short essay 3

Gender and Sexuality

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Angela Barian

Todd Schoepflin, Niagara University

Gender and Sexuality

A N G E L A B A R I A N

T O D D S C H O E P F L I N , N I A G A R A U N I V E R S I T Y

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER

Nat ure, nurt ure, n ei t her?

Soci al construct i on of g ender

Int ersect i onal perspecti ves of g ender

INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESS

Fem i ni sm

Inst i t ut i onal i nequal it y

G ender and v i ol ence

SEXUALITIES

The creat i on of s exual it y

Int ersect i onal sexual it i es

The s oci al cont rol of sexual it y

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INTRODUCTION

In 2013, retired Army veteran Jamie Shupe changed their legal identity from male to female (Shupe's

preferred pronouns are their and they). Assigned male at birth, Shupe remembers their mother slapping them

as a child for being “a sissy.”1 Shupe was a married father when they decided they’d had enough: “I was in a

deep, dark depression because I had boxed myself into this male identity that I couldn't stand anymore.”2

Shupe started taking hormones and for a while lived as a transgender woman. Transgender refers to people

whose gender identity and expression are different from what they were assigned at birth.3 But they didn’t

feel “fully female” either.4 So in 2016, Jamie Shupe petitioned to be the first person in the history of the

United States to be legally recognized as non-binary (that is, not exclusively masculine or feminine). They

won. Following that decision, Shupe’s home state of Oregon became the first state to officially offer gender-

neutral driver’s licenses. As of July 2017, residents can have an “X” in the gender box on their state-issued

ID.5 In court, Shupe said, “I can’t divorce my male side with my female side. And you’re just going to have

to acknowledge that sex and gender is a spectrum, not two poles.”6

While societies have always seen gender expressions that move beyond the male-female binary, a

recent Time article notes that this gender flexibility has moved from being marginalized to being more

widely accepted.7 A survey from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reports that

“20% of millennials identify as something other than strictly straight and cisgender (someone whose gender

is in line with the sex they were assigned at birth).”8 This is compared to just 7% of baby boomers, the

generation born between 1946 and 1964. Social understandings of gender and sexuality continue to evolve in

ways that have profound effects on our daily lives.

You could make a case that gender is the primary way people organize the social world. Before birth,

parents prepare nurseries in pink or blue and use social media for elaborate reveals of whether the baby will

be a boy or a girl. Elementary school teachers use gender to line students up and pit them against each other

in competitions. Kids are teased by each other and even adults with a song that contains a gender-based

script about marriage, family, and sexual orientation: “Rob and Mary sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First

comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.” Fast-forward to high school, where

prom kings and queens are crowned; then to a baby shower, a space usually reserved for women, although

occasionally a couple allows men and women to attend in a “Jack and Jill” format. Gender matters before the

cradle and all the way to the grave.

In this chapter, we have two goals. First, we provide you with a sociological lens on gender and

sexuality. We consider how, despite being firmly rooted in minds and bodies, gender and sexuality are also

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profoundly social. Second, we explore how gender and sexuality intersect with other social relations to

create a multitude of experiences and unequal interactions and institutions.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF GENDER

 What is sex? What is gender?

 What does it mean for gender to be a social construction?

 How do diverse bodies, identities, and expressions complicate social constructions of both gender and

sex?

Nat ure, nurt ure, n ei t her?

In 2009, runner Caster Semenya won a gold medal in the women’s 800-meter race at the World

Championships. Semenya smashed the previous African record and improved her own personal best by eight

seconds in eight months, an almost unheard-of feat.9 But there were whispers: Semenya’s time was too fast.

And just look at her, one of the other athletes said. The track & field governing body expressed suspicion

about whether she qualified to run with women. Later that year, Caster Semenya went through “gender

verification testing.”10 The purpose of the testing, said officials, was to determine if Semenya is “really” a

woman. For almost a year, she was unable to compete while tests were administered and analyzed. While the

results of the so-called gender test were never revealed, Semenya was cleared to compete with other women.

She later won a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics. But why was her case so difficult? Why did it take so

long for the committee to affirm that, as she and her father maintained all along, she’s a woman? Let’s

consider some sociological concepts of gender

before returning to Caster Semenya.

We can start with a comment made by a

student in one of our classes: “You are what your

birth certificate says you are.” In the student’s

eyes, you’re either male or female, just as a birth

certificate indicates. End of story. But it’s not so

simple. The certificate tells us a biological fact. It

tells us nothing about society. Sex refers to the

different biological and physiological

characteristics of males and females, such as Sociologists focus on the way the social environment shapes gender. (Source)

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reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormones. Gender refers to the socially-constructed characteristics

of women and men – such as norms, roles, and relationships among and between groups of women and

men.11

You may be familiar with the terms nature and nurture, with nature referring to biological

influences and nurture referring to social ones. Both are crucial to understanding sex and gender, but the

sociological perspective focuses on how the social world impacts our gender development. In Biology 101,

you may spend a lot of time talking about the role that genes play in influencing our appearance or our

behavior. But in sociology, we devote much of our attention to how the social environment shapes every

aspect of us – including its impact on our genes and how they function.

Think of the phrase “boys will be boys.” The expression suggests that certain behaviors are

inevitable for boys. But it doesn’t account for how the traits we attribute to boys are learned. Through

socialization, we learn about gender from family, peers, teachers, coaches, and other influential people in

our lives. We also learn gender messages from media; commercials, TV shows, movies, songs, video games,

internet memes, and magazines all have something to say about gender.

Consider the link between girls and the color pink. We aren’t born with color preferences, we learn

them. Believe it or not, in the early 1900s, pink was considered a boy’s color and blue a girl’s color. It wasn’t

until the 1940s that the colors became gender-coded in the way we know them today.12 We now take the

color scheme for granted because it’s in the fabric of society. Browse the toy aisles at Target and Wal-Mart

and you’ll see pink products marketed toward girls. Pink is a primary Victoria’s Secret color. You can buy a

pink and black Muddy Girl Compact Bolt-Action Rifle at Cabela’s. Meanwhile, clothes, bikes, and toys for

boys are awash in blue and gray. People have choices in what they buy, of course, and many of us stray from

the color norms, but the notion of boy colors and girl colors remains entrenched in American society.

Let’s think about the Caster Semenya case again.

Her situation reveals a lot about social expectations about

“what it means” to be a man or a woman: what you’re

supposed to look like, how you’re supposed to sound, how

strong you are, how emotional you are, what your interests

are. These are gender norms, or social definitions of

behavior assigned to particular sex categories. While gender

norms can and do change through time, place, and context,

the thing they have in common is that they are socially-

determined and socially-enforced. Most of us are treated

according to how we’re perceived. And these gender

perceptions are generally assumed to match our biological

sex.

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But perceptions can be deceiving. The Intersex Society of North America notes, “If you ask experts at

medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably

atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex

differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1

in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births.”13 And genitals are only one of many ways that we determine sex differences. In

Semenya’s case, though her test results weren’t revealed, there is speculation that she had higher levels of

testosterone, a hormone associated with muscular size and strength, aggression, and other traits, than most

women. Do you know your testosterone level? Most people don’t, and so wouldn’t know if they have

unusually high or low levels. Below is a table of the frequency of variations in sexual development. To put

the stats in perspective, consider that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is estimated to occur in 0.2 to 1.5 infants for

every 1,000 live births in certain areas of the United States;14 about one in 3,500 babies is born with cystic

fibrosis;15about one in 1,574 babies is born with a cleft palate without a cleft lip;16 and Down Syndrome is

estimated to occur in about one in every 700 births. The point? Intersex conditions are relatively rare – but

not as rare as we think they are.

Table 1: Frequencies of Sex Variations, by Number of Births17

Sex Variation Frequency

Not XX and not XY One in 1,666 births

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome One in 13,000 births

Gonadal dysgenesis (abnormal growth or

development)

One in 150,000 births

Vaginal agenesis (lack of development) One in 6,000 births

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia One in 13,000 births

Klinefelter Syndrome One in 1,000 births

Ovotestes One in 83,000 births

Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) One in 110,000 births

For Caster Semenya, social assumptions had severe consequences – she was unable to participate in

her sport for nearly a year. But there are everyday expectations for all of us, even if our identity matches

what society assumes about us.

The soci al construct i on of g ender

Caster Semenya. Source: Wikimedia Commons

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As the Semenya example illustrates, what is considered gender-appropriate is determined

collectively. In the language of sociology, we say that these notions are socially constructed. The social

construction of gender refers to how meanings of gender are created through social interaction and social

norms. Teaching, learning, performing, and policing gender behavior in light of expectations of appropriate

conduct are also part of the ongoing process of social construction. Giving a name to a baby is one way a sex

category becomes a gender status, and babies and children are then treated according to that gender status.

When children learn to talk, they refer to themselves by their gender. This is all part of the social

construction of gender.18

Here’s another example: have you ever heard someone speak and noticed that the person raises his or

her voice at the end of each sentence, making everything sound as if it were a question? Linguists call this

high-rising terminal; you may know it as “uptalk.” What about ending sentences with words spoken in a low,

almost croaky tone? That’s referred to as vocal fry. And if modern linguistic research is any indication, you

probably associate both vocal fry and uptalking with women, particularly young women.

These speech patterns have social consequences. People who use vocal fry are seen as less

trustworthy, less competent, and less educated than those who don’t, and their prospects for landing a job can

be affected by the way they talk.19 People who use both vocal fry and uptalking are even more disadvantaged

due to stereotypes about the kind of people who use them.

This is an example of the social construction of gender, or the ways in which we create gendered

meaning through (in this case, literal) communication. Research shows that both men and women use uptalk

often, and there’s no evidence that women use vocal fry any more than men do. 20 But what matters is that

these ways of speaking are associated with women. The social construction of gender implies that these

vocal techniques have gendered meaning attached to them. Men talk like this; women talk like that. Whether

this and that are actually different in the overall population isn’t what matters; the important thing is that

vocal fry and uptalking are associated with women, affecting the way women and men who use these

techniques are perceived.

The example of speech patterns suggests that we shouldn’t think of gender as something that we are

(male or female). Instead, think of gender as something that we do, every single day. We do gender in the

way we talk, gesture, dress, and sit. Look at Instagram and see if you observe men and women posing in

different ways. Remember when the duckface selfie was popular? Girls and women more often used it. And

maybe you notice that a common pose for men in pictures is to cross their arms. As you go about your day,

look at how men and women take up space. You might see men with their legs extended from a couch or

chair, while women may sit in ways that make their bodies take up less space.21

Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed the idea that we do gender. They suggested that we

perform actions that produce gender; we do gender in interactions with others, and we take into consideration

what is believed to be appropriate for our gender.22

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West and Zimmerman understood that we do gender knowing that we will be judged by others; we

are held accountable for our gender performances. A girl might be reprimanded for not crossing her legs

when wearing a dress. “That’s not ladylike,” a parent might say. Men are encouraged by their peers to “man

up” if they haven’t followed norms of masculinity. A boy who shows interest in a Barbie might be told

“Boys don’t play with dolls!” We’re evaluated for our gender behavior. In her research at a high school, C.J.

Pascoe found that boys frequently called each other “faggot” as a way of policing each other’s masculinity.23

If boys engaged in behavior that wasn’t regarded as masculine at this high school – dancing, caring about

clothing, being emotional – the insult was used against them.

Sociologists, then, don’t view gender as an innate, biologically-determined characteristic. We focus

on gender as socially and culturally influenced and as subject to change. Gender isn’t a fact, says Judith

Butler, author of Gender Trouble. Gender is produced. Think of gender as an unspoken agreement to

perform gender in socially acceptable ways, and our performances are so believable that gender behavior

appears to be natural. The way we act sustains and reinforces the ideas we have created about gender.24 Stray

too far outside the lines and you risk being ostracized. We have words for those who perform gender out of

line with our expectations. Think of the dweeb, the wimp, the dork. Perhaps you picture a skinny, awkward

guy who isn’t cool, who dresses and walks in ways that make him stand out and invite ridicule. We have

more words for people who are thought to be doing masculinity wrong: douchebag, dick, prick, pussy,

asshole. These may be used as general insults, but often they’re applied specifically to men as gender insults.

A Google Image search for “masculine man.”

In contrast, a muscular, self-assured man may find himself being praised by others. But is this always

the case? Does a man have to look and act like Channing Tatum or Taye Diggs to be considered masculine?

Not always. A guy may find other types of masculinity that work for him, such as the class clown who gets

by on his comedic skills. Nerds aren’t normally celebrated as models of masculinity, but it helps to invent

something and become a billionaire, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Celebrities are more likely to

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stretch the boundaries of gender, perhaps because they feel more freedom to express gender with less fear of

backlash. For example, the musician Young Thug wore a long ruffled dress for the cover art of his album No,

My Name Is Jeffery. He also modeled women’s clothing for a Calvin Klein campaign, saying: "In my world,

of course, it don't matter, you know, you could be a gangster with a dress or you could be a gangster with

baggy pants. I feel like there’s no such thing as gender.”25 While we disagree with his assertion there’s no

such thing as gender, he certainly resists gendered clothing norms. Another example is Jaden Smith, who

frequently dresses in ways that don’t conform with gender norms. Talking about his fashion choices, Smith

said: “So, you know, in five years when a kid goes to school wearing a skirt, he won’t get beat up and kids

won’t get mad at him.”26 These are examples of widening the ideas of what Black masculinity is, says writer

Mikelle Street.27

Widening the boundaries of gender is one way of challenging the gender binary, the classification

system that allows for only two separate gender categories. The gender binary is just one of many gender

systems, and there’s ample evidence that even within this strict binary system, there has always been some

room for change, growth, and flexibility. Gender terms change over time to represent different ways of doing

gender: girly-girl, tomboy, emo, metrosexual. Within show business, we have particularly seen and

welcomed non-conforming expressions of gender and sexuality. Artists like David Bowie wore makeup and

dresses and wore an androgynous style, incorporating both feminine and masculine characteristics. In 1984,

Prince’s song “I Would Die 4 U” proclaimed, “I’m not a woman; I’m not a man. I am something that you’ll

never understand.” In 1981, his “Controversy” lyrics asked, “Am I Black or White? Am I straight or gay?”

Can you think of current examples of non-binary gender expression?

David Bowie. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Let’s return to the student who asserted that gender is what your birth certificate says you are. For

this student, gender is fixed, and gender is binary; you are either a man or a woman. The reality is that people

experience gender in complex, nuanced ways. For example, Mack Beggs is a transgender wrestler who won

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the Texas state high school girls’ wrestling championship in 2017. Although he identifies as male and wants

to wrestle boys, he competes against girls because Texas law requires students to wrestle in accordance with

the gender listed on birth certificates. He has endured slurs and insults, including being called “fag” and “it.”

When he was younger, Mack struggled with suicidal thoughts and engaged in self-harm. Reflecting back to

when he was younger, Mack says: “I was angry as in why I got made like this. Why do I have to feel this

way? I couldn’t figure out my identity.” His mother has been supportive: “I knew that something was

different when he was five he had asked why God gave him girl parts instead of boy parts,” she explained in

an interview.28 That Mack was legally required to wrestle opponents based on his birth gender illustrates the

power of the gender binary system. However, his desire to wrestle opponents based on his identity (and his

family’s acceptance of him) represents a shift away from the gender binary.

Institutions and organizations are also acknowledging that not everyone fits into a strict gender

binary. Originally, Facebook had only two options for gender: male or female. In 2014, it expanded the

gender options to 58 different labels,29 including transgender and cisgender, the broad classifiers “neither,”

“other,” and “non-binary,” and many more specific ones (for definitions of each, look at this explainer from

The Daily Beast). By 2015, Facebook opened up the list even more. The company’s diversity page states,

“Now, if you do not identify with the pre-populated list of gender identities, you are able to add your own.

As before, you can add up to ten gender terms and also have the ability to control the audience with whom

you would like to share your custom gender. We recognize that some people face challenges sharing their

true gender identity with others, and this setting gives people the ability to express themselves in an authentic

way.”30

Int ersect i onal perspecti ves on gender

When actress Patricia Arquette won the Best Actress Oscar in 2015, she used her time on the podium

and backstage to highlight the wage gap between men and women, even in Hollywood. Arquette’s

statements became controversial, however, because of the way she talked about various marginalized groups

in America. She said:

It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make.

The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. It’s

inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries

and we don’t…. It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the

gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.31

Her comments seem like the type of earnest expression that would garner praise from the audience, so why

were they controversial? As feminist author Amanda Marcotte noted, “gay people and all the people of

color” are categories that also include women.

Arquette’s words suggested that all women find themselves in the same position. A different

perspective, called intersectionality, refers to the ways in which different types of social relations are linked

together in complex ways, creating very different experiences for different groups of people. Developed by

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legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality argues that gender, race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality,

geography, and other characteristics intersect and interact to shape individual experience.32 In practical

terms, this means gender can never be examined or understood in a vacuum. We always have other identities,

interactions, and relations that affect who we are and how we experience the world.

When it comes to the intersection of race

and masculinity, for example, certain ideas and

images are so common we don’t have to think

twice about them. As Mark Anthony Neal says,

“The example I always use is if we see a Black

man with a basketball, we don't even have to

process that. We’ve seen it so many times in our

lives, we know exactly what that means.” In

contrast, the sight of a Black man with a violin

would give us pause and lead to questions: How

did he get the violin? Does he know how to play

it? His point is that some images and definitions

of Black masculinity are easily defined, while

others are not immediately grasped.33

Consider Barack Obama’s relatively quick rise to become America’s first Black president. To do so,

he had to make America comfortable with the idea of a Black man being president. Part of what made that

possible, Neal argues, is that Obama represented an exceptional Black man who stood in contrast to

longstanding stereotypes of African-American

men as lazy and irresponsible. He describes

Obama’s performance of masculinity as nearly flawless. The only stronger performance of a Black man as

commander-in-chief we might imagine is Will Smith portraying an American president in a blockbuster

movie.34

Sociological research also shows how femininity intersects with ethnicity, religion, and nationality.

In “We Don’t Sleep Around Like White Girls Do,” sociologist Yen Le Espiritu examines how immigrant

families from the Philippines “claim through gender the power denied them by racism.”35 Espiritu’s Filipino

subjects rarely identified themselves as Americans because they equated American-ness with Whiteness.

Feeling marginalized and not fully American, they noted differences in gender norms between cultures. They

argued that Americans – especially American women – lack sexual morality: “In America… sex is

nothing.”36 The “ideal Filipina” was constructed to be “everything American women were not: she is

sexually modest and dedicated to her family; they are sexually promiscuous and uncaring.”37 This created a

lot of restrictions on and expectations about young Filipina-American women, who struggled between their

parents’ ways and American ways. (Of course, restrictions on and expectations for young women’s sexuality

is not restricted to Filipino families; research on the topic spans the globe, through many generations.) These

families held up these gender norms as a means to regain the power they’d been denied because of their race.

Kimberlè Crenshaw developed the idea of intersectionality.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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The young women were expected to uphold the image of a “good Filipino girl.” In doing this, the young

women weren’t only keepers of the home; they were protectors of cultural authenticity. They were expected

to maintain gendered norms and ethnocultural ones (ethnocultural refers to cultural influences of the ethnic

groups to which we belong).

Espiritu’s work is a great example of an intersectional lens on gender. To understand people’s

experiences, we can’t separate out gender relations and remove race or ethnicity from the equation. We can’t

eliminate the generational divide between immigrant parents and their American-born children, or forget to

account for geography, language, or time period. All of these factors together intersect to create our everyday

gendered reality. The same is true for you, whatever your story.

President Obama with a staff member’s daughter in the White House. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Review Sheet: Sociological perspectives of gender

Key Points

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• The sociological perspective focuses on how the social world impacts our gender

development. Gender is learned from family, peers, teachers, media, and other sources in

our environment.

• Meanings of gender are created through social interaction. We socially construct ideas

about appropriate gender behaviors. We’re held accountable for our gender conduct and

are at risk of judgment if we challenge gender norms.

• Gender is socially and culturally influenced and is subject to change.

• Gender can’t be understood in isolation from our other identities and social relations. We

must consider how gender intersects and interacts with race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality,

geography, etc. to shape our experiences and treatment in society.

Key People

• Candace West & Don Zimmerman

• Judith Butler

• CJ Pascoe

• Judith Lorber

• Kimberlè Crenshaw

• Mark Anthony Neal

• Yen Le Espiritu

Key Terms

• Transgender – People whose gender identity and expression are different from what

they were assigned at birth.

• Cisgender – Someone whose gender is in line with the sex they were assigned at birth.

• Gender – Socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles,

and relationships of and between groups of women and men.

• Socialization – Ongoing social process whereby we learn social norms.

• Gender norms – Social definitions of behavior that society assigns to particular sex

categories.

• Social construction of gender – Process whereby meanings of gender are created

through social interaction and social norms.

• Doing gender – Our activity that produces gender, in interaction with others and with

consideration of what is thought to be appropriate for our gender category.

• Gender binary – System that allows only two gender categories.

• Androgynous – Incorporating both feminine and masculine characteristics.

• Intersectionality – Social theory that examines how social relations are inextricably

linked.

• Ethnocultural – Cultural influences of the ethnic groups to which we belong that affect

our behavior.

INEQUALITIES AND PROGRESS

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 What are examples of feminist principles? What is intersectional feminism?

 How is inequality entrenched in social institutions like the workplace?

 What progress has been made toward gender equality? What else can we do?

Fem i ni sm

We’ve discussed how gender is a social construction that

may change over time or context. Because gender divides people

into categories, people who fall into those categories can

experience the world differently, with tangible consequences for

their lives and life chances.

The most notable consequence is persistent gender

inequality, where individuals or groups are treated and perceived

differently based upon their gender. Because of persistent

inequality in social, political, economic, and interpersonal status,

feminism has a long history. Feminism is usually used in the

singular form, but it refers to a collection of movements that

advocate for equality for all sexes and genders. In the U.S., these

movements stem from a broad coalition of women who fought for

the right to vote, receive an education, have custody of their

children, own property, get married and divorced when they

wished, and have the same career choices as men. Today there are multiple feminisms, and people of all

genders call themselves feminist.

The term also often comes with negative associations. In Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay recalls an

argument with a man she was dating in which he said to her, “Don’t raise your voice to me,” before

continuing by giving his opinion about how women should talk to men. This confused Gay because she

hadn’t raised her voice, nor had anyone said something like that to her before. The man concluded by asking,

“You’re some kind of feminist, aren’t you?”

His “accusation” reflects the stereotypical idea that feminists are simply angry women, rather than

passionate individuals or activists who are concerned with achieving equality between all genders. Some

fundamental feminist principles are equal pay for equal work, reproductive freedom, reducing all forms of

harassment and violence against women, and improving the treatment and status of women throughout the

world.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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But these principles don’t encompass all of feminism. Intersectional feminists like bell hooks remind

us that we can’t divorce gender from other social relations. In her book Feminist Theory: From Margin to

Center, hooks is critical of feminist ideas that became

popular in the 1960s, such as the work of Betty

Friedan.38 Friedan spoke of “the problem that has no

name” in her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique.39 The

problem was being dissatisfied with the life of a stay-

at-home wife. There was a yearning for something

more, a longing to have a career. But this feminism

focused on White women of the middle and upper

classes. As hooks pointed out, it ignored poor White

women and women who weren’t White; these women

often had to work to help support the family, even if

they would have loved the opportunity to stay home with their children. Middle-class and upper-class women

have more choices, advantages, and opportunities than do poor White women and women of color. And the

choices and opportunities for women of color are constrained not only by sexism but also racism.

Feminists of color note that reproductive rights in the U.S. are usually discussed in terms of being

able to prevent pregnancy. However, the U.S. also has a long history of coerced and forced sterilization and

contraception of Native American and African American women.40 Some women were sterilized without

their knowledge or consent while having other surgical procedures. These forced sterilizations were so

common, civil rights legend Fannie Lou Hamer dubbed them “Mississippi Appendectomies.”41

Another example of intersectional feminism is LGBTQ feminists noting that the discourse on coming

out typically encourages people to openly acknowledge their sexuality to spread awareness and “refuse to

hide.” But for some people coming out is not only difficult, but dangerous. Alan Pelaez Lopez explains that

some undocumented LGBTQ people feel they can’t come out – being undocumented is stressful enough on

its own. Some LGBTQ folks live in areas where they

don’t have a community they can turn to when they

feel alone. Others have families with religious or

cultural traditions that mean choosing between coming

out and having a place to live and food to eat.42 Intersectional feminism stresses the importance of taking all

social relations into consideration, so we don’t erase the full set of people’s experiences. An inclusive

feminism takes into account the needs of all women and their differences along lines of race, social class,

religion, gender expression, body type, and (dis)ability.43

Inst i t ut i onal i nequal it y

Imagine you’re in a meeting at work. You make a suggestion, but no one really responds. A few

minutes later, Sam from accounting makes the same suggestion and your boss says, “That’s a great idea.

Good work, Sam.” You begin to wonder: Did the boss like Sam’s suggestion because he phrased it better? Or

Intersectionality means that we should understand

people as more than one thing – even conflicting

things – at the same time. (Source)

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because Sam is a man and you’re a woman? Later in the meeting, someone notices the coffee pot is empty

and asks you to refill it. You wonder: Is your coworker asking you because you’re sitting close to the coffee?

Or does the person think it’s your job? At the end of the meeting, as you get up to leave, the boss tells you

that you’re doing a good job and rests his hand on your lower back as he tells the room that he’s proud of

you. Again, you wonder: Is he just being friendly? Would he make the same kind of physical contact with

Sam from accounting?

This description of a work meeting might sound far-fetched, but sociologists have documented

extensive work-based gender inequality. For women in corporate environments, it’s not uncommon to have

their authority questioned, be interrupted in meetings, face expectations that they be nice and never

complain, and experience unwanted sexual advances.

An article on gender in the technology industry, “Why Is Silicon Valley So Awful to Women?”,

described women who had dealt with all of these issues.44 Regarding the expectation to be nice and not

complain, software engineer Tracy Chou’s experience was that men who worked as engineers were not held

to the same standard; excuses were made for male engineers who were difficult co-workers. The tech

industry is male-dominated, and gender norms have been slow to change. “I am angry that things are no

better for a 22-year-old at the beginning of her career than they were for me 25 years ago when I was just

starting out,” says Bethanye Blount, one of the women mentioned in the article.

Results from a survey of 210 women in the technology industry (specifically Silicon Valley) indicate

that the experiences of the women in the article aren’t uncommon:45

• 47% of the women reported being asked to do lower-level tasks that male colleagues were not asked

to do, such as taking notes and ordering food;

• 87% experienced demeaning comments from male colleagues;

• 66% felt excluded from networking opportunities because of their gender;

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• 60% reported unwanted sexual advances (many coming from a superior).

With experiences like this, it’s not surprising that women leave the tech industry at more than twice the

rate men do. Women hold approximately 25% of computing and mathematical jobs in the U.S., and the

percentage of computer and information science majors who are women is lower now (18%) than at its peak

in 1984 (37%).46

Women are not only treated differently than men, they’re also paid less. For full-time and part-time

workers in the U.S., women earned 83% as much as men in 2015. This disparity in pay is amplified when we

consider race and ethnicity as well. White men have higher hourly wages than women of all races, but the

highest earners of all groups are Asian-American men. The wage gap has narrowed significantly in recent

decades, but some groups of women have made much more progress than others. For example, White

women earned 60 cents for every dollar earned by White men in 1980; it’s now 82 cents. In comparison,

Black women earned 56 cents for every dollar earned by White men in 1980; this has only increased to 65

cents.47

One reason for this wage gap is that many jobs in the U.S. economy are low-paying and more likely

to be held by women. The low-wage jobs that women mostly do – food preparation, restaurant servers,

cosmetology, cleaning, housekeeping, teaching assistants, child care, elderly care, home care aides, office

work, cashiers – are projected to increase. Women of color are heavily represented in these low-wage jobs.

There are fewer low-wage jobs “for men,” and they pay more. Examples include carpet installers,

construction laborers, drywall installers, janitors, painters, roofers, stock clerks, taxi drivers, butchers, head

cooks, equipment cleaners, maintenance workers, and security guards.48

The tech industry is male-dominated, which can present challenges for women. (Source)

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Figure 1: Ratio of Women’s to Men’s Earnings, 1980-2009

(Source: Wikipedia Commons)

As Jessica Schieder and Elise Gould point out, the sorting of men and women into different

occupations is partly shaped by discrimination and social norms. Ideas and expectations about what

constitutes “men's work” and “women's work” impact our choices to pursue particular careers. Family

members, peers, and mentors encourage or discourage our job interests. And when women enter a profession

in greater numbers, the pay in that field tends to decline; when greater numbers of men enter a profession,

wages go up. For example, computer programming, a set of jobs initially held primarily by women, became

more lucrative as it became more male-dominated.49

Figure 2: Mothers’ Earnings Compared to Fathers’ Earnings, by State

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Sociologists’ work shows us that inequalities are more complicated than we often assume. Take the

motherhood penalty, the systematic disadvantages in wages, benefits, and other career factors that are

associated with motherhood. Studies of mothers who work show that the costs of raising a child are

disproportionately felt by women.50 Michelle Budig and Paula England showed that the wage penalty

increases with the number of children, with a 7% wage penalty per child.51 Further, Shelley J. Correll,

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Stephen Benard, and In Paik’s work shows that not only were mothers perceived as less competent at their

jobs, but fathers were sometimes seen as more competent. Fathers’ paychecks sometimes even increased

from being a parent. This benefit in wages and perceived competence is called the fatherhood bonus. Check

Figure 2: there isn’t a single state where mothers, on average, make as much as fathers.52

Class interacts with the motherhood penalty and fatherhood bonus. The bias is strongest at the

extremes. High-income men enjoy the biggest wage bump, while poor women suffer the biggest penalty. In

other words, as Michelle Budig puts it, “[f]amilies with lower resources are bearing more of the economic

costs of raising kids.”53

Race matters, too. Rebecca Glauber’s research suggests that for married White and Latino men,

having a child is associated with increased wages. But married Black men get a smaller fatherhood bonus, on

average, than White and Latino men do.54 Glauber also found no motherhood wage penalty for Hispanic

women, and a wage penalty for Black women only after they have at least two children. However, all White

mothers experienced a wage penalty. One reason for these racial differences might be that motherhood and

work haven’t historically been separate in Black and Hispanic families, which might increase overall

motivation to work. Glauber also suggests that there might be a “floor” to the motherhood wage penalty.

That is, African-American and Hispanic/Latino women already earn less than White women; there may not

be much room for their wages to fall even more.55 Overall, Glauber’s work indicates that race and gender

intersect with workplace experiences to create and support gendered inequalities.

There are indicators of American women's progress. For instance, women are more likely to enroll in

college than men are.56 Women now graduate from college at higher rates than men and are more likely to

attend graduate school.57 But despite this progress, gender inequality persists in our institutions, and perhaps

nowhere is this clearer than in politics.

On June 7, 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech after ending her campaign for the

Democratic presidential nomination. She endorsed her competitor, then-Senator Barack Obama. The theme

of equality was a key component of her speech. The most memorable part involved her vision of the future:

As we gather here today in this historic, magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this

Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a

woman into the White House. Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass

ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it…and the light is shining

through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path

will be a little easier next time.58

The glass ceiling is a metaphor to describe barriers that women face in the workplace that prevent

them from reaching higher positions. The phrase reportedly originated in 1979 from a conversation between

two women who worked for Hewlett-Packard. One of those women, Katherine Lawrence, recalled a

presentation she gave that year about corporate culture: "I presented the concept of how in corporate

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America, the official policy is one way—the sky's the limit—but in actuality, the sky had a glass ceiling for

women.”59

The term became popular after it was used in a 1986 special report in the Wall Street Journal that

focused on obstacles women encountered in corporate America.60 The report mentioned several problems:

being excluded from an important meeting or informal networking session that takes place between men on a

golf course, not being offered an executive position even after a series of promotions, blatant stereotypes

about women being unfit for management, and assumptions that women would prioritize family over career.

Clinton came close again to breaking through the glass ceiling when most polls indicated she was

going to beat Donald Trump in the 2016 election to become the first female president of the United States.

Love him or hate him, let this sink in: Trump won the presidency despite it coming to light that he said that

fame enabled him to treat women any way he wanted. In 2005, when he was nearly 60 years old, he was

recorded saying: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful…I just start kissing them. It’s like a

magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…

Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Trump released a statement describing his words as locker-

room banter, saying “I apologize if anyone was offended.”61

Put all of your powers of imagination to use for a moment to consider how the American public

would have reacted had Hillary Clinton been recording saying “You know I’m automatically

attracted to handsome…I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when

you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab them by the dick. You can do anything.” We

write this not for shock value, but rather to seriously contemplate how voters would react to a woman saying

this. This thought exercise reveals just how salient gender relations are in our political system.

Raw statistics reinforce the point. At the state

level, just 39 women have served as governors in the

United States. In 2011, Nikki Haley and Susana

Martinez became the first women of color to serve as

governors.62 There hasn’t yet been an African

American woman governor.

A strong presence on the Supreme Court is an

indicator of impressive progress for women in

America. Three of the 9 current Supreme Court

justices are women: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia

Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor is the first

Latina to serve on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman – and only the second woman

ever – to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Yet even on the most prestigious court in the nation, women are

treated differently. A recent examination of transcripts of oral arguments before the Court showed that male

justices interrupt the female justices nearly three times as often as they interrupt other male judges.63

Former South Carolina governor and UN Ambassador

Nikki Haley. (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

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Social inequalities also affect our bodies. Take the example of life expectancy: there are well-

documented differences by gender and race. First, women overall live longer than men. And second, Whites

live longer than Blacks or Latinos.64

Think about Figure 3. On many measures, women in the U.S. and elsewhere experience social

inequalities. Women have higher rates of chronic disease, as well as higher rates of depression and anxiety.65

And they’re more likely to be victims of violence.66 Women also generally earn less than men. So if women

are systematically socially disadvantaged in multiple ways, why do they live longer than men? This is

simplifying things a bit; if you look at the graph, you can see that Hispanic men have a longer life

expectancy than Black women. But in general, women live longer than men. Why?

Figure 3: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Hispanic Origin, Race, and Sex, 2006–201267

(Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Vital Statistics Reports)

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), there may be multiple reasons. First, there could

be sex-based biological reasons. For example, women’s higher levels of estrogen may protect them against

high cholesterol; men’s higher rates of testosterone may leave them vulnerable to cholesterol-related

disease.68 But WEF also notes that women tend to be more “health-aware”; that is, women are, on average,

more in tune with physical and mental symptoms and may be more able to communicate their issues with

healthcare providers. Women are also more likely to go to the doctor when something is wrong.69 Men may

feel pressure to act in “masculine” ways, which might mean holding in problems and not reaching out for

help, trying to “tough it out.” It’s perhaps partly due to these reasons that men are also more likely to die by

suicide.70 As with all things human, gender inequality is complex and multi-faceted.

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Gender inequality, though, isn’t the result of physiology, anatomy, or hormones. It is produced,

maintained, and embedded in our institutions.71 If nature caused gender inequality, then that inequality would

be the same at all times and in all places. But it isn’t. We don’t all experience gender the same way. This is

cause for hope. If we build inequality, we can dismantle it, too.

G ender and v i ol ence

In July 2017, author and

transgender rights activist Janet Mock

appeared on The Breakfast Club, a

syndicated radio show that calls itself “the

world’s most dangerous morning show.”72

Mock, a transgender woman, went on the

show to talk about her new book. The

conversation on the show, which also

featured comedian Lil Duval and radio

personality Charlamagne Tha God, reveals

something troubling about gender and

violence:

[host] DJ Envy poses a hypothetical question to his guest about dating and sleeping with a

woman who discloses that she’s trans after four months of courtship.

“This might sound messed up and I don’t care,” Duval says. “She dying. I can’t deal with

that.”

“That’s a hate crime,” Charlamagne says. “You can’t do that.”

“You manipulated me to believe in this thing,” Duval says, before continuing, “If one did that

to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’m probably going to want to kill

them.”73

This conversation exists within a context in which violence and assault are disproportionately

experienced by transgender people. In a national study of 1,876 students in grades K-12 who identify as

transgender or gender non-conforming, respondents reported high rates of harassment (78%), physical

assault (35%), and sexual assault (12%). The harassment and violence experienced by these K-12 students

comes not only from other students but also teachers and staff.74 In fact, the Bureau of Justice Statistics

Office for Victims of Crime reports that one-half to two-thirds of trans people are sexually abused or

assaulted at some point in their lives.75 According to the Human Rights Campaign, “…it is clear that fatal

violence disproportionately affects transgender women of color, and that the intersections of racism, sexism,

homophobia, and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare, and other

necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.”76

Janet Mock. (Source)

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The statistics on gender and violence are eye-opening and disturbing. As reported by the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 1 in 5 women in the United States experiences rape or

attempted rape in her lifetime. For women reporting experiencing a rape, 40% were first victimized before

age 18, with more than 28% indicating they were first raped between the ages of 11 and 17. Other forms of

sexual violence also occur at high rates; 12.5% of women have experienced sexual coercion (verbal, non-

physical pressure that results in unwanted penetration), 27.3% have experienced unwanted sexual contact

(such as fondling), and 32.1% have experienced unwanted sexual experiences that didn’t involve physical

contact (for example, verbal harassment). 77

(Source: Provided by the authors using CDC data)

Gender is also a key factor in school shootings. When you hear the phrase “school shooting,” what

comes to mind? Maybe you think of December 14, 2012, the day 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed

twenty children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School before shooting himself. Or maybe you’re

reminded of April 16, 2007, the date of one of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history;78 23-year

old Seung-Hui Cho walked onto the Virginia Tech campus and opened fire, killing 32 people and injuring 17

before killing himself. You might even think back to April 20, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

stormed into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing twelve students and a teacher. Then they,

too, killed themselves.

Sociologist Katherine Newman argues that gender plays a significant role in these shootings. Her

data show that a complex mix of social factors, such as rigid social enforcement of masculine stereotypes and

being rejected and ridiculed by peers and desired romantic partners, contribute to boys’ feelings of

emasculation. These shooters lash out in anger and humiliation through violence, which they use to reframe

themselves as powerful and masculine.79 School shootings are overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. In fact,

there are so few cases of female mass shooters that they haven’t even been studied.80 But what does that

mean for our understandings of why violence occurs?

Feminist sociology of deviance is a diverse area, but scholars share the perspective that traditional

understandings of crime and violence are androcentric – they focus mainly on the experiences of men. As

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sociologist Sally Simpson explains, the field “…is shaped by male experiences and understandings of the

social world. Such studied realities form the core of ‘general’ theories of crime/deviance without taking

female experience, as crime participant or victim, into account.”81 So feminist work on crime and violence

attempts to include women.

For example, Meda Chesney-Lind’s work focuses on the experiences of young women. She argues

that juvenile justice systems can criminalize the survival behaviors of young women.82 Girls are more likely

than boys to suffer child sexual abuse. Chesney-Lind shows that some of the delinquent behavior common to

young girls is survival behavior associated with sexual abuse trauma, like “running away from home,

difficulties in school, truancy… early marriage,” and promiscuity.83 Ultimately, Chesney-Lind argues that a

feminist perspective on deviance provides a fuller explanation of the causes and context of delinquency.84

Did you know that one of the first modern-day school shooters was a teenage girl? On January 29,

1979, 16-year old Brenda Spencer went to Grover Cleveland Elementary School near her San Diego home

armed with a .22 rifle and shot across the street, killing the principal and the custodian. Spencer also

wounded eight children and a police officer. When the police asked Spencer why she did it, she replied, “I

don’t like Mondays.”85 In 2014, school administrators at Radnor High School in Wayne, Pennsylvania, found

a notebook from a 17-year-old girl. She wrote that she wanted to be the first female “mass” shooter. From

her notebook: “But imagine the power…The bullets leaving the gun with a loud bang, piercing kids around

me, the way they collapse, their blood splattering the floor...the screams.”86 And in March 2017, 18-year-old

Nicole Cevario was pulled out of her high school class by her father. He was worried about her strange

behavior and read her diary. In it, she revealed plans to bomb her school and shoot teachers and students.

Cevario wrote about her admiration for the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings.87 When the police

investigated, they found that Cevario had a stockpile of bomb-making materials and a gun.88 Her father

called the school in the nick of time; she was pulled out of class on March 23rd, and had planned the attack

for April 5th.

The prevailing stereotype is that school shooters are men – especially White men. But young women

are also capable of planning and carrying out violence. But when female shooters commit violence, often

these women and girls aren’t recognized as school shooters.89 Since our collective ideas about school

shooters overlooks those who aren’t White males, our models of prevention and detection might not be as

good as they could be; we risk missing important red flags for women-led mass violence.90 And that has the

potential to be devastating.

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Review Sheet: Inequalities and progress

Key Points

• Feminism is concerned with achieving equality between men and women. There are

different kinds of feminisms, and people of all genders identify as feminists.

Intersectional feminists take into account that gender can’t be separated from other social

relations.

• Gender inequality is produced, maintained, and embedded in our institutions. Sexism in

the workplace is one example.

• Women make less money than men. For full-time and part-time workers in the U.S.,

women earned 83% as much as men in 2015.

• White men have higher wages than women of any race.

• Many jobs in the U.S. economy are low-paying and more likely to be held by women.

Women of color are heavily represented in the low-wage job sector.

• The sorting of men and women into different occupations is partly shaped by

discrimination and social norms.

• Studies of mothers who work show that the costs of raising a child are disproportionately

felt by women. In no state do mothers, on average, make as much as fathers.

• There are differences in life expectancy based on gender and race. In general, women live

longer than men, and Whites live longer than Blacks or Latinos.

• Violence and assault are disproportionately experienced by transgender people.

• 1 in 5 women in the U.S. has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.

• Girls are more likely than boys to suffer child sexual abuse.

Key People

• bell hooks

• Alan Pelaez Lopez

• Judith Lorber

• Katherine Newman

• Sally Simpson

• Meda Chesney-Lind

• Jessica Schieder

• Elise Gould

• Michelle Budig

• Paula England

• Rebecca Glauber

Key Terms

• Gender inequality – Unequal treatment and perceptions of individuals or groups based

on gender.

• Feminism – Movements that advocate for equality for all sexes and genders.

• Glass ceiling – Metaphor for barriers women face in the workplace that prevent them

from reaching higher positions.

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• Androcentrism – Centering the lives and experiences of men in our worldview and

practices.

• Motherhood penalty – Systematic disadvantages in wages, benefits, and other career

factors that are associated with motherhood.

• Fatherhood bonus – Benefits in wages and perceived competence that fathers

experience in the workplace.

SEXUALITIES

 How is sexuality a social construction?

 Do our experiences of race, gender, and other social relations affect how we experience and understand

sexuality?

 How do we socially regulate sexual expression?

The creat i on of s exual it y

“I was born this way.” This is the refrain of Lady Gaga’s hugely popular 2011 hit, which asserted

that the performer’s sexuality was with her from birth. Americans sang along, but did we agree with her?

For the past 40 years, the Gallup polling organization has asked

Americans whether gay and lesbian people are “born that way” or

whether their sexual preferences are due to factors such as their

upbringing and environment. When Gallup first collected data on this

question in 1977, 13% of Americans selected “born with it” and 56%

selected “upbringing/environment” (the remaining respondents answered

“both,” “neither,” or “no opinion”). In 2016, 46% of Americans thought

gay and lesbians were born that way, while 33% selected

“upbringing/environment.” Only 12% answered “both.”91

More and more Americans agree with Lady Gaga. But are they

right? The problem with the “born this way” idea, according to

sociologist Shamus Khan, is that it overstates the significance of

biology.92 Khan doesn’t claim that biology has no influence on sexual

behavior, but argues that it’s impossible to understand our sexuality

without paying more attention to our culture. The 12% of Americans who answered “both” to the Gallup poll

question about sexuality probably got it right: sexuality is influenced by both biology and environment.

Lady Gaga. (Source: Wikimedia

Commons)

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Let’s redirect our focus to ponder other questions about sexuality: What kinds of sexual behaviors are

appropriate? Who is an acceptable sexual partner, and at what age? Is there a “right” age to have sex for the

first time? The answers to these kinds of questions are shaped by society.

Appropriate sexual behavior varies historically and culturally. Khan gives the example of pederasty,

in which adult men form sexual relationships with boys; it was practiced in ancient Greece. This seems

shocking in our society today, but sexual behaviors and expressions, like gender, change over time and are

not the same across cultures. Our understanding of sex, sexuality, and gender evolves and shifts, and will

continue to change.

Like gender, sociologists think of sexuality as a social construction. Rather than seeing sexuality as

“natural,” Ruth Hubbard encourages us to understand it as something we’re taught to express in socially

acceptable ways.93 Parents may teach their children that sex is about becoming mothers and fathers, or they

might teach their kids about “responsible” sexual conduct. But what does being sexually responsible actually

mean? We may learn that we should avoid sexually transmitted diseases, or shouldn’t get pregnant “too

young.” These ideas can be driven by religion, tradition, local culture, or practical health concerns. Our

society guides (and often limits) our ideas about sexual behavior.

During adolescence, we’re introduced to different ideas about sex from our peers. Popular culture

soaks us with images about sex and reinforces notions of what being sexy supposedly means. People who

consume pornography are presented with a set of ideas about what sexual activity looks like. All of this

information constructs our beliefs about what it means to be a sexual person in our society.

Together we construct the meaning of labels such as “gay,” “lesbian,” “homosexual,” “heterosexual,”

“bisexual,” and “pansexual,” and create distinctions between sexually acceptable and unacceptable

behaviors. Heterosexuality itself was invented, as there was a time that men and women weren’t thought to

be sexual beings, or heterosexuals. In the first half of the 1800s, sexual activity between men and women

was supposed to serve the purpose of creating children; sex was for reproduction, not pleasure. This period

was characterized by a production economy, focused on manufacturing and otherwise producing items to

sell. In this economy, the body was viewed as an instrument of work, and sex was a means for reproduction.

Erotic desire and a “healthy” interest in sex didn’t exist as we know them today. As Jonathan Ned Katz

explains, ideas of men and women as erotic beings emerged in the second half of the 1800s, as the economy

shifted to one based on consumption of goods and services.94 As a result, the body began to be seen

differently. By the late 19th century, medical professionals believed men and women naturally had a healthy

libido and sexual pleasure was considered normal, even necessary. A shift away from believing sex was

primarily for reproduction and toward viewing sex as pleasurable paralleled the economic shift from a

production-based economy to a consumer-based economy. In a consumer society, pleasure is valued. We

seek pleasure from what we buy. This value extends to our bodies; we see our bodies as avenues to

experience pleasure.

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The word “heterosexual” first

appeared in the United States in an 1892

medical article by Dr. James G. Kiernan.

But his conception of “heterosexual” was

different from how we think of it today.

Kiernan, who still viewed procreation as the

proper purpose of sex, regarded

heterosexuals as perverted because they

weren’t exclusively having sex in order to

get pregnant. He deemed their sexual

desires to be abnormal because of their

interest in sexual pleasure.95 Kiernan’s

article was also one of the earliest to use the

word “homosexual,” a group he also

believed were deviant. Whereas

heterosexuals were deviant because they

didn’t always have sex for the purpose of reproduction, Kiernan considered homosexuals deviant because

their sexual desire diverged from gender norms.

In the first section of the chapter, we explained how individuals “do gender” in everyday life. Just as

gender can be seen as a routine, daily set of activities, so can our sexual identity. For instance, we may act in

ways to deliberately project our sexual identity and let others know we are heterosexual or homosexual.

Think back to the example of Donald Trump boasting about doing whatever he wants to women. It’s

impossible to know why a prominent individual would make that statement, but one interpretation is that

bragging to another man about his behavior with women reinforced his identity as a heterosexual man.

In some cases, people deliberately distance themselves from homosexuality to cement their

heterosexual status.96 Perhaps you’ve used the phrase “no homo” or heard someone else saying it. One use of

this expression is as a follow up to a compliment that one man gives to another. After saying something nice

about what a friend is wearing, a man might immediately say “no homo” to make it clear that he has no

homosexual inclinations. The phrase serves the dual purpose of projecting heterosexuality while designating

homosexuality as a second-class status. It’s an everyday example of doing sexuality.

Int ersect i onal sexual it i es

Sara Baartman was one of the most famous women of the 1800s. At the age of 19, she signed papers

allowing herself to be taken from her home in Capetown, South Africa, to London, England, to be part of the

“human freak show circuit.”97 A member of the Khoikhoi (an indigenous group from southwestern Africa),

Baartman’s body was displayed mainly for White Europeans of the time. She did elaborate four-hour

performances where she sang and danced in multiple languages (she spoke at least four).98 Used as a symbol

of colonialism, in which one country politically and economically controls the people and resources of

Olivia Chow, a former Toronto mayoral candidate, at a Pride Parade.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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another geographic area, Baartman’s body was presented as “the quintessential Black female erotic body.”99

She was labeled as hypersexual and “exotic” and objectified to such a degree that her genitalia and buttocks

were preserved and kept on display in Paris after she died in 1816. They remained on display for more than

150 years; her body was only returned to South Africa for a proper burial in 2002. Baartman may be gone,

but the lore surrounding her life became a leading stereotype of Black female sexuality. Just as people’s

experiences of gender vary, so do experiences of sexuality.

Notions of sexuality rooted in culture have political consequences. One example is the way that

Black sexualities have been used to justify racism. The Jezebel caricature portrayed Black women as highly

sexual and “lusty.”100 Similarly, the Brute caricature portrayed Black men as savage sexual predators.101

These sexualized caricatures were used to justify slavery and later the Jim Crow system of discrimination,

which legally enforced segregation between Blacks and Whites in the southern U.S. Since Black women

were convincingly portrayed as over-sexualized and tempting, their continued rape by slave owners could be

justified.102 Once Black men were convincingly portrayed as dangerous predators, then lynching or

murdering Black men for even looking at a White woman could be justified.103 Scholars like bell hooks and

Patricia Hill Collins stress that these extremely sexualized images still exist, though in softer or subtler

forms. Modern images, instead of being mobilized to justify colonialism, are used to justify capitalism: we

use racialized bodies to sell stuff. 104

We see racialized sexual stereotypes of all sorts. Take this beer ad, for example, which plays on the

idea of Latinas as “hot.” A recent study

shows that the predominant image of

Latinas in American media is highly

sexualized, or “hot,”105 while Latino

men are overwhelmingly portrayed as

dominant and “macho.”106 Since

Latinos are the most underrepresented

group in American film, even a single

portrayal can make a big impact.107

These images and stereotypes

help rationalize and reproduce social

inequalities. Think about what

stereotypes do: they oversimplify things. They reduce the world’s complexity and make social relations more

straightforward. The trouble is, stereotypes are distorted, one-sided, and exaggerated. The more we’re

surrounded by these distorted images, the more they become part of our everyday understanding. And the

more they’re part of our landscape, the more likely we are to believe them. So breaking through harmful

social stereotypes is an important part of creating a fairer world for everyone.

(Source)

Gender and Sexuality

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The soci al cont rol of s exual it y

Puberty, the process of becoming a sexually mature individual, is a biological event. Once we go

through it, we’re theoretically capable of sexual reproduction (though sometimes not entirely). But in the

U.S., it’s now typical for people to wait to have children until years after they are biologically able to do so.

Among U.S. women who have ever had a child, their average age at first childbirth is 23; among men who

ever have children, it’s almost 26.108 And that’s only the average. We see wide variation by race, class,

education level, and region. The average age has been increasing over time, as well.

Figure 4: Average Age of First-Time Moms by Race

For good or ill, a number of demographic, economic, and cultural factors help determine when our

potential fertility is expressed. In sociological terms, we say that social and cultural institutions exert social

control over sexuality. Social control refers to the way we enforce normative behaviors through social

interaction, values and worldviews, and laws.

In the case of sexuality, institutional social control exerts itself in multiple areas of life, many of

which we don’t even realize. Consider the example of erectile dysfunction (ED), a condition in which men

have trouble achieving or maintaining a penile erection. Sounds pretty medical, doesn’t it? But scholars like

Leonore Tiefer argue that our sexuality has been medicalized, a process in which society understands or

defines a problem in medical terms. This usually means that we use medical language to describe it and rely

(Source: CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System)

Gender and Sexuality

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on medicine to treat it.109 Alcoholism, pregnancy, attention-deficit disorder, and even baldness were all

initially understood as social problems, but became understood as medical disorders.

Tiefer argues that the medicalization of ED was helpful for some men because it led to the

development and marketing of drugs that can help men get and keep a reliable erection. But medicalization

also creates problems. The medicalization of erections (or lack of them) perpetuates the idea that there is an

ideal erection that all men should have. Additionally, all the attention given to ED continues to stress

phallocentrism, or a worldview that centers the phallus (the symbolic ideal of the penis) in sexual acts and

society more broadly. The medicalization of ED draws our attention toward it, so much so that penile-vaginal

intercourse is understood as the only sex act worth our attention.110 Medicalization provide us with a

framework of medical intervention and a framework of understanding: What’s important to us? What’s

normal or abnormal? Who or what is responsible? What’s the best way to solve it? These collective

understandings are a form of social control: they enforce certain sexual behaviors and sexuality-related

worldviews.

Let’s take another example: sex education. An article about individuals’ memories of sex ed contains

the following anecdote:

…I do not remember learning much about actual “safe sex.” I do remember, however… my

teacher passing a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup around class, telling us to “do whatever we

wanted to it.” After people had licked it, thrown it on the ground, stuck their pencil into it,

etc., she claimed that “having sex with more than one person is exactly the same. No one

wants to eat this peanut butter cup, so why would someone want to have sex with you if you

have been ‘passed around.’”111

This lesson, and variations of it, are taught in schools across the United States. It raises a question: what is

the purpose of sex education? And what does it have to do with the social control of sexuality?

In abstinence-only sex education,

students are taught that abstinence is expected

of them. It has an eight-point legal definition

outlined in Section 510(b) of Title V of the

Social Security Act, but the main characteristic

is that abstinence-only education “has as its

exclusive purpose teaching the social,

psychological, and health gains to be realized

by abstaining from sexual activity.”112 Note the

word “exclusive”; these programs are

forbidden from including certain information.

For example, they are generally not allowed to

(Source)

Gender and Sexuality

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provide students with information about contraception (like condoms), other than to note failure rates.113

Comprehensive sex education generally “stresses the importance of waiting to have sex” while

offering information about how contraception works, so students can avoid unwanted pregnancies and

sexually-transmitted infections.114 Information about sexually transmitted infections is critical; in 2018, the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis had

increased for four straight years, hitting an all-time high in 2017.115 Comprehensive sex ed programs

typically include a wider variety of information for students and a range of ethical perspectives on sexuality.

In the case of abstinence-only education, we can see how social control works. An institution (the

school system) attempts to socialize a population (kids and teens) to adopt specific behaviors.

Comprehensive sex education may not stress behavioral changes up front, but it too attempts to enforce

certain behaviors, like using condoms. As Émile Durkheim taught us, this type of social control exists in

every society (though in different forms) as a way for societies to regulate themselves.116 But there are

struggles and disagreements over what or who needs controlling. Sexuality may be inextricably linked to our

bodies, but cultural factors have a lot to do with the ways in which we express that sexuality.

As we conclude this chapter, our hope is that you’ve begun to think about the ways in which gender

and sexuality are not simply unchanging facts of biology, but social relations that we actively construct,

experience, and express. Sociologist Sam Richards once said, “My students often ask me, ‘What is

sociology?’ And I tell them, ‘It's the study of the ways in which human beings are shaped by things that they

don't see’.”117 While we all experience gender and sexuality, we can’t fully understand them unless we

examine intersections between the smallest and largest aspects of social life. From our individual personal

histories to historical power relations, from everyday interactions to large-scale institutions, our job is to

study how a wide range of social forces shape us. As you continue to think about the sociology of gender and

sexuality, we hope you will keep digging to discover all those factors we don’t see.

Review Sheet: Sexualities

Key Points

• In a 2016 Gallup poll, when asked if being gay or lesbian is something a person is born

with or due to factors such as upbringing and environment, 46% answered “born with,”

33% answered “environment,” and 12% answered “both.”

• The word “heterosexual” first appeared in the U.S. in a medical journal article in 1892.

• What we deem to be sexually appropriate behavior varies historically and culturally.

Sexual behaviors and expressions change through time and aren’t exactly the same across

cultures.

• Like gender, sexuality is a social construction.

• Similar to how we can understand gender as activity that we “do” in everyday life, we

can think of sexual identity as a routine, daily accomplishment that we intentionally

perform.

Gender and Sexuality

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• Racialized sexual stereotypes perpetuate social, economic, and cultural inequalities.

• Among women who have ever had a child, the average age of first childbirth is 23 years

old in the U.S.; among men who ever have children, it’s almost 26 years old.

• Our social and cultural institutions exert social control over our sexuality.

• 2017 was the 4th consecutive year of increasing rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and

syphilis.

Key People

• Shamus Khan

• Ruth Hubbard

• Jonathan Ned Katz

• Sara Baartman

• Patricia Hill Collins

• Leonore Tiefer

Key Terms

• Jezebel caricature – Stereotypical image that portrays Black women as extremely

sexualized.

• Brute caricature – Stereotypical image that portrays Black men as savage sexual

predators, especially of White women.

• Puberty – Process of becoming sexually mature.

• Social control – The way we enforce normative behaviors through social interactions,

values and worldviews, and laws.

• Medicalized – When society understands a problem in medical terms.

• Phallocentrism – Worldview that centers the phallus in both sexual acts and society

more broadly.

• Phallus – Symbolic societal idea of the penis.

Gender and Sexuality

Page 35

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109 Conrad, Peter. 1992. Medicalization and Social Control.” Annual Review of Sociology, 18: 209-232.

110 Tiefer, Leonore. 1994. “The Medicalization of Impotence: Normalizing Phallocentrism.” Gender & Society, 8(3).

111 Gray, Emma. 2017, April 13. “Sex Ed Horror Stories: Ten Tales of Misinformation.” Huffington Post, retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/sex-ed-horror-stories-sexual-education-misinformation_n_3095039.html. Quote

from Rachel Puleo, 22.

112 Emphasis mine, https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/impacts-four-title-v-section-510-abstinence-education- programs/title-v-section-510-funding 113 Dailard C. 2002. “Abstinence Promotion and Teen Family Planning: The Misguided Drive for Equal Funding.”

Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, 5: 1–3.

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114 See https://advocatesforyouth.org/resources/fact-sheets/sexuality-education-2/ and https://www.aclu.org/other/what-research-shows-government-funded-abstinence-only-programs-dont-make- grade 115 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2018 (August 28). “New CDC Analysis Shows Steep and Sustained Increases

in STDs in Recent Years.” Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2018/press-release-2018-std-prevention-

conference.html

116 Suicide

117https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy/transcript?language=en

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