EEP442 EEP418 WD Lecture 7
- 1. EEP442 EEP418 Lecture 6 Gender and Sexuality
- 2. Today’s Lecture • Difference between sex and gender • Masculinity and Femininity • Gender socialisation • Gender and schools • Gender and bullying • Gender and sexuality
- 3. ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ are not synonymous….
- 4. Gender SO, if sex refers to what kind of ‘bits’ you have or do not have, then gender is what society makes of that fact… Sex is biological Gender is socially constructed
- 5. The Sociology of Gender and Sexuality • Gender and sexuality are social and cultural constructs • There is nothing real, true or essential about being male or female, heterosexual or homosexual • For many meeting an ‘effeminate’ man or a ‘burly’ woman can violate their deeply held belief that humans ought to be instantly recognisable as either male or female
- 6. Masculinity and Femininity MASCULINITY: The characteristics attributed to men in a particular society. In contemporary Australia these include: rationality, competitiveness, heterosexuality, objectivity, independence and unemotional FEMININITY: The characteristics attributed to women in a particular society. In contemporary Australia these include: passivity, nurturance, subjectivity, sensitivity, dependence
- 9. Gender Socialisation The process by which young boys and girls are taught behaviour thought to be appropriate for their sex. This process can involve providing sex-typed toys (dolls for girls or trucks for boys) giving children direct verbal messages (girls shouldn’t do that) encouraging girls to take care of their appearance and boys not to care how they look and directing them towards particular activities and away from others…. (Holmes, Hughes & Julian, 2012)
- 10. The socialisation process….. From the moment of birth….. • RESEARCH tells us that whether it is conscious or not – men and women treat babies differently according to their sex…… As babies get older the process intensifies…. • Children will be given “sex-appropriate” toys which will introduce them to skills needed in later life and the behaviour expected of them • Different types of clothing • Different ‘emotional’ socialisation • Family, friends, media all play a role in the development of the “gendered” child
- 11. What children know…… At a young age, children know what sex they are and know (generally) what is expected of their sex….they have a strong sense of “gender” They can also type behaviours as masculine or feminine……
- 12. Children as active in the socialisation process…. • While children are aware of the gender ideologies that surround them, they do not necessarily adopt them unquestioningly • All children, like adults, negotiate their way through what can appear a complex maze of expectations, both accepting and rejecting parts of these expectations
- 13. Child’s Individual Gender MapSource: Lowe, K. (1998) ‘Gendermaps’ in N. Yelland (ed.) Gender in Early Childhood. London, Routledge Media Discourses Home and Family Discourses School and Peer Discourses Exploration of power positions Significant Interactions Discourses participated in ‘Masculine’ positions explored ‘Feminine’ positions explored Range of positions explored Media Context Home and Family Context Educational Context CHILD’S INDIVIDUAL GENDER MAP
- 14. BUT….. Just like with adults there is a cost for children who do not subscribe to the dominant social constructions AND particularly boys who do not subscribe to hegemonic masculinity
- 15. Quote from Connell ... Though men in general benefit from the inequalities of the gender order, they do not benefit equally. Indeed many pay a considerable price. Boys and men who depart from dominant definitions (and discourses) of masculinity because they are gay, effeminate or simply wimpish are often subject to verbal abuse and discrimination, and are sometimes the targets of violence (Connell, 2009, p.7)
- 16. A little bit of theory….. • Discourses are unwritten rules that specify who can speak, what genres of language are acceptable and what can be spoken about… • Discourses that operate from positions of power are dominant discourses • Discourses that seek to establish other positions are referred to as alternative or oppositional discourses • Hegemony is the relations between dominant patterns and discourses and subordinate or marginalised patterns • Marginalisation is to exclude from the powerful positions through discrimination and/or discursive practices
- 17. “Special Sport for Misfits and Losers” • Dominant discourse • Marginalisation • Hegemonic masculinity • Educational triage
- 18. Gender, sexuality and schooling How are schools implicated in the making of…. • Gender and sexuality • Masculinities and femininities • The making of heterosexuality as if normal and homosexuality as abnormal the everyday practices, organisational procedures and discourses of school reproduce gender and sexual inequalities – make people into ‘winners’ or ‘losers
- 19. Schools as Gendered Organisations Vickers (2010) in Connell et al. p.213 Gendered Dimensions of organisations In schools and education systems The division of labour Men are underrepresented as teachers especially in primary school and early childhood classrooms Women are underrepresented as principals in both primary and secondary Power relations between men and women, boys and girls Boys are often the perpetuators of bullying – bully other boys and girls Girls bully other girls but rarely bully boys Emotional relationships Peer relationships often function to amplify restricted understandings of masculinity and maintain boys’ dominant behaviours Organisational cultures: beliefs about gender difference and equal opportunity are gendered It is assumed that boys are better than girls at “rational thought” subjects and girls more social, intuitive and verbally fluent
- 20. Sexuality and Bullying • Like gender, sexuality is thought to form part of our identity • Like gender, sexual identity is not immutable: people can change sexual orientation over their lifetime • There can be a gap between a person’s sexual identity and sexual practice. WHY? • Sexual identities have meaning in western society and sexuality is inextricably bound up with gender and power • SO sexuality connotes masculinity and femininity
- 21. Things to consider… • Sexual harassment of female students by male students and female teachers by male students is normalised • Some boys reject schooling through adopting hyper-masculine ‘protest masculinity’ • How sport becomes the key (for boys) to competition and status • Still to this day – boys subjects and girls subjects exist • How girls feel pressured to assert a sexualised identity in school to be socially accepted (but with costs) • How homosexuality is silenced and homophobia is normalised
- 22. Michael Apple Subjectivity Definition: How we ‘take ourselves up’ based on our understandings of the world, and how we have been positioned or ‘shaped’ by the world that makes only certain possibilities available to us. Agency and discourses interact in shaping one’s subjectivity. Allen (1998)
- 23. WHAT CAN WE DO? The teacher who stands for equity and is concerned for social justice… Thinks critically about gender and sexuality discourses Learning about how gendered discourses are used to position and regulate us and our students – how we police ourselves with the same discourses – we then might to learn to create oppositional discourses Allows multiple expressions of gender and sexuality to exist It’s all about multiple and diverse forms of gender and sexuality – trying to remain vigilant that no-one is disadvantaged or harassed on the basis of real or perceived gender and/or sexual identities