Gender Part I

Welcome to our conversation on the social construction of gender.

Um I will do my best to have this conversation be as succinct as possible.

I feel like a lot of a lot of these videos

in like 15 minutes and then winds up being like 25-30.

Um but there's just so much content and I want

to make sure that you're getting what you need.

Um but also being mindful that people don't have

the time to sit down for two hours videos,

otherwise you wouldn't have taken in the same class.

So getting that out of the way.

Um

So today's lecture is entitled, wait a minute. What is gender in the first place?

And then how do we recreate and create gender? So um

there's an excerpt here,

like we're going to talk about the social construction of gender in our class.

Um We're going to talk about what it means for gender to be socially constructed.

So it's a bit similar to our conversation on race and racism.

If you recall um talking about how race is a social construct and what that means,

um gender functions as a social construct as well.

And we'll talk about the implications of that.

Um but first we have um an excerpt here,

there's a quote um and it's from a book night to his day

is the first chapter of that book.

Um and that book is written by Judith

Lorber call and it's called paradoxes of gender.

So she says talking about gender for most people is the equivalent of fish.

Talking about water

gender is so much the routine ground of everyday activities,

that questioning it is taken for granted assumptions and presuppositions

is like wondering about whether the sun will come up

gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes.

Most people find it hard to believe that

gender is constantly created and recreated out of

human interaction out of social life and is

the texture and order of that social life.

Yet gender like culture is a human

production that depends on everyone constantly quote unquote

doing gender.

So

what that means

is that oftentimes people treat gender as though it's biological,

right? Um they treat it as though it is natural, the natural order of things.

It is how society is. It's the way that it's always been, It's just so normalized.

And if you remember we use the term

normative and normalized when we talk about culture,

it's so normalized and so normative that it feels natural.

It feels and seems biological,

but it isn't

right.

Um

so Judith Lorber talks about how it's such

a familiar quotidian part of our daily life

that we don't notice that we're doing gender

until someone actively disrupts how it's being done.

So what this could look like is someone getting

on the same train that you're getting on.

Um and you're not able to to codify or classify their gender identity, right?

Like maybe you look at them and that person has a full beard

and is wearing a skirt and has nail polish and has muscles?

Right?

And because we are taught about the

functionality of gender from a westernized context

that dictates that the gender is a binary by and large a lot.

Now that is shifting that is definitely shifting

in terms of um mainstream cultural consciousness,

right?

Um

Historically gender was treated and perceived in the U. S.

Context as a binary meaning men and women

and folks who existed outside of the gender

binary um were seen as disrupting gender.

They were disrupting how we do gender perceived that way and treated that way.

Right? Um So we can that can be an example. Um but

people can also be dislodged on more um by

smaller instances like micro instances of gender disruptions.

Take for example a baby who doesn't have their ears pierced.

Someone might say, what did you baby? Boy or girl? Right.

They asked that question as though it matters and we

have to think of why they feel it matters.

What kinds of meanings are they making of a girl baby relative to a boy baby?

Um And what does it mean when we assigned gender at birth?

So um take a moment to reflect on how you might do gender every day.

We're talking about how gender is done often without

thinking right again norman so normative so normalized.

It's naturalized. Take a moment to reflect on how you might do gender every day?

Take a look at your clothing,

take a look at your body language.

Um What do you do with your hands when you talk and why?

Take a moment to think about how you navigate

interpersonal relationships and how that might be gendered.

Who are you friends with?

And how did those friendships function in a gendered context?

How do you speak to one another? How do you engage with one another?

Alright,

folks will often say that friendships between

men don't have emotional depth or intimacy.

Well why is that? Right? And friendships between women?

There might be expectations, right?

Of increased emotional intimacy.

We know not everybody um aligns with gender traits and characteristics,

but we're constantly doing gender creating and recreating it.

Right, allowed Judith Lorber.

So what does it mean for gender to be socially constructed?

And how do we construct gender? Okay.

Um those are some of the things that we're gonna be talking about today,

and we're also going to be thinking about the components of gender.

Okay, so when we say gender, we're really referencing these four components,

the first one being gender identity,

which is how do you internally conceptualized and identify your own gender inside

of your head the recesses of your your own internal private space.

Do you identify as a man or a woman as non binary? As gender fluid? Um

as by gender? A gender. Right? What is your gender identity?

And I know that there's a lot of terminology, a lot of jargon just thrown at you,

right?

Um But again,

uh we've been socialized into the gender binary and that socialization

is shifting and it is becoming more normative in the U.

S. Context. Um for space

to exist outside of that gender binary.

So in terms of gender identity, you have folks who might identify as gender fluid,

right?

Which means that they don't identify as a man or a woman or really is any

gender um that how they feel in terms of their gender identity is subject to change.

Um in terms of time place

um moment year, right? Um

you have a gender folks who don't identify with any

gender um within the binary or outside of it.

They identify as people without gender, right?

Um And there are many, many more gender identities.

These are just some examples, right?

Um then you have gender expression, which is how you perform

your gender. Now scholar Judith

uh not Judith Lorber, but Judith Butler,

who's another gender scholar who was very interested in gender expression more

so looks at gender as a performance or the performance of gender.

So while gender identity is largely internal,

like how you identify internally in terms of gender identity and how you identify

yourself gender expression is how you articulate

or express your gender to the world,

right?

Those things don't have to be congruent. You can

like internally identify as a woman

and have a masculine gender expression, right?

Or a masculine eyes gender expression. Um

like maybe wear super baggy pants. Maybe maybe you don't shave right? Um

like maybe you identify as a woman and you have a mustache, right?

So your gender expression might read as masculine.

Um and your gender identity might be a woman, right?

So these things don't have to be in alignment. They often aren't. They can be.

Um and you want to kind of hold all of these

things at the same time over the course of our conversation.

Right? So gender expression.

We think of how you perform your gender through clothing through language.

Um, what you put on your body, right? In terms of clothing accessories, um,

how you move about the world, right?

Um, and we say language, we both verbal and body language.

Um, you also have your biological sex, which is um, physical sex characteristics.

So we're talking about chromosomes were

talking about secondary sex characteristics.

So we're talking about voice pitch.

We're talking about reproductive organs When we speak about biological sex.

And we have largely also been socialized to believe in the

existence of a gender binary there or biological sex binary,

that people are either male or female.

Um,

but we'll jump into the next video and see

that's a lot more complicated than it's ordinarily treated.

Um,

and so we will also be taking a look at

not only cracking open the gender binary in these conversations,

but cracking open biological sex binary as well.

Um but biological sex.

Um and often the relationship between gender identity, gender expression?

Biological sex

is that, you know, when a baby is born,

doctor will take a look at the baby's physical sex characteristics as they present,

right?

So they're taking a look at the biological sex whether that baby is male or female.

Because we do know there's a third category which is intersex

babies who have physical sex characteristics of both males and females.

But doctors historically

have largely

tried to fit and force babies into the biological sex binary.

So they take a look at physical sex characteristics, determine that baby is,

for example, of male.

And assign the gender identity of guess what a boy

that signals to parents, right?

In this context of socializing kids into the gender binary

that you are to raise this baby as a boy,

right?

The signal to the world even, you know,

biological sex is used gender identity gets assigned onto that biological sex.

Um and

um parents, family community.

Um then engage in the creation and re creation of gender by socializing

that child into the gender identity that they were assigned at birth.

Um and that is um indelibly linked to gender expression, right?

So when they socialize that baby into the gender identity of boy,

um gender expression matters in terms of the clothing that they buy for that baby.

The toys that they buy for that baby, How they decorate the baby's room.

Um the things that they say to that baby otherwise known as gender scripts, right?

Um for example, what happens when that kid is five years old and the parents say,

you know, boys don't cry right now.

Again, all of that is shifting and changing.

Um but historically that has been how things have been conceptualized.

Um and the last component of gender that we are

or to talk about is going to be attractions or sexual orientation.

And we'll get more into that in the next video, which is um who one is attracted to.

Now again, these components of gender, They are interlinked.

Um but they are not in alignment. Right?

Again, just as a reminder your gender identity.

Gender expression and biological sex are not always in alignment.

Um for example, people might not agree with the gender identity,

um that they were assigned at birth based on their biological sex.

They might say that is not me if you assign the gender

identity of um boy based on my biological sex of male,

but I am a woman or I am non binary, right?

Um

so again, these things are not um and don't have to be um in alignment.

Okay, they're complicated. Um

humans are complicated, right? Um and it's part of human existence.

And so again, that last component we have is attractions or sexual orientation,

which is who you're attracted to.

Um which can be romantic attraction. It can be intellectual attraction.

Um,

and there are different designations and categories for this

that will jump into in the next video.

Okay, so this is a bit of a deep dive.

We're not going to get into this, but if you would like to check this out,

I implore you.

It's this really cool visual image of their gender bread person.

Um, and it goes into the four components of gender.

And for folks who might be visual learners.

Again, if you click on this link or you type it into

your browser,

you'll be able to visualize and have a visualization of

the four components of the multidimensional world of gender.

And here we have some examples of, um, you know,

folks who are speaking to these conversations around gender expression,

gender identity, biological sex, right?

We have figures like Janet mock. Um, We have,

uh, we have um, um, ruby rose here and we're just walking through some of these folks,

We have tennis extravaganza.

Um, Laverne cox.

We have MJ Rodriguez who recently won an award for her performance imposed.

Um, we have Marsha P. Johnson.

We have various figures of folks who identify, um, as like pan sexual is not a binary,

as transwomen.

Right? Um, so just just an illustration.

Um, here's a Tiktok, non binary Tiktok video if you're interested.

Um, but I'm certainly not going to play it within the confines of our short video.

It wouldn't be fair to you. So for a moment, think about how we perform gender.

We spoke about this a little bit earlier, but again,

I want you to hold this into your hold this in your mind as we talk, okay,

how you perform gender.

And think about that, how you do that on a daily basis.

Um and consider how we use social media to reflect our performance of gender.

There's a link here to kylie Jenner's instagram.

If you were to take a look, if you're interested,

you can pause the video and go see what she's doing.

Um but think about what her performance of gender is.

How is she performing gender in particular um performing uh white womanhood,

Right.

Um when we talk about our performance of gender,

we have to think of how it's reductive lee um connected to feminine.

It connects femininity to women and masculinity to men.

Um Now we know that women can present as masculine and that men

can present as feminine and that the there's spectrum to to femininity,

there's a spectrum of masculinity, right?

Um when we talk about the spectrum of femininity,

um can be, you know,

someone who really enjoys it even thinking of like

an old school show like sex in the city,

right?

Ultra feminine. Um heels, makeup, fancy designer dresses and clothing, right?

Ultra ultra feminine. Um um but these these femininity is scaled right?

There are degrees to femininity, there's degrees and gradations to masculinity.

Um and femininity is not always linked to women,

and masculinity is not always linked to men, but our gender performances

often

portray or perceive um these things to be reductive lee linked to one another,

and we kind of want to shake that up a bit

and push back on those notions um to think about,

for instance, how women might perform masculinity,

how men might perform femininity,

how feminine and masculine are scaled and um

existing gradations as opposed to concrete and fixed,

and how folks outside of the binary, right?

Non binary folks,

how queer folks, um how pan sexual folks, right?

Um how how a gender by gender folks might perform

femininity and masculinity to different degrees and might perform gender,

right?

So we want to complicate some of these notions.

Um so we'll leave the first video here and then wrap up in part two.

Gender Part I

Chapters

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