Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, responsibilities, identities, and expectations assigned to men and women by society, as opposed to sex which refers to biological and physiological differences. Gender is influenced by social and cultural factors rather than biology alone. Sociological perspectives on gender include functionalism, which views traditional gender roles as serving important social functions, and feminism, which argues that patriarchal societies promote gender inequality that benefits men over women. Evidence from different cultures demonstrates that gender roles vary significantly across societies and over time, supporting the view that gender is socially constructed rather than innate.

1. What is GENDER
Lecture 3

2. Gender
‘Gender’ refers to the socially constructed
roles, responsibilities, identities and
expectations assigned to men and
women.
It contrasts with the fundamental biological
and physiological differences between
males and females, which are known as
secondary sex characteristics.

3. Difference between Sex & Gender
 The terms ‘sex' and ‘gender' are closely
linked, yet they are not synonyms.
 Robert Stoller, in the 1960s, has drawn
the distinction between them.
 He suggested that the word ‘sex' be used
to refer to the physical differences
between men and women, while the term
‘gender' be used in connection to the
behaviour and cultural practices of men
and women.

4. Difference between Sex & Gender
 Definition of "Sex"
The term ‘sex' is easy to understand. It
simply refers to the natural biological
differences between men and women, for
example, the differences in the organs
related to reproduction.

5. Difference between Sex & Gender
 Definition of "Gender"
"Gender refers to the cultural, socially-
constructed differences between the two
sexes. It refers to the way a society
encourages and teaches the two sexes to
behave in different ways through
socialisation.”

6. Difference between Sex & Gender
In simple words, gender refers to
differences in attitudes and behaviour, and
these differences are perceived as a
product of the socialisation process rather
than of biology.
 Gender also includes the different
expectations that society and individuals
themselves hold as regard to the
appropriate behaviours of men and
women.

7. Difference between Sex & Gender
 Gender does not concern women only,
but it relates to both sexes. Gender issues
are not women issues; they are rather
issues pertaining to both men and women.
 Viewing gender as a socially-constructed
phenomenon implies that gender, contrary
to sex, is not the same over the world. It
varies between and within societies and it
can change over time.

8. Difference between Sex & Gender
Sex (Biological difference) Gender (Social difference)
Can be changed since gender identity
Difficult to change (we are born male
is
or female)
determined by society.
At different times in history and in
Throughout history and across
different
cultures, sex differences exist.
societies, gender roles are different.
Policies can respond to gender
Policies respond to sex differences in
stereotype and traditional gender
areas to do with the physical body.
roles.

9. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
Sociologists explain gender roles according to
several theoretical perspectives, general ways
of understanding social reality that guide the
research process and provide a means for
interpreting the data.
 A theory is an explanation.
 Formal theories consist of logical interrelated
propositions that explain empirical events.

10. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Sociological perspectives on gender also vary
according to the level of analysis atwhich they
events.
 Macrosociological perspectives on gender roles
direct attention to data collected on large-scale
social phenomena, such as labor force,
educational, and political trends that are
differentiated according to gender roles.

11. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Micro sociological perspectives on gender
roles direct attention to data collected in small
groups and the details of gender interaction
occurring, for example, between couples and in
families and peer groups.

12. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Early sociological perspectives related to
gender roles evolved from scholarship on the
sociology of the family.
 These explanations centered on why men and
women hold different roles in the family that in
turn impact the roles they perform outside the
family.
 To a large extent, this early work on the family
has continued to inform current sociological
thinking on gender roles.

13. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
Functionalism
 Functionalism, also known as “structural
functionalism,” is a macro sociological
perspective that is based on the premise that
society is made up of interdependent parts,
each of which contributes to the functioning of
the whole society.

14. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
Functionalism
 Functionalists seek to identify the basic
elements or parts of society and determine the
functions these parts play in meeting basic
social needs in predictable ways.
 Functionalists ask how any given element of
social structure contributes to overall social
stability, balance, and equilibrium.

15. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
Preindustrial Society.
Functionalists suggest that in preindustrial
societies social equilibrium was maintained by
assigning different tasks to men and women.
 Given the hunting and gathering and
subsistence farming activities of most
preindustrial societies, role specialization
according to gender was considered a
functional necessity.

16. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 In their assigned hunting roles, men were
frequently away from home for long periods
and centered their lives around the
responsibility of
bringing food to the family.
Domestic roles near the home as gatherers
and subsistence farmers and as caretakers of
children and households were assigned to
women. Children were needed to help with
agricultural and domesticactivities

17. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Children were needed to help with agricultural
and domestic activities.
 Girls would continue these activities when boys
reached the age when they were allowed to
hunt with the older males.
 Once established, this functional division of
labor was reproduced in societies throughout
the globe.

18. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Women may have been farmers and food
gatherers in their own right, but they were
dependent on men for food and for protection.
Women’s dependence on men in turn produced
a pattern in which male activities and roles
came to be more valued than female activities
and roles.

19. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Contemporary Society
Similar principles apply to families in
contemporary societies.
When the husband–father takes the
instrumental role, he is expected to maintain
the physical integrity of the family by providing
food and shelter and linking the family to the
world outside the home.

20. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
 Contemporary Society
While the wife–mother takes the expressive
role, she is expected to cement relationships
and provide emotional support and nurturing
activities that ensure the household runs
smoothly.

21. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER
Contemporary Society
If too much deviation from these roles occurs, or
when there is too much overlap, the family
system is propelled into a state of imbalance
that can threaten the survival of the family unit.
Advocates of functionalist assumptions argue,
for instance, that gender role ambiguity
regarding instrumental and expressive roles is
a major factor in divorce (Hacker, 2003).

22. Gender
 Gender roles differ between cultures and
communities and over time.

23.  Goldberg - males
have an in- built
dominance tendency
 NB. This view has
gained increasing
credibility in recent
years (ref “Why men
don’t iron).

24. Consensus theory
 Parsons: In the family, men tend to
perform the instrumental tasks (a
concern with achieving a task or goal) and
women perform expressive tasks
(concerned with affection and emotion]
 The consensus view is that these gender
roles are natural, inevitable and functional.

25. Consensus theory
 Parsons: In the family, men tend to
perform the instrumental tasks (a
concern with achieving a task or goal) and
women perform expressive tasks
(concerned with affection and emotion]
 The consensus view is that these gender
roles are natural, inevitable and functional.

26. The Feminist view
 In most societies there is gender inequality
and women tend to be the losers in terms
of power, status and pay.
 This system of gender inequality benefits
men at the expense of women.

27. The Feminist view
 Friedan: It was not women’s
biology that held them back
from competing with men on
equal terms, but the feminine
mystique
 This was an ideology that
defined what it was to be truly
feminine, e.g. sensitive,
intuitive. BUT this implies
that women are not naturally
rational, logical and assertive.

28. The feminist view (continuted)
 Friedan argued that the feminine mystique
prevented women from seeing their
potential and kept them locked in their
roles as as wives, mothers and carers.
 Kate Millett: developed the concept of
Patriarchy: male domination. She argued
that the oppression and exploitation of
women by men are build into every aspect
of the way society is organised.

29. Cross-cultural evidence about Gender
(Social Constructionism)
Gender is based on ‘nurture’ – socialisation and social
environment- Each society creates its own set of gender
expectations. Can you think if any examples that
illustrate this?
 Ann Oakley -the Mbuti Pygmies of the Congo
have very little division of labour by sex; men
and women hunt together and share
responsibility for childcare.
 Margaret Mead - differences in childrearing
techniques in three New Guinea tribes – extract
from soc in focus page 40.

30. Gender as Socially constructed
 On the basis of cross-cultural evidence, it
is difficult to conclude that differences
between women and men in social roles
are purely the result of biology.
 Sociologists have therefore explored the
role of culture in shaping male and female
gender identities.
 In particular, the part played by gender
socialisation.

31. GENDER ROLE
SOCIALISATION
 Much of our identity and
behaviour is the result of
experiences of interaction with
other people, especially during
childhood.
 Our gender identity is no
exception. Gender expectations
are transmitted to the next
generation through gender role
socialisation.

32. Gender role Socialisation:
The Family
 Gender identity stems from:
 imitation of parental role models;
 parents rewarding gender-appropriate
behaviour (manipulation);
 parents discouraging gender-inappropriate
behaviour;
 Parents adopting different modes of speech
and terms of endearment depending on the
gender of the child;

33. The Family (continued)
 Mothers’ preoccupation with female children’s
appearance;
 Parents giving children gender-specific toys,
books and games (canalisation);
 Children being dressed in gender-specific
clothes and colours;
 Parents assigning gender-specific household
chores to children;
 parents socially controlling the behaviour of girls
more tightly than boys.

34. TASK - THE FAMILY & GENDER ROLE
SOCIALISATION
 Find the following studies and note down
their evidence:
 Moss (1970)
 Will, Self and Datan (1984)
 Oakley (1981)
 Damon (1977)
 Statham (1986)

35. Gender role Socialisation:
Education
 Until the 1990s the hidden curriculum
transmitted gender-stereotyped assumptions
about feminine behaviour through teacher
expectations, timetabling, career advice,
textbook content etc..
 There still remains gender differences in subject
choices, especially in H.E.
 Working class girls are still following traditional
gender routes - leave school at 16, temporary
jobs, marriage, motherhood.

36. Education (continued)
 The hidden curriculum, through teacher
expectations, may be resulting in working-class
boys following traditional gender routes into
manual jobs. Controlling masculine behaviour
may become more important than ensuring boys
receive a good education.
 Young males may reject academic work
because of equating learning with femininity.

37. TASK: EDUCATION AND
GENDER ROLE
SOCIALISATION
 Find the following studies and note down
their evidence:
 Sue Sharpe (1976;1994)
 Michelle Stanworth (1983)
 Dale Spender (1983)
 Lobban (1974)
 Thomas (1990)
 Christine Skelton (2002)

38. Gender role Socialisation
The Peer Group
 Working class boys may reject the goals
of schooling and set up anti-school
subcultures (Paul Willis);
 Mac An Ghaill - such subcultures may be
a reaction to a ‘crisis in masculinity’, as
working-class boys learn that traditional
working-class jobs and roles such as
breadwinner and head of household are in
decline;

39. The Peer Group (continued)
 Membership of deviant subcultures may confer
status on boys for exaggerating masculine
values and norms while negatively sanctioning
behaviour defined as feminine.
 There is an assumption that men and women
have different sexual personalities. If women
behave in a similar way to men, they will be
labelled and will ‘develop a reputation’ (Sue
Lees)

40. Gender role socialisation
The Mass Media
 Feminists are critical of a range of mass
media that socialise females into either
domestic or sexualised patterns of
femininity:
 Popular literature, especially fairy tales
and children’s stories, portray females as
the weaker sex and males as heroes;
 Children’s books portray traditional gender
roles;

41. The Mass Media (continued)
 Magazines for teenage adolescents encourage
them to concentrate on appearance and
romance rather than on education and careers;
 Women’s magazine’s are apprentice manuals
for motherhood and domesticity;
 Adverts continue to show women
disproportionately in domestic roles and
emphasise their physical looks and sex appeal
at the expense of ability and personality;

42. The Mass Media (continued)
 ‘New lads’ magazines and pornography
assert a very traditional view of
masculinity organised around interpreting
women as sexual objects, sport and
drinking culture.

43. TASK: THE MASS MEDIA
AND GENDER ROLE
SOCIALISATION
 Find the following studies and note down
their evidence:
 Gay Tuchman (1981)
 Angela McRobbie (1982)
 Marjorie Ferguson (1983)

44. Quiz
 What does the biological determinism theory suggest
about gender?
 What is social constructionism?
 What does the above approach suggest about gender
roles?
 Who did Margaret Mead study in 1935?
 What is gender role socialisation?
 What does Goldberg suggest about something being
inbuilt in males?
 What does consensus theory suggest about gender
roles?