/sexuality theory that are,
Feminist, Masculinity and Sexuality Studies.
To demonstrate the spread of the field across the continuum of Modernist- Postmodern
frameworks, the character of its subfields and the significance of particular writers
writing within it, as well as indicating its simmering tensions.
The term ‘Gender’ and debates related to it are played in relation to the subfield, Feminism.
Introducing Feminism
First of the three subfields to be discussed under the field gender/sexuality
Using Feminism as an exemplary model
Critical stance
· Feminism has a critical history; it starts from a critique of the mainstream, of ‘the norm’, of what
is taken for granted.
· Starts questioning whether the world has to be his way.
· Critique of misogyny, the assumption of male superiority and centrality.
· Feminist consider that social and political theory was, and for the most part still is, written by
men and about men.
· Critical theory that refuses what it describes as a masculine bias of mainstream Western
thinking on the basis that this bias renders women invisible/marginal to understanding of
humanity and distorts understanding of men.
· Feminist commentators note that in Western thought to speak of men is taken as speaking
universally. This falsely universalized MAN, who is supposed to represent us all, cannot
acknowledge its gender specificity, its masculine particularity. The masculine bias of mainstream
thought is ironically sometimes dangerous to men.
· Feminism is a critical stance that decentres the assumptions of the mainstream in terms of
centre (men) and periphery (women).
· Feminism also shifts the subject of the analysis, the notion of woman is placed centre stage.

6. · The most usual technique of the G/S field has been and remains the decentring of mainstream
assumptions regarding sex and power by focusing on the marginal.
Content: frames of reference (the continuum of views) and main directions.
1- The Human: Modernist (Emancipatory/Liberationist) feminisms.
· The ‘first wave’ of feminism in the 18th and 19th centuries was marked by its critique of
dominant ‘western ‘thinking of the time. It’s critique of Liberalism.
· Liberalism, during this period proposed a belief in the importance of freedom of the
individual, free from intervention by government. All individuals were to be free to make
their own wealth and their own way.
· The social and political rights of supposedly gender-neutral individuals were said to reside in
their humanity, in their ability to reason.
· Individuals- reasoning human beings- did not need the assistance of government.
· 18th and 19th century Liberalism ,using the gender-neutral language of
‘humanity’ ,’individual’ and ‘reason’, rested in practice upon a notional man and was indeed
confined to men.
· First wave feminism noted that women were regarded as irrational creatures, were not
permitted to vote, own property once married, and had very little legal control over their
children and their bodies.
· This form of feminism advance a critique of the supposed universality of Liberalism, of it’s
conception of a universal human nature shared by all, by pointing out that women were
excluded from this account.
· First wave feminists did agree with the idea of universal standards for social and political
rights and selfhood of Liberalism. They noted that the standard was male rather than
universal.
· Early Liberal feminists proposed women’s inclusions in the Liberal universal conception of
the Human.
· A ‘second wave’ of Feminism, which began in the 1960’s and 1970’s, had stronger criticism
of this universal standard. Several strands or types of feminism developed.
· What is crucial at the moment is that all these strands of feminism, had an ‘emancipatory’
orientation. The aim for most was to emancipate women from their past neglect and
marginalization, to assimilate women into society, which would necessarily transform that
society.

7. · The second wave thinkers are still offering and ‘emancipatory’ or Modernist approach.
· Second-wave feminists (like those of the first wave) may be seen as linked to a Modernist
frame of reference on a number of grounds:
1. All of them conceive of a universaliable truth or mode of analysis that can reveal the
key mechanism(s) of all society/societies. This truth is about power and
oppression .In discovering the key mechanism(s) /truth about power ,the key is to
throw off macro structures of power that oppress women and other subordinated
groups.
2. Power in this model is understood in terms of suppression and dominance. “Power
over” rather than “power on”. It acts downwards on a negative fashion to constrict
or restrict. Major analytical terms employed by second-wave feminism, like
‘patriarchy’ and ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ indicate the negative nature of power,
its quality of repression. Second-wave feminists from 1960’s and 1970’s to today,
offers a theory about the truth of power, in particular men’s systemic power as a
group over women as a group. Power is owned by the dominant group, as an
attribute or property.
3. The aim of this theory is to overthrow power, to overthrow men’s authority.
4. Involves a particular notion of the self. Instead of accepting the mainstream Liberal
universals of the ‘individual’ ‘the human’ and ‘reason’, second-wave feminists
expanded and altered them. Most aspects of these several types of Emancipatory
feminism are about assimilating women into an enhanced view of the social world,
about developing a common political aim around a single theoretical platform.
Their largely assimilationists stance is concerned with removing barriers to women’s
full social participation, enabling women to participate and be recognized in the
social world as men are. With power peeled away, Emancipatory feminists suggests,
women’s true selves will have an opportunity to flower.
· Emancipatory feminism, whether of the first or second waves, is called ‘Modernist’ because it
represents several features associated with this term.
1. This form of feminism exhibits a form of ‘metanarratives’, that is a large –scale macro
holistic explanatory accounts which offer notions of a singular ,central universal ‘truth’
about society, power and ‘human nature’/ human/ness.
2. It views power as domination downwards and as the property of the dominant, such
that power can be thrown off and society can be made free of power.

8. 3. It conceives the self as repressed/oppressed by social power but having an inner core
(universal human essence) beyond power, which can be emancipated or liberated.
2- Gender(singular) Difference: Identity Politics to ‘Sexual Difference’ feminism.
· By the late 1970’s and 1980’s a focus on group difference- gender- had become the
predominant tendency in Western Feminism. Identifies difference between genders as the
starting point of social analysis.
· Women have or are indentified with particular experiences at some distance from mainstream,
supposedly universal presumptions about the world and what matters in it. They speak for an
alternative worldview which recognizes and highlights difference, specifically gender difference.
· The aim of the Gender Difference framework in Feminism was to acknowledge difference
positively.
· Involves reversing the traditional hierarchy of social privilege by revaluing the marginal.
· Difference theorising involves privileging the marginalized, at least strategically. “ Revaluing the
feminine”.
1-Modernist ‘Identity Politics’ versions of Gender difference.
Amounts to asserting differently constructed gender identities and experiences and mounting
political platforms based upon specific positioning of women.
The ‘women-centred’ focus of this Identity Politics is seen as necessary given women’s
difference from men and as an antidote to the androcentric nature of our existing society.
2- Postmodern versions of Gender difference. Sexual difference thinking.
Marked refusal of any particular content to gender identities like ‘women’. Sexual difference
theorists revalue the Feminine as representing in cultural terms ‘difference’ from the
(masculine) norm.
The norm, is associated with the Masculine. (Norm: Universal rather than particular)
Revaluing the feminine as having an autonomous potential and not merely as the other (lesser)
half of the masculine. Conceiving the Feminine as offering a vision beyond hierarchy.
Sexual difference theorists reinterpret it as the means to envisage plurality in society.

9. While Feminist Identity Politics and Sexual Difference approaches depart in their assessment of
the meaning of the category women/feminine, they share certain features. They offer
Modernist and Postmodernist variants on the incommensurability of the sexes and the
importance of celebrating rather than suppressing difference in social life.
3- (Multiple) differences : ‘race’/ethnicity/imperialism and feminism.
This theorical framework provides one of the several feminist counter-arguments challenging
Gender Difference.
Found right across the spectrum of Modernist- Postmodern continuum.
In recent times feminist writings which focus upon the areas of ‘race’ ethnicity and imperialism
(REI) typically cluster around the middle, on both sides of the dividing point of the continuum.
Feminists attending to race/ethnicity/ imperialism have a voice in both: Group Difference and
‘Social Constructionist’ camps, sometimes simultaneously. Such feminists may wish to revalue
and affirm group difference and identities. They also criticize singular group difference i
REI feminists assert that a focus on singular gender difference involves suppressing other
differences and maintaining an essentialist account of men and women as unified groups
without acknowledgement that ‘racial’/ethnic/cultural location might sharply alter any
generalized assumptions about the relative power of these groups.
Categories of men and women cannot be seen, in this REI framework, as self-evident identities
that are always the same and bear the same social consequences everywhere.
4-Relational Power: Feminist Social Constructionism.
‘Social Constructionist’ or ‘materialist ‘feminists strongly rejected the Gender Difference position
that became significant in the 1980’s.
Social Constructionists argue that ‘difference’ does not adhere to self/identity, is not an inherent
essence, but it is created by relations of power.
Social Constructionist approaches describe truth and power in universal macro terms and power is
largely perceived as negative domination.
Constructivist theorists largely reject Modernism’s humanist emphasis on a pre-existing inner core
of the self.
They assert that identities are made and made different by the social structuring effects of power.
Social Constructionism, along with Postmodernism, offers a critique of both Emancipatory and
Gender Difference approaches in that both stress relatively fixed notions of identity.

10. Criticizes inherent notions of either ‘the human’ or group identities as ‘essentialism’, as supporting a
notion of an original inner essence or core to the self.
5- Fluidity/ Instability : Postmodern feminism.
Predominant feminist position in the 1990’s and 2000’s .
Offers among other things, a multiplication of the notion of difference that appears in the group
difference(s) approaches.
There is an expansion of difference towards differences, towards a plurality that resists any set
identities.
Postmodern feminists do not aim to include women in the existing opportunities of a male world or
broadening the male world into an expanded range of possibilities that can include women (the
Emancipator model).
The do not wish to reverse the traditional hierarchy and focus on women/ the feminine (The Gender
and Sexual difference model)
Postmodern feminists intent to destabilize the very conception of identity (human or group) and the
binary identities (human or group) and the binary identities (such as men and women) upon which
the two former strategies rest.
Intended to convey a strong version of Postmodernism which disavows notions of identity in ways
that are at odds with notions of REI theorizing.
Postmodern feminism in this usage represents a thoroughgoing version of Social Constructitionism.
The emphasis of postmodern feminism is to assert that there is no ‘truth ‘behind identity.
Postmodern frameworks conceive humans as no more or less than a social product organized by
power.
Postmodern feminist is strongly ant-essentialist; there is no prior or authentic true self underneath
power. Power creates multiple, fragmented selves and power itself is not a singular process. It is
multiple, local, and productive in its operations. Such a view point stands in contrast with Modernist
conceptions of power as monolithic macro and repressive action from above.
Postmodern feminism is an anti-generalist, anti-humanist and strongly anti-essentialist position.
Postmodernism might be labeled as ‘Poststructuralism’ in other texts.
Contextualizing the G/S field by looking at Feminism

11. The five main directions outlined in relation with the broader field have specific forms when we look at
the example of Feminism. These specific forms are similar to those found in the other subfields of
Masculinity and Sexuality Studies.