Imagining Gender The social construction of Gender.

1. Imagining Gender: The social
construction of Gender

2. Gender is a Power Relationship
Not This…
Gender
Differences
↓
Inequality
But this…
Inequality
↓
Gender
Differences

3. The Social Construction of Gender
 Social constructs: classifications of reality that are
agreed upon or accepted
 Gender Ideology: a set of beliefs about the
definition, roles, status, and relationships of males
and females
 We are socialized into a gender system (culture)
that tells us how to act.
 And, through our actions, whereby we accept, reject,
and/or modify these ideas were recreate gender.

4. Gendered Society
“Doing Gender”
Behavior, Interaction,
Socialization
Gendered
Institutions
Gender Ideology
Gender Identity

5. The same, but different?
 “Gender means sameness” and “gender
means difference”?
 How does gender create differences between
men and women?
 How does gender create sameness among all
women and among all men?

6. Thinking Beyond Gender Roles
 Social Roles: behavior expected from a
status position
 Gender is present in all social roles, NOT a social
role in itself
 As a master status position, gender affects
how we are expected to perform roles and
how our actions are judged
 Master Status Position: status positions that
affect all other social positions in society

7. Just What are Women Lacking?
 A 2006, study surveyed 935 alumni of the International Institute
for Management Development in Switzerland found that while the
view of an ideal leader varied from place to place — in some
regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most
valued skill was problem-solving
 But whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it.
 Respondents in the United States and England, for instance,
listed “inspiring others” as a most important leadership quality,
and then rated women as less adept at this than men.
 In Nordic countries, women were seen as perfectly inspirational,
but it was “delegating” that was of higher value there, and women
were not seen as good delegators.

8. Our multiple social roles
 Role Strain: the stress or strain experienced
by an individual when incompatible behavior,
expectations, or obligations are associated
with a single social role
 CEO and Woman
 Role Conflict: a situation in which a person
is expected to play two incompatible roles
 CEO and Mother
 Homemaker and Father

9. Interacting with Gender
 Our identities, gendered and otherwise, do
not express some authentic inner "core" self
but are the dramatic effect (rather than the
cause) of our actions and behavior
 Gender identities arise out of social
interaction
 We organize our behavior and activities in the
context of social life to become gendered

10. Doing Gender
 Gender is accomplished by managing our
behavior in relation to normative conceptions
of appropriate attitudes and activities for
particular sex categories
 appears to be the natural
 reproduce social structure

11. Gender Accomplishment depends on:
 Where we are
 Context/Social environment
 Who we are with
 Status positions
 Social roles
 What we are doing
 What is the goal of the social interaction?

12. How would gender be accomplished in
these situations:
 A young man on a date?
 A mother at a family dinner?
 Two guys watching a football game?
 What is important in these examples?
 Context
 Participants
 Roles

13. Can you think of some ways
that you do gender?

14. “Doing Gender” with Language
 The dominant social status of men in our society is
reflected in language
1. Man as an indefinite pronoun
1. Exclusion of women in visualization
2. Pronoun usage perpetuates male/female roles
1. Status positions
3. Sex ascription to non-human objects
1. Nurture, owned, small/dependent VS. decisive,
strong, controlling

15. Optional Performances
 We ALL perform gender – traditional or not
 Not a question of whether to DO a gender,
but what form that performance will take.
 Gender norms and the binary understanding
of Masculine/Feminine can be changed by
our behavior