Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Notes from a chapter in the textbook The Body in Society: an Introduction written by Alexandra Howson.
Citation preview
Howson, A. (2004) – The Body, Gender and SexIn Howson, A. (2004), The body in society: an introduction, Cambridge, UK : Polity
Notes: The influence of the women’s movement of the 60s and 70s
o Gender began to be taken into accounto No more implicit conflation of gender and sex
Also gender not just dichotomouso Claim: The classical sociology tended to think of social differentiation as an
elaboration of biological differentiation Sexual division of labour
Judith Oakley 1972o Sex
Differences based on biology, mainly dichotomous Physical, stable, immutable Defined in scientific and biomedical terms Primary categorical device of classification: male/female
o Gender Psychological, social and representational differences between men and
women Socially determined, culturally variable
o Masculinity and femininity learned, rather than inherent Is subject to the dominant discourse, not biologically given Determining whole bunch of psychological behaviours and traits
Categorization of the human bodyo Harold Garfinkel (1967)
Operation based on binary categories inherent to the Western culture Dimorphic model of sex Natural attitude towards sex
Certain sex implicitly assumes also a certain cluster of trait and behaviours (gender) in western soc.
o Ambiguity refused (suppressed and framed as a biomedical problem)
o Ethnometodologist: Neither sex nor gender is an inherent individual property – both are social categories shaped by practices of social interpretation
Invarianto Sex set according to fixed scientifically derived criteria
Complementaryo Assumed equivalence between ascribed sex and
experienced sexualityo Sexes distinct, mutually exclusive
The importance of distinguishing of sex/gender
1
o Variations in relative experience of boys and girls, resulting in different developmento A grounds for naturalization of certain social differentiations
Anchoring of the moral judgements about ‘women’s place’o Signal of possibility of social change – political importanceo “Gender was developed as a sociological concept in order to emphasize that not
only are traits and characteristics at a psychological level socially shaped and produced, but also the social, economic and political inequalities that can be observed between women and men are an extension not of biological differences but of particular social relations and contexts”
But! Establishment of understanding gender as a social category reinforced the idea of the body as a stable biological foundation across time and place
o Sex as polarized opposites Product of Cartesian thinking, enlightenment
Preceded by a model based not on binary opposites, but on similarities
The Body – natural, wild, emotional vs. Mind – rational, source of the social order
Used to exclude women from the social and political participationo Natural inferiority
Gendering the bodyo Alignment of femininity to the bodily and the natural
Represented in scientific practices and ideas informing the production of anatomical and biological knowledge
o Enlightenment – proliferation of dualisms informing the western mentality, based on scientific research
Genitals previously perceived as different version of the same organ, now gradually accepted as profoundly different, qualitatively distinct, hierarchical
Growing importance of visual observation – empiric Difference emphasized by sexed metaphors of human bodies when
displayed, pictured, imagined The discovery of hormonal production – strong basis for the assumption of
female inferiority and erraticism Language of colonialism and exploration used – forcing nature to reveal its
secrets Male body is the standard, female body is a deviation
o Explanation of the shift Hood-Williams
1) practice of anatomy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to the identification of new parts of the human body in ways that challenged early anatomical knowledge
2) middle-class women experienced rapid changes in their social, economic and political position
o perception of the female body (as natural, or weak, or troublesome) was a product of social and political impulses
2
that sought to exclude women from the new public world of the bourgeoisie
The female body as an object of expert scrutinyo e.g. Gynaecology as a specialized medical discipline towards women’s genitals – no
male-focused equivalento biomedical view of the body emphasized the body as a machine that can be broken
into parts and repaired New medical conditions invented undermining the position of women
e.g. hysteria as a product of dysfunctional uterus – 19th centuryo Symptoms: irrationality and lack of control
e.g. pre-menstrual syndrome – 20th centuryo hormonal imbalance affecting decision-making
o As women in the nineteenth century began to make their way into the professional and political arenas, female body was increasingly defined in terms of pathology (as a body in need of containment and control)
o femininity defined in pathological terms also appropriated by women as a justification of their lack of social status or failure to meet the expectations of middle-class femininity (Also Janice Boddy)
o Symptoms invited medical surveillance control The concept of medicalization
modern medicine adopted the patriarchal mantle previously worn by religious institutions and targeted the female body as an object of expert scrutiny
o Second-wave feminism has challenged the conceptualization of female body: The western culture constructed the body so that it is understood as a
biological given – female inferior body associated with nature and femininity whereas the mind became
identified with masculinity and culture women's social position in the division of labour has been explained in terms
of their relationship to nature (via reproduction especially) body is seen as a medium for the display or performance of gender
Conduct, display and performanceo Oakley: Sex refers to physical, genital differentiation as the primary means of
categorizing people, gender refers to established differences between men and women in psychological, social and representational terms
Proof: Berdache – native American practice of switching gender roles as a sociological concept, gender provides a means of examining the social
production of differences between men and women application on human body
o Embodimento the term of ‘gender’ is not a description of attributes or traits possessed by
individuals but is indicative of social relations and cultural norms that shape processes of interaction and bodily conduct
3
masculinities and femininities in the plural rather the singular masculinity and femininity
hegemonic masculinity heterosexuality Femininity defined against the hegemonic masculinity A muscular body
o Eg. physical presence in the world, occupying spaceo symbolizes social power
femininity The body to be looked at/into
o Beauvoir: The female body is considered an object that is looked into and examined
o raised consciousness of one’s own body one's own body as an object emerges as a form of
alienation The troubled body
o black women pursuing white ideals of femininity – a sign of symbolic domination (also the example with black and white dolls)
feminine modalityo 1) Women are not born feminine, but are taught to become
feminine – in ways that emphasize containment and controlo 2) Women are encouraged to become more aware of
themselves as 'objects' of others' scrutinyo The sense of physical space and body use that accompanies 'being a man' or 'being a
woman' represents a shared vocabulary of body idiom that influences how men and women use and present their bodies in ways that both guide perceptions of bodily appearance and performance and symbolize and reinforce gender distinctions
Gender as a performanceo Transgendering: adopting the behaviours, emotions and cognitions of different
genderso J. Butler: Gender is actively produced or materialized through a 'stylized repetition of
acts' that come to be understood as natural over time. body is discursively constituted through the regulatory frame of
reproductive heterosexuality sex and gender are not separate and are both implicated in the other in a
discursive loopo competent gender performance as a condition of public participation
4
