- Podcast with McRobbie on post-feminism
- Podcast with Ann Oakley on women’s experiences of childbirth. Discusses some methodological issues relevant to the chapter, especially the importance of listening to women’s experience
- Podcast discussion masculinity and violence
- Podcast discussion on the politics of sexual and gender identity
Definitions
- Sex: a classification by which individuals are defined as male or female on the basis of physiological characteristics.
- Gender: A classification by which certain traits or behaviours are defined as masculine or feminine.
- Femininity: A set of attributes or behaviours characteristically associated with women.
- Masculinity: A set of attributes or behaviours characteristically associated with men.
- Expressive Role: In Parsons, a specialized role in groups, primarily concerned with the provision of emotional support for group members. In family groups, the expressive role is oriented towards the emotional needs of family members, and involves such behaviours as caring for the young.
- Instrumental Role: In Parsons, a specialized role in groups, primarily concerned with the completion of group tasks and the procurement of resources to do so. In family groups, the instrumental role is oriented towards the basic needs of the family, and involves such things as the provision of financial support.
- Sexist/Sexism: Discrimination or prejudice against one sex, typically women, on the basis of their perceived inferiority.
- Patriarchy: a form of social organization in which power is primarily monopolised or held by men, to the exclusion of women.
- Social Contract: A theory of society and political authority as founds on the consent of those governed or subordinated to the rules and laws of that society.
- Gender-based Violence: Forms of violence which are motivated by or otherwise connected to gender norms.
- First-wave feminism: A social movement, occurring in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which sought legal equality between men and women, especially in regards to voting and property rights.
- Suffrage: The right to vote. Members of women’s organizations, formed around the turn of the 20th century in many countries, campaigned for this right from women, some using militant action. These groups are central to First-wave feminism.
- Suffragettes: Members of militant women’s organizations, formed in Britain in the early twentieth century, who campaigned for women’s voting rights.
- Second wave feminism: A social movement, occurring from the 1960’s to the 1980’s, focusing on gender equality and discrimination against women. Second wave feminism was especially concerned with inequalities in the workplace and the family.
- Emotional Labour: Labour which involves the management of feelings or emotions.
- Second Shift: Labour performed by women at home in addition to paid work performed in formal employment.
- Hegemonic Masculinity: A set of idealized norms about male behaviour, which legitimize the subordination of women and of non-hegemonic men. Hegemonic masculinity encourages traits like competitiveness, dominance, independence, muscularity, homophobia, and the devaluation of women and femininity.
- Emphasized Femininity: A set of idealized norms about female behaviour, which encourage women to behave in ways that confirm to the needs and desires of men. Emphasized femininity encourages traits like submissiveness, attractiveness, and sexual availability.
- Stigma: an attribute or behaviour which is socially undesirable, or which causes one to be socially rejected.
- Sex: A classification by which individuals have defined as male or female (or intersex) on the basis of genetics and/or physiological characteristics. Increasingly seen as more complex.
- Performativity: In Butler, the process by which gender identities are created and reinforced though behaviours, gestures, and elocutions.
- Hidden Curriculum: Rules and lessons that are taught at schools outside of explicit curriculum and school policies, including ‘cultural’ expectations around gender, class or race.
- Misogyny: A strong contempt for women or femininity.
- Discourse: In Foucault, sets of widely accepted norms or ways of thinking about particular topics which are taken for granted in a particular time period or locale.
- Black feminism: An approach to feminism which focuses on the experiences of black women and the intersection of racial and gender inequality.
- Black feminist thought: A body of knowledge based around the assumptions and ideas of black feminism.
- Post-feminism: The view that feminism is no longer relevant or necessary as a political movement, and that gender equality has been achieved.
- Post-colonial feminism: approaches to feminism which focus on the experiences of non-White, non-Western women.
- Third world feminism: approaches to feminism which focus on the experience of women in Third World feminism.
- Border Thinking: A mode of thought which draws on the perspectives, knowledges, and forms of expression marginalized by colonial domination that focused on experiences, lives and structures intersections of different borders.
- Survival circuits: dynamic networks of people and money which help support the economies of Third World countries. Survival circuits often involve women, who, as trafficked low wage workers, prostitutes, or migrant workers, send remittances back to their home countries.
- Kinsey Scale: A rating scale, used to measure sexuality on a gradation between homosexuality and heterosexuality.
- Closet: In Sedgwick, (coming out of the) closet is a broader metaphor of the workings of power in shaping sexuality in Global Northern societies and the limitations of a heterosexual/homosexual binary.
- Crip Theory: An approach playing on the term ‘cripple’ that has been reclaimed by the disability rights movement. Crip theory resists able-bodied heteronormativity as a taken-for-granted ideal.
- Queer theory: A theoretical movement, emerging primarily in the 1990s, which focuses on the construction of gender and sexual identities.
- Heteronormativity: Heterosexuality as the social norm, preferred or assumed default category of sexual orientation and the social privileges attached to having this orientation.
- Social Movement: A group of people organised (often loosely) to achieve some social aim – typically to create or prevent social change.
- Cisgender: An individual whose personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.
- Gender order: A system of ideas and practices that define gender identities or roles in particular societies and determine their relationship to one another.
- Genderqueer: An individual who does not identity with or behave in accordance with traditional gender categories.
- Third wave feminism: A social movement, beginning in the 1990’s as a reaction against second wave feminism. Third wave feminism criticized second wave feminism for neglecting to address the relationship between gender inequality and other forms of inequality, such as inequalities in race and class.
- Fourth wave feminism: A social movement, beginning from around 2013, focusing on women’s empowerment and particularly linked with the use of digital tools and platforms. Fourth wave feminism is thought to be especially concerned with issues such as body shaming and rape culture.
Books on the General Topic
Connell, RW. 2020. Gender: In a world perspective. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Halberstam, J. 2012. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gill, R. 2007. Gender and the Media. Polity.
Contemporary Research Monographs on this Topic
Harris, A. 2004. Future girl: Young women in the twenty-first century. Psychology Press.
Coffey, J. 2016. Body Work: Youth, Gender and Health. Routledge: London.
Coffey J. 2021. Everyday Embodiment Rethinking Youth Body Image, Palgrave Macmillan.
Ahmed, S. 2017. Living a Feminist Life. Duke University Press.
Elliott, K. (2020). Young men navigating contemporary masculinities. London: Springer Nature.
Davis, K., Evans, M. and Lorber, J., 2010. Handbook of gender and women’s studies. London: Sage.
Contemporary Articles
Barney, K. 2008 ‘“We’re women we fight for freedom”: intersections of race and gender in contemporary songs by Indigenous Australian women performers, Women’s Studies Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 3-19.
- Article explores the intersection of race and gender identity through studies of Indigenous popular music.
- Discusses what Southern Theory can offer the sociology of gender. Examines gender issues from the perspective of the Global South.
- Good empirical example of hegemonic masculinity and its links to homophobia.
- Ties gender with Connell’s southern theory.
- Speaks to gender equality in sport, particular in regards to sexualisation.
- Links well to the material on Sassen and survival circuits.
- Empirical research on post-feminist attitudes and approaches.
- Good empirical evidence of the second shift idea.
- Touches on many of the ideas and points made in the chapter and provides evidence to support many of its arguments.
- Explores the phenomena of gender reveal parties, useful to demonstrate ideas of performativity.
- Theoretical piece, lays out many of the arguments in the chapter well at a higher level of detail for those who want to go deeper.
- Discussion of the development and contemporary relevance of the concept of postfeminism.
Discussion Questions
- What do sociologists mean by the term patriarchy? Do you think you live in a patriarchal society?
- What is hegemonic masculinity? How are the ideas of hegemonic masculinity promoted and upheld?
- Many sociologists argue that gender is a performance. In what ways do you ‘perform’ your gender?
- Do you agree with the ideas of ‘post-feminism?’ Is feminism still relevant today?
- Do you think of yourself as a straddler, a true believer, a rebel, or an innovator with regards to the gender order?
Chapter References
- Beauvoir, S (1971) The Second Sex. Alfred A. Knopf.
- Butler, J (1988) ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 519–531.
- Connell, RW (2005) Masculinities (2nd edn). University of California Press.
- Gatens, M (1996) Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality. Routledge.
- Gil, R (2011) New Femininities: Postfeminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Goffman, E (2009 [1963]) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Simon and Schuster.
- Hakin, C (1998) ‘Developing a Sociology for the Twenty-first Century: Preference Theory’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 137–143.
- Halberstam, JJ (2012) Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Beacon Press.
- Harris, A (2004) Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-First Century. Routledge.
- Hill-Collins, P (1990) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge.
- Hochschild, AR (2003) The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home. Penguin Books.
- Lasch, C (1977) Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged. Basic Books.
- Martin, KA (1998) ‘Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools’, American Sociological Review, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 494–511.
- McRobbie, A (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. Sage.
- McRuer, R (2006). Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York University Press.
- Mohanram, R (1996) ‘The Construction of Place: Maori Feminism in Aotearoa/New Zealand’, National Women’s Studies Association Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 50–69.
- Mohanty, CT (2003) Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Duke University Press.
- Muñoz, JE (1999) Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. University of Minnesota Press.
- Oakley, A (1985) The Sociology of Housework. Basil Blackwell.
- Parsons, T and Bales, R (1955) Family, Socialization and the Interaction Process. Free Press.
- Pateman, C (1988) The Sexual Contract. Polity Press.
- Risman, B (2018) Where Will the Millennials Take Us?: A New Generation Wrestles with the Gender Structure. Oxford University Press.
- Samuels, E (2003) ‘My Body, My Closet: Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming-Out Discourse’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 9, no, 1, pp. 233–255.
- Sassen, S (2002) ‘Global Cities and Survival Circuits’, in B Ehrenreich and AR Hochschild (eds)
- Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Henry Holt, pp. 254–317.
- Sedgwick, EK (1990) Epistemology of the Closet. University of California Press.
- Springer, K (2002) ‘Third Wave Black Feminism?’, Signs, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 1059–1082.
- Summers, A (1975) Damned Whores and God’s Police: The Colonisation of Women in Australia. Penguin Books.
- Walby, S (1990) Theorizing Patriarchy. Basil Blackwell.
- West, C and Zimmerman, DH (1987) ‘Doing Gender’, Gender and Society, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 125–151.
- Young, IM (1980) ‘Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality’, Human Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 137–156.
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