History of Gender Idea

1
History of Gender Idea

• Gender as a concept first used by Greek Sophists
  in fifth century B.C. to describe the names of
  masculine, feminine, intermediate.
• Latin describes third category as neither
  (Lyons 1968 in Archer/Lloyd)
• Early western ideas acknowledge people who are
  neither clearly biologically male or female

2
Mid-20th Century AcademicsJohn Money

• Academic interest in hermaphroditespeople
  presenting dimorphism of biologygonadal,
  genital anomalies, fetal hormone effects,
  developmental differences
• Psychologist John Money (Johns Hopkins
  University) in 1955 argues for assigned sex
  that would make a person take on a gender
  identity. 20th century concern with fixing the
  intersexed.
• Social constructionism splits sex from gender

3
The Agnes case

• Agnes presents herself to UCLA academics in 1958
  (including sociologist Harold Garfinkel) seeking
  plastic surgery for what she defines as hormonal
  abnormalities
• Physical signs clearly show she was born and
  raised male, but she had been taking her mothers
  estrogens from the time she was 12 to make her a
  female.
• She obtained a sex change operation.
• 1968UCLA psychiatrist Robert Stoller publishes
  Sex and Gender and defines gender as a term
  with psychological or cultural rather than
  biological connotations
• Most famous transsexual of period, Christine
  Jorgenson, m to f.
• Then differentiated transsexual (gender choice)
  from intersexed (biological hermaphrodite)

4
Gender Identity Academics

• Academics construct notions of core gender
  identity study in university Gender Identity
  Research Clinics. core gender identity defined
  as inner sense of being female/male
• Belief by Money that turn a biological male at
  birth into a female simply through proper
  female socializationJoan/John, David Reimer case
• Milton Diamonds challenge of biological ideas
  (Colapintos discussion)

5
Ambiguous Genitalia

• Importance of biological anomalies as challenge
  to concepts of sex and gender as binary systems.
• Kessler physician as discoverer and the
  physician as determiner of gender in Wharton.
• Concept of what is natural a social
  construction by academic and medical social
  interests

6
Transsexuality

• Hausman argues the concept of gender, medical
  technological developments allowed doctors to
  act on demands for sex changeto change people
  from one sex to another
• Fausto-Sterling study of intersexuality,
  meta-analysis of studies of outcomes, the
  surgical fixdoctors decided natures
  intention related to acceptable penis size,
  the phall-O-metrics (p. 59)
• Today transsexual defined as someone who has
  undergone a sex change operation (see psychology
  of gender textbooks)

7
Transgendered

• Defined today as persons with a gender identity
  problem or gender dysphoriapersons who feel
  their biological sex is incongruent with their
  psychological sex
• Current popular media discussions with identical
  twins where one experiences problem and other
  doesntis it nature or nurture and how?

8
Anthropology third sex cultures

• Interest in societies where male/female were not
  binary began in anthropology
• Examples include hijras (India), transvestis,
  bichas, viados (Brazil), kathoey (Thailand),
  sworn virgins (Albania), Native American third
  sexes

9
Social Construction/Interactionism

• Social interactionismpeoples interactions
  construct gender in social contexts
• Social categorizationprocesses through which
  individuals classify themselves and others as
  members of groups, sex category
• Ethnomethodology and doing genderpresentation
  of self as female/male
• Status characteristics theorypeople expect sex
  category behaviors
• Homophily theoryconsequences of people
  classifying others as similar, different from self

10
Doing Gender

• People do gender as habit, automatic, taken for
  granted how does social interaction between
  people produce gender?
• Gender is an accomplishment and a performance
• Ethnomethodologists see sex categories
  (male/female) as social constructions, not
  natural. Natural is what is socially defined as
  such.
• Consider role of power and production of
  inequalities because of these definitions and
  interactions.

11
Status Characteristics theory

• Theory of expectation statespeople orient self
  to others with categories
• Expect certain behaviors based on those
  categories
• Behaviors have status characteristicsattributes
  have greater or lesser worthiness, social esteem
• In U.S. society, men regarded more positively
  than women??
• Goal-oriented expectations where people assess
  how competent others are (performance
  expectations) at achieving gender (Mine is
  bigger than yours.)
• Group composition/expectations determine
  interactions more than individual
  choices/personalities

12
Homophily theory

• People prefer sameness-people like themselves and
  in their communitiespeople like us
• Trust more with greater sense of kinship and
  feelings of comfort similarity-attraction
  hypotheses
• Threatened and less committed to people who are
  different, heterogenous
• Tsui et al. found whites and men (members of
  historically dominant US groups) reacted more
  negatively to being different than non-whites,
  women in work settings.
• Kanter tokens, dominants in skewed groups

13
The Western Sex/Gender Split

• Gender split off from biological sex in western
  (US/Europe) ideas reflects the binary split of
  male/female in western societies
• Biological intersexed, social choice
  transgendered, cultural diversity challenge to
  sex/gender split and also challenge ideas about
  male/female
• Diversity in societies, cultures and histories
  challenges absolutes found in religious
  traditions and in biological theories about
  female/male
• Beliefs about sex/gender operate within everyday
  social hierarchies which need academic analysis

14
Reconceptualizations

• Fausto-Sterling argues multiple genders
• Friedman argues SexGender as a continuum going
  from physical sex to cultural gender, a continuum
  of colored dots

15
U.S. Political Context

• U.S. feminists used gender from 1970s onsocial
  construction means oppressive institutions of
  gender can change
• In U.S., challenges from social movement
  activists organizing for rights of
  transgender/transsexual, intersexed individuals,
  gay marriage advocates
• Politics and culture wars between social
  conservatives critics of gender feminists
  (Christine Hoff Sommers 1990s) and critics of
  social constructionism (includes Christian
  evangelicals, conservative Republicans,
  independent feminists) vs. social liberals,
  social constructionists, liberal feminists who
  support sex/gender split, individual rights

16
References

• Wharton, Chaps. 2, 3 John Colapinto, As Nature
  Made Him
• Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body (2000)
• Sarah Fenstermaker and Candace West Eds, Doing
  Gender, Doing Difference (2002)
• Asia Friedman, Bringing the Sex Back In
  (unpublished paper 2005)
• Harold Garfinkle, Studies in Ethnomethodology
  (1967)
• Bernice Hausman, Changing Sex (1995)
• John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, Man Woman, Boy
  Girl (1972)
• Serena Nanda, Neither Man nor Woman the Hijras
  of India (1999) Gender Diversity (2000)
• Robert Stoller, Sex and Gender (1968)