1、Introduction to Gender 2000,In the middle to late 1960s, courses explaining and developing feminist theory began to be taught on college campuses. By 1970, the phrase “Womens Studies” was applied to them.,By 1980, over twenty thousand courses were being taught in that “discipline.” Today there are p
2、rograms at all levels of studyundergraduate minor, undergraduate major, masters degree, doctorate. It even has its own association, the National Womens Studies Association, and journal.,Gender Studies,Womens Studies programs have been so successful as part of an intellectual movement that there is n
3、ow a greater awareness of the importance of gender in peoples lives.,Many school have Womens Studies and/or Gender Studies programs“Women and men are more alike than they are different. Men are not from Mars; women are not from Venuswe are all from planet Earth.” Michael S. Kimmel,History of Ideas,S
4、tudy of Women Done by Men Views Women as Objects Excluded womens opinions Saw women as different than , and usually inferior to, men,Womens Studies Done by Women and men Views women as subjects and authorities Includes womens opinions Sees women as different from men but disagrees on how different,
5、in what ways they are different, and why they are different,Psychological,Study of Women Sigmund Freud thought women believed women were vengeful, castrating, penis-envying creatures who seek domination by men,Womens Studies Karen Horney critiqued Freuds conclusions, arguing that men both fear and “
6、envy” the womb, which accounts for their “need” to dominate women,Terminology,Terms to LearnSex GenderRole StereotypeEquality PatriarchyIdeal FeminismPositionality MisogynyIdeology,Sex,For our purposes, sex will be used to indicate the biological categories within which people are typically placed,
7、or the biological difference between males and females. Sex is a physiological concept and is thought to be natural to a person; it cannot really be changed (at least not without surgery and hormone treatments, and even so, ones DNA will still hold the original unaltered code). Sex is an ascribed so
8、cial status.,Gender,Gender is the social significance of the difference in sex. Gender, according to Professor Lois Self, the Chair of the Womens Studies Department at Northern Illinois University, “is the difference the sex difference makes.” Gender is a social concept. Masculinity and femininity a
9、re the usual descriptors of gender, and they refer to a complex set of characteristics and behaviors that are prescribed for members of a particular sex category; it is an achieved social status.,Role,A role is the pattern of behaviors prescribed for and expected from a person that corresponds to th
10、eir position in society. A person may, of course, have multiple positions in society and multiple role expectations.,Stereotype,A stereotype is a composite image of characteristics and expectations pertaining to some group. This image is present in the social consciousness, but it is generally not a
11、ccurate or is skewed in one or more ways.,Equality,Equality is the condition of being alike in value, having the same potential for accomplishment, and having the same inherent worthin spite of individual differences. In other words, even though people are not the same, they can (and should) be cons
12、idered and treated as equals.,Patriarchy,Most of the societies that we know of have tended to be patriarchal. They are based upon an organizing principle that privileges the malesor the fathers, specifically, from the Latin patr? family and archs leaderover the females. In a patriarchy, power is hel
13、d by and transferred through men. This can be through educational and societal restrictions on women or by laws that favor men.,Ideal,An ideal is a concept concerning a role, a position, or a physical image that contains only the most desirable traits or behaviors. It can be a standard of judgment,
14、a goal, or both. It can contain ideas that are actually exclusive of each other, and it isas a hypothetical concept of perfectionunobtainable in reality.,Feminism,Feminism is a philosophy that holds with this ideal of equality. It is the belief that although they are different, men and women are equ
15、al. Feminism recognizes that women have been oppressed and repressed in certain societies throughout history. It also carries with it the commitment to change the attitudes and behaviors of those who do not see men and womenall people, reallyas equals. This equality should be manifested in economic,
16、 political, and social equality for both sexes.,Positionality,The concept of positionality recognizes that peoples perspectives, their perceptions of reality, and their actual realitiestheir truthsare dependent upon where they are positioned in society. In other words, it sees truth and reality as b
17、eing relative and multi-faceted.,Misogyny and Ideology,Misogyny is the hatred of or hostility toward women. In a society that subordinates women it is easy to understand that people within that society would or could hold such beliefs.In this class we will analyze cultures in order to study their id
18、eologiesthe “hidden” as well as the explicit values that societies and people holdto see what people have believed about gender and sex.,Looking Ahead: A Few Key Ideas from Kimmels “Introduction”,Gender varies cross culturally. It depends on where you are, who you are, and when you are living.“Invisibility is a privilege in another senseas a luxury. Only white people in our society have the luxury not to think about race very minute of their lives. And only men have the luxury to pretend that gender does not matter” (6).Assuming neutrality perpetuates the status quo.,
