Defining gender

Gender is
Socially constructed performance
that may/not relate to ones sexual
anatomy
Gender is a social construct that
works in a binary imagined
boundaries
Real? Imposed by society, confused
with sexuality
How an individual views themselves
Synonymous with sex

Butler
1. What does Butler believe genders to
be? Through what process do they
come into being?
2. What does she think of the concept
of primary and stable identity?
3. How do the chapters by Mills and
Rose relate to this one?
4. What makes Butler so radical? What
is her definition of gender?

Marinucci
1. What does Marinucci use Beauvoir for? What are
women if not subjects?
2. What is the distinction of sex and gender trying to
convey? Do you think it is necessary? How does this
relate to the text by Butler? Is there a clear
distinction between the biological and social?
3. What is the heterosexual matrix? What is the
hegemonic binary?
4. How does gender inform the gender binary? What is
the problem (is there one) with binary oppositions
in general?
5. What is the difference between gender-neutral and
gender-inclusive?

Gender as a term in science

Linguistics dear Sir/Madam
Thomas Laquer the emergence of two-sex
model 1750 ( true hermaphrodites,
public/private sphere)
1958 Money and the Hamptons gender
role intersexed individuals; biopower
Robert Stoller gender identity sex
biological, gender - psychological

Gender appropriated by feminists

Mid 1970s - Ann Oakley Simone de
Beauvoir one is not born a woman but
becomes one
Gender as opposed to sex:
1) socially constructed as opposed to biologically
given
2) social organization of sexual difference (gender
women)

Social construction theory social IA of

children

Jessie Bernard U Neklana

Feminist criticism of
the sex/gender binary opposition
The category of woman product and part of
social practices and power relations
Gender discursive apparatus that produces
sex as pre-discursive; construction of the
natural exempted from social critique and
changeability
natural binary sex natural binary gender
deviant feminism
Performativity of gender no fixed
subjectivity/identity productivity of discourse
performance vs. performativity

Bodies That Matter (1993) gender is a norm which

renders a subject visible, it qualifies it for a livable life

Regulatory fiction of heterosexual

coherence
Anatomical sex gender sexuality
Butch/Femme, drag expose the
displacement of the cause
Gender imitation with no original
Parody: disruptive X domesticated

If genders are fluid, what are

all the men and women still
doing here?

Interaction (rather than individual

doing/institutions)
Sex: socially agreed upon criteria for being
M/F
Sex category: assumed sex of actor
(body and behaviours socially required
identificatory displays)
Gender: omnipresent, degree of
masculinity/femininity
West and Zimmerman (1987) Doing gender

Mary Holmes
Senior lecturer at
Flinders university,
Adelaide, Australia
University of York
Womens studies
Department of
Sociology
Intimacy and
relationships, gender,
emotions, the body
and political sociology