Gender, Sexuality, and Social Power
Gender as a Social Process
Gender vs sex
Sex refers to bodily characteristics used in classification, while gender refers to socially organized meanings, expectations, and identities linked to masculinity, femininity, and beyond.
Doing gender
Gender is not simply something people are; it is something people do in everyday interaction through dress, speech, labor division, and bodily presentation.
Patriarchy and institutions
Patriarchy refers to a social system in which men, masculinity, and male-dominated institutions hold disproportionate power. It can shape pay, caregiving, leadership, and violence.
The idea that gender is performed in everyday life is most associated with which concept?
Doing gender emphasizes the active production of gender in social interaction.
Correct answer: Doing gender
Which example best shows a gendered institution?
Institutions can encode gender expectations through rules and routines.
Correct answer: A school dress code that enforces different rules by gender
What is one way workplaces can reproduce gender inequality?
Other valid answers include promotion bias, caregiving penalties, or occupational segregation.
Correct answer: pay gap
Intersection matters
Gender does not operate alone; it intersects with race, class, sexuality, disability, and age to produce different experiences.
Two explanations of gender inequality
Individual choice explanation
- Focuses on preferences
- Often ignores institutions
Structural explanation
- Focuses on norms, organizations, and power
- Explains patterned outcomes
What does patriarchy mean in sociology?
A concise description of unequal gendered power relations is sufficient.
Correct answer: male-dominated power system