Deck 8: B: Gender

Question 1

Provide an example that demonstrates how gender is socially constructed.

Answer 1

Answers will vary.Ideas about appropriate gender vary across cultures and across time (e.g. ,in seventeenth-century France,masculine meant wearing frilly shirts,wigs,and powdered makeup-a view that obviously differs radically from current Western notions of masculinity).
Gender.Refers to the socially constructed characteristics associated with girls and boys,women and men-what we call masculinity and femininity.

Question 2

With reference to the story of the egg and the sperm,how does Emily Martin demonstrate how scientists draw on discourses of gender to explain conception?

Answer 2

Sperm are "aggressive" (masculine)and the egg is "passive" (feminine).Martin details such gendered presentations of conception (the terms she cites in quotation marks are those used in science textbooks):
It is remarkable how "femininely" the egg behaves and how "masculinely" the sperm.The egg is seen as large and passive.It does not move or journey,but passively "is transported," "is swept," or even "drifts" along the fallopian tube.In utter contrast,sperm are small,"streamlined," and invariably active.They "deliver" their genes to the egg,"activate the developmental program of the egg," and have a "velocity" that is often remarked upon.Their tails are "strong" and efficiently powered.Together with the forces of ejaculation,they can "propel the semen into the deepest recesses of the vagina." For this they need "energy," "fuel," so that with a "whiplashlike motion and strong lurches" they can "burrow through the egg coat" and "penetrate" it.

Question 3

Provide three everyday examples of how socially constructed concepts of gender are reinforced in Canadian society.

Answer 3

Gender.Refers to the socially constructed characteristics associated with girls and boys,women and men-what we call masculinity and femininity.
Examples will vary,but they must reflect the definition of gender provided in the textbook.Students that do not use their own example will reflect ideas from Section 3 in the text,Reproducing Gender: Families,Education,and Media.

Question 4

Why do stay-at-home fathers feel as though they have lost a part of their masculinity,and what initiatives do they adopt to help make up for it?

Question 5

How does the case of Olympic gold medalist Maria Patiño reveal the difficulty of strictly categorizing individuals on the basis of male and female?

Question 6

To what does the phrase "chilly climate" refer?

Question 7

Define "emphasized femininity" and provide an example from the media where emphasized femininity is endorsed.

Question 8

Choose a television show or movie and discuss how it either reinforces or counteracts dominant hegemonic masculinity and/or emphasized femininity.

Question 9

What are the most often cited reasons for women's disproportionate participation in part-time work?

Question 10

What does intersectional research highlight? Give examples as support.

Question 11

Identify an example of a personal student‒teacher interaction that includes gender-profiling.

Question 12

Explain an intersectional analysis of inequality,and describe why it is important.

Question 13

How do biologists typically describe the human fertilization process,as theorized by Martin?

Question 14

Define "hegemonic masculinity," and provide an example from the media where hegemonic masculinity is endorsed.

Question 15

What was Judith Butler's argument regarding gender from a post-structuralist perspective?