sociology 36 hours

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SOC 1020 Lecture Four

Prof. D. Fasenfest Gender is often used interchangeably with sex; however, sex is biological, and gender is both social and variable. Gender refers to the set of social expectations of behaviors associated with one’s biological state though it is not specific to that sex. Increasingly we even have begun to question the binary framing of people’s existence, questioning whether the male/female binary is valid. People can see themselves as gender fluid, pangender, transgender, androgenous, agender, queer, gay, transqueer and so on. Increasingly folks represent themselves by the pronouns they wish to be associated when referred to by others. Gender, then, is much more complicated than simple sex assignment—though we see that this has created significant political and social issues…and “gendered” framing of social roles and expectations still dominate. Clearly a woman gives birth—that is biological—but there is nothing innate about her role as primary care giver through most of a child’s life—that is gender role. Gender stratification occurs when females have different social outcomes than males. Historically, women lived in the private sphere of society, confined to the home and the social network of women. Men lived in the public sphere, out in the business world earning a living. In fact, this gender dynamic was not a problem until the industrial revolution. In the late 1800s a house could not function if one member didn’t stay home, regardless of whether you lived in a rural area and farmed or if you lived in a city and earned a living from business. Early social roles were determined by sex-based functions. Women stayed home since babies depended on breast milk to survive. There wasn’t a local market to purchase formula. Cow’s milk was a poor substitute that could kill a child before Pasteurization. You also couldn’t by bread and butter at the local corner store. The woman’s day was filled with preparing food, making clothing, overseeing the children’s safety and education, and keeping the home livable. The man’s day was filled with working outside the home. The division of labor was based in part on early biological necessity. Women, however, were viewed as property, “sold” to a man who received a dowry (and in many customs men paid a “bride price” to her father for his “loss”) and the view persisted as she became part of the man’s family (in many states into the early part of the last century a women could not own property and any inheritance she might receive was put under the control of the husband). With the industrial revolution came modern conveniences that shifted a woman’s work but it was still devalued. Instead of needing hours to beat rugs clean, a vacuum cleaner did it in minutes. Clothes were no longer washed by hand in hot water but were churned clean in a washing machine. Food preservatives made it possible to buy sliced bread and canned vegetables in a matter of moments when it had been an all day or longer job. Culture did not change quickly though, and women remained confined to the private sphere. Sexism was prevalent then and remains prevalent today. Sexism refers to the discrimination by one sex over the other. Today, women have gained ground in every occupation. In medicine for example, about 50% of medical students are female. In the 70s a woman who wanted a career in

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medicine was most likely maneuvered into nursing. Yet, women still make less in every profession. Male waiters earn more than females. Male secretaries earn more than females. Male teachers earn more than females. There are a variety of reasons for this that contribute to and exacerbate underlying sexism; gender roles for example are expected behaviors. For example, males are expected to be aggressive and assertive and get rewarded for this behavior. This means that not only is a man likely to ask for a higher salary or raise, he is more likely to get it. Females are expected to be passive and compliant. When they are not, they are sanctioned. So an assertive female is likely to get labeled a “bitch” and to be socially punished for her aggressiveness. Females are also supposed to be nurturing and emotional and men are supposed to be stoic and unemotional. What happens when someone steps outside their gender role and is androgynous (acting neither male nor female) or takes on the alternate gender role? We often question their sexuality, especially if the male takes on a traditionally the female role. Or we assume they are somehow deviant or raise questions about their sexual preferences. Most men will admit that they expect to be the primary breadwinner. A woman earning more than her spouse is considered status inconsistent. What do we think of the man who stays home and cares for the children while the wife works? Even if the wife agrees, it is likely that her family will think it odd or inappropriate. Tim Allen joked that women have all the choices in life. Get married, work full time. Get married, work part time. Get married, don’t work. Stay single, work full time. While men have two choices; work or go to jail. There is some truth to his joke. Men are expected to work and to excel professionally. Women have the “option” of working or not working…and this refers to socially acceptable choices and not to financial realities. This also perpetuates the notion that the work women do in the home, essentially unpaid work, does not really count. Sociologists often refer to the dual burden women bear: work full time and then come home to all her domestic duties like cooking and cleaning. Women are less likely to be hired and more likely to be paid less than an equally qualified male. Some explain these disparities based on a woman’s biology, not that we fail as a society to provide the necessary support for child care so that women can keep their jobs (only in recent years have laws protected a woman’s right to return to work if she gives birth, and indeed makes it illegal for women to be fired for becoming pregnant). Women have children, so they take time out of the labor force. While this may be true for many, studies that have compared and controlled for time on the job and the length of the workweek still showed that women made less money. Another reason used to justify lower pay for women is that she was earning “mad money”, in other words, her salary was extra, and she wasn’t actually supporting a family. Many countries still follow a “family wage” strategy of paying men enough to support a family while assuming women will stay home. Intersection theory argues negative social outcomes are a combination of sex, race and social class, with the poor minority female having the lowest social outcomes. In part this theory grew from the works of belle hooks who argued that feminism in the U.S. had failed poor and non- white women. Women in the middle and upper classes gained opportunity and privilege during the 60s but life for the working poor and non-white female had not changed. Sadly, the opportunities and privileges of mid- and upper-class women are tied to the status of their

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husband’s class position…a fact many women discover quickly if they are left by a spouse after many years of maintaining a home and now they are forced to seek employment and sustain themselves financially. Recently divorced women are at high risk of falling into poverty. Yet ironically and perhaps not surprisingly, women who are financially independent are more likely to leave a bad or abusive relationship since they are not economically vulnerable and dependent on a man’s earnings. Once women entered the work force the extent of sexual harassment in the workplace was more noticeable. This is the unwanted and derogatory attention an individual receives due to their sex. The kind of demands made on female workers in the early days of the industrial revolution was used as an argument why they should stay home under the “protection” of their husbands—not as the basis for calling to an end of these sorts of practices. And of course, poor and immigrant women were more vulnerable because not working was not an option if they hoped to survive. It usually refers to the demand for sexual favors for job security of promotion but can also refer to the creation of a hostile work environment. For example, a female worker in an all male office would have grounds for a sexual harassment complaint if calendars of naked women were displayed in the office, or if sexual jokes in the work place offended the women and no effort was made to curtail these actions. Employment poses two problems in regard to gender. The first is that women are generally paid less in every occupation. The second is that women often encounter a glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a metaphor for the fact that women are allowed to rise only so far on the corporate ladder. Then they encounter a glass ceiling, something that blocks their progress, but through which they can see the top where their male colleagues continue to climb. Women are less likely to become CEOs of businesses. They also are more likely to be criticized for being in over their heads if they have a problem, in comparison to men who will have their problems objectively discussed separate from their sex. In other words, if a female CEO fails at her job, it becomes a question of whether any woman would be fit for the job. When a man fails at the CEO job, it becomes a question of only his qualifications and not those of all men. Feminism is the theoretical framework that grew out of the equal rights movement. Feminism refers to the argument that humans should have equal opportunity and receive equal pay for equal work. Most, though not all of us, believe this to be true. There are a variety of feminist approaches to understanding society. Liberal feminists want to have true equality in society, where all people are equal, regardless of sex. They want to reform society without recreating society. Fix the problem. Make sure that our laws provide equal opportunity for everyone. Socialist feminists argue that patriarchy is embedded in the fabric of a capitalistic society. As long as private property is owned, women will be relegated to the house and to childcare. In a socialist community, private property would be disallowed, and households would be communal. Childcare and housework would be a shared responsibility and no longer assigned by sex. Socialist feminists favor a class revolt to overthrow capitalism and re-establish the country as a socialist society. Finally, radical feminists argue that gender discrimination is built into patriarchy through biological differences between the sexes. Meaning, as long as women get pregnant in the

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traditional way they will be bound to the home and childrearing and not be equal. In order to have gender equality, these feminists argue that we must become divorced from the notion of childbearing the way it is now and of heterosexuality as the norm of relationships. Technology could allow children to be born outside the womb. This may sound like science fiction, but in vitro fertilization was science fiction in 1970. Children could be raised in a communal setting, not within the nuclear family, as is the case now—there is nothing about a women’s sex that requires her to be the “mother”. Finally, laws could be changed to give children more rights and responsibilities, which would make them less dependent on the parents and especially the mother. In other words, we must re-conceptualize the roles and responsibilities of both men and women within both the family and the society at large if we hope to put an end to gender discrimination today. Sexuality Biological sex guides much of our social experience. While sex and gender are often used interchangeably sex refers to the biological characteristic of being either male or female. Every child is born with Primary sexual characteristics. These are the genitalia that are present at birth that identify us as either male or female. Secondary sexual characteristics are those characteristics that develop with puberty such as breasts and menstruation for females, body hair for both sexes, and a deepening of the voice for males. A very small percentage of humans are born Intersexual. These are individuals who have both male and female characteristics of birth. While much of our gender characteristics are socialized, some are biologically driven and intersexuals give us the opportunity to understand the biological links between sex and gender. In earlier generations, before we fully understood DNA typing and before we had reliable technology, when a child was born intersexual one of two things happened. If it were equally easy to assign a sex to the child, parents were given the choice of whether to have a boy or girl. The unnecessary genitalia were then surgically removed. This of course created problems for the child who was genetically male and assigned the female sex, or vice versa. Imagine a boy child being castrated and raised as female. As he aged, he would develop a deep voice and facial hair. He would not menstruate or grow breasts. The same confusion would be true of a female mistakenly classified as a male. These children, as adults, were faced with depression, social stigma and loneliness, never being fully comfortable in the body that they were medically assigned. This is far less likely to happen these days. An intersexual infant today would be genetically tested to determine biological sex before surgery. Intersexuals were formerly called Hermaphrodites, named for the god Hermaphrodites who was both male and female. Transsexuals and Transgenders are different. A transsexual is a person who undergoes sex reassignment surgery. These are individuals who believe that emotionally and mentally they are living in a body that is not the sex that they were meant to be. So they undergo a sex change operation to fix the biological error of their birth. Transgenders are males who live life as females or females who live life as males. Transgenders do not undergo a sex change operation. Transvestites are different from both. A transvestite is someone who gains pleasure from wearing clothes that are appropriate for the opposite sex. Transvestitism is a fetish while transexuality and transgendered behavior is a life choice.

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Sexual orientation refers to sexual attraction. Heterosexuality is the attraction to only the opposite sex. Homosexuality is the attraction to only the same sex. Bisexuality is the attraction to both sexes and Asexuality is no sexual attraction to either sex. The Sapir-Whorf thesis argues that we create our understanding of society through language. Given this, why do we now say sexual orientation rather than sexual preference? Sexual preference implies a choice in who we are sexually attracted to while orientation implies biological pre-determination in who we are sexually attracted to. Homophobia refers to the fear of homosexuality. Individuals that are homophobic are believed to have a deep fear that they themselves are homosexual. This fear causes them to vehemently denounce homosexuality as a sexual orientation and leads to discrimination against homosexuals. A homophobic male could not befriend a homosexual male for fear that he might be viewed as homosexual himself. The same would be true of a homophobic female in interactions with a lesbian female. Socially, we spend a lot of our energy attempting to control sexual behaviors. One of the most interesting mechanisms of social control has been the use of a double standard for males and females. Males are socially rewarded for their sexual prowess, expected to have many sexual partners before and if they settle down in a monogamous relationship. Females on the other hand are rewarded for remaining chaste until marriage. If we meet a 25-year-old male virgin, our first thought is to wonder if the man is gay, and if not gay, what is wrong with him. Men are not expected to be able to control sexual impulses. If we discover that a 25-year-old woman has had an inordinate number of sexual partners, we label her with derogatory names that are intended to denote that she is less desirable as a future partner and mother. This double standard relaxed a little in the 1960s. While we might believe that this was due to women pushing for equal rights, and in part it was, the real reason for the change in acceptable behavior was the introduction of the birth control pill. Prior to the pill, birth control methods were unreliable and/or depended on the willingness of the male partner to purchase and use them. If a woman got pregnant, she was usually dependent upon the male; there were few options for unmarried mothers in earlier society. With unequal access to education and employment, a single mother was doomed to poverty if the father refused to marry her. Few men were willing to take on the responsibility of rearing the offspring of a pre-marital affair. Girls might be sent away, and the baby put up for adoption, but they would always be stigmatized for their immoral behavior. After the pill was developed, for the first-time women had control of their own reproductive lives. Now, they could protect themselves from pregnancy without relying on a man’s willingness to wear a condom. Also, the pill was an extremely reliable method of birth control, with less than 1% of users facing an unwanted pregnancy. Women were able to relax their control and engage in premarital sex at this point without fear of ruining their future. It took a while for culture to catch up with this technology and the double standard continues. The degree of a woman’s control over her body remains a highly controversial topic. The sexual freedom of the 60s continued into the 80s, until the AIDS epidemic began. Once it became public knowledge that the disease could be passed through sexual activity (later through

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needle use and blood transfusion as well), our sexual activity began to change as we undertake less promiscuous behaviors. People in general are once again being more careful about their choices of sexual partners. The AIDS epidemic also led to an increase in homophobia in our society and to increased discrimination against gays in society. As a result, the gay community became more organized as a political group willing to fight for its rights. This was due in large part to anger at the Federal Government for ignoring the AIDS epidemic and refusing to dedicate adequate resources to research. Prominent religious leaders supported this decision not to support research, calling AIDS a judgment from God for immoral behavior. AIDS research didn’t become fully funded until after straight non-drug users became infected from the tainted blood supply. Queer theory, a conflict theory, argued that not only was society sexist, it was heterosexist or biased in the favor of straight people and especially straight males. The failure to fund a health crisis that hit the gay community especially hard was proof of the discrimination against gays in our society. We need not only focus on diseases like AIDS; medical practice is slow in understanding women’s health as well…for example only recently do doctors consider that women present heart attacks differently then men and have started treating women differently. Earlier research on this and other problems tend to be directed by our understanding of how men function and then assume women will function the same way. While the gay community has made strides in being recognized as a valid part of society, there are still inequalities in society based on sexual orientation. One aspect is the inability for gay partners to have the same legal protections as straight partners. If a gay couple has been together for 25 years and one needs to have medical treatment, the other can be, and often is, denied access to medical information. While theoretically this would also be true of a straight couple, if a man needs medical treatment and his female partner of 25 years introduces herself as his wife, she is not asked to produce a marriage license to prove this bond and she has access to the information. Also, gays are not allowed to extend their medical benefits to their partners. While many universities made same sex benefits available, after recent decisions to prohibit gay marriage, these institutions are finding their ability to continue to do so hampered. Another consequence of the AIDS epidemic is a desire to place more social control over the sexual behaviors of teens. Public schools could teach sex education, including safe sex. They were also able to distribute condoms or to have condom machines in the bathrooms. Now, any public school that teaches anything, but abstinence is not eligible for federal funding. So somehow, not teaching kids how to protect themselves from disease and unwanted pregnancy is supposed to keep them safe. It may well be that it is a parent’s responsibility to teach this information along with family values about sexuality. The reality is that many parents and teens are not comfortable dealing with this discussion and therefore only deal with it when facing the consequences. The foolishness of this focus on abstinence can be seen by looking at the experience of a HS in Texas: it has the highest rate of teen pledge signing, and yet also has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy! Abortion is a major debate in society. Abortion refers to the voluntary termination of a pregnancy. It has divided society and is one topic that most of us have very strong opinions on. Prior to Roe vs Wade, abortion was illegal in the U.S. Women have always managed to have abortions. There are herbs for example that will induce an abortion, meaning they bring about premature labor and cause the body to expel the pregnancy. Women died of illegal abortions

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because they were performed with non-sterile instruments (broken glass, knitting needles, wire hangers) in non-sterile environments. Without the benefit of adequate medical care, women died of infections or of punctured internal organs. Abortion is criticized as a means of birth control when adequate means to prevent pregnancy are available. Some believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is murder. Others believe that a fetus is not a baby until it can survive outside the womb if early labor begins. Still others believe that a fetus is not a baby until it reaches gestational maturity and is delivered normally. The abortion debate divides us and has led to violence. Some religious groups support the killing of doctors who perform abortions, comparing abortion to genocide. Some argue that access to abortion is racially biased with minority women not having access and forced to carry unwanted pregnancies, meaning that minority families will remain in poverty with too many children to support. Others argue that abortion is genocide with an attempt to abort minority children to control the non-white population. It is likely that the abortion debate will continue to be socially controversial as we all have strong and opposing viewpoints on the subject. There are other aspects of sexuality that have a social implication. Pornography for example is the media that promotes sexuality and sex acts. It is often derogatory to women and portrays them in humiliating situations. Prostitution is the trading of sex for money. With the exception of child pornography, which is generally viewed as despicable and is always illegal with tough jail sentences, pornography is legal and left to one’s own discernment about its use. Most pornography targets men and is viewed as either a harmless activity or a violation of trust a relationship, dependent upon the personal views of the men and women involved. There is an expectation that young males will view pornography as a right of passage. The jury is still out on whether or not viewing pornography increases the number of rapes in our society or if it causes males to devalue females. Prostitution is said, along with the clergy, to be one of the oldest professions and it inspires much debate. Most prostitutes, or sex workers, are female. Sex work is a relatively new term that has grown from a feminist debate on prostitution. This argument is that prostitution is an occupation that is chosen by women. Feminists who favor this argument say that women in prostitution should not be viewed as victims, but as adults that have made a conscious career choice. Others argue that women in prostitution are victimized, forced to turn over their earnings to a man who forces them to sell sex. The debate is driven by the fact that there are two levels of prostitution. Street workers are typically poor women who may have no other options open to them. Many of these women are pushed out of their homes when they are still children, running away to escape abuse, or thrown out by parents that are unable or unwilling to deal with an adolescent. They may be lured into or forced into prostitution to survive. Also, these women are more likely to have drug abuse issues. It is not known if these women turn to drugs to deal with their occupation, or if they go into prostitution to support their drug habits. The second type of sex worker is the call girl, typically high paid. She has likely decided to pursue this occupation and may have a typical lifestyle that is separate from her occupation, such as the ring of suburban housewives arrested in New Jersey. Structural functionalists argue that prostitution exists and is allowed to exist because it fills a need in society. It provides a sexual outlet for men who are not able to meet their needs in a

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socially acceptable way. Very ugly men or men who have no social skills may have trouble finding a willing sex partner that they don’t have to pay. Providing a sexual outlet through prostitution may protect women from unwanted sexual advances and rape. What, then, is at issue with sex and gender? Why do we, as a society, spend so much time and energy over how one identifies as a human being, why do many of us try to “legislate” behavior whether it is to pass laws declaring you must function based on your biological sex at birth (what reproductive organs did you have)? Why is so much attention paid on who controls your body— for example this recent return to changes in the law over abortion? And why is the focus usually on a woman’s body? After all, as one activist pointed out a man who has sex with 100 women can propagate 100 babies, a woman having sex with 100 men can only have one birth. If the concern is over the lives of the fetus shouldn’t there be as much concern and control over the behavior and responsibility of men? Clearly, these questions are not easy, and the rationales for one’s positions are not always consistent. For example, many argue that “my body my choice” explains why they should be allowed to not be inoculated against serious diseases (made more visible during the COVID epidemic but this has always been around for other diseases). Yet people don’t believe this holds true if a woman wishes to have an abortion for any number of reasons. Some argue for the sanctity of life yet press for death penalties. There are concerns for the life of the fetus as a living being, but then don’t show the same concerns for infants when they oppose childcare and maternal health programs. If we ban abortions, why don’t we also pass stricter laws requiring the biological “father” to carry the economic and social burden of caring for that child? The list is long, the answers not simple. People’s views are often driven by religious or political ideas and as a society we struggle with how to manage serious differences.