If gender is social rather than natural, change and variability are always possible. Hence continuities also require a social explanation. One important continuity is the hierarchical relationship between women and men, which has persisted despite many changes in the meaning of femininity and masculinity and in the social activities of women and men. While male dominance can and does change in form and degree, it seems that gender hierarchy can coexist with a wide variety of beliefs about gender and with different divisions of labour between women and men. Gender thus denotes a hierarchical relationship between women and men, not merely differences between them. If gender is understood to be social, this hierarchical relationship needs to be explained as a product of social arrangements.
–Introduction to Gender: a Sociological Reader, edited by Stevi Jackson and Sue Scott, p 6
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10 responses to “If gender is social rather than natural”
If gender is social rather than natural…
Do sociologists really approach these questions as either/or??!?
So, the bible thumpers are right? Being gay is a choice? (And yes, I know there is a difference between gender and sexual orientation — but really, it’s not a slippery slope at all, more like a step along a perfectly flat path).
What are you talking about? None of that says gender is a choice.
I cannot speak for sociologists, not being one, however that paragraph reads like an introduction to a text book containing sociological discussions of gender. I’d bet that the preceding paragraph would set some kind of context, like “For a long time gender was considered “natural” or in-born.” Lacking evidence for that claim, more smart people are analyzing gender as social. . . blah blah blah.” So it is likely that sociologists in general don’t consider gender an either or deal. It’s a text book, is my guess. Hence the structure of the paragraph.
And Ophelia is correct there is nothing overt or intended that suggests being gay is a choice. Homosexuality is not even mentioned.
Premise (cited): False [1][2]
Conclusion (snipped) Irrelevant.
[1] In twin studies, there’s sufficient concordance of gender transition among identical (monozygotic/MZ) twins vs fraternal (dizygotic/DZ) twins to reject the null hypothesis
Transsexuality Among Twins: Identity Concordance, Transition, Rearing, and Orientation
[2] Though the overall frequency of gender transitioning fluctuates from culture to culture (which is, IMO, almost certainly accounted for by variance in cultural suppression of expression of non-conformance to gender norms), within any given culture there’s no connection between “how an individual is raised” and “whether an individual will seek to transition from their at-birth gender designation”. I defy anyone to look at the childhood experiences / parented styles of, say, a thousand American kids, and build a probabilistic model on “likelihood of any given child eventually desiring transition” that’s in any way more predictive than uniform / random chance. I’ve spoken to dozens of parents of transgender kids – we’re Christians, atheists, working class, wealthy, gay, straight, liberal, conservative… with only a single common thread of having kids who wholeheartedly reject the gender identity they’d been designated.
That’s not the meaning of “gender” they’re using. They’re not talking about gender identity at all.
They make that clear – not surprisingly – on the first page of the intro; I should have included that.
Oh – well, then yeah. The hierarchical division (what I’d call the collective of gender roles, or just “patriarchy” or “matriarchy”) is almost certainly social (and toxic to boot). It seems to me that the authors’ choice of definition obfuscates what they’re trying to convey. “Gender”, unqualified, is commonly taken as the distinction between men and women itself; not the hierarchical nature of said distinction. IMO, if they’d used clearer terminology, by extension, your blog title might’ve read “If gender roles are social rather than natural” – and would’ve had me nodding from the get-go.
To [hopefully] make my own differentiation between “gender” and “gender roles”/”gender expression” a bit clearer: my insistence that my sons’ preference to be referred to as boys be respected, is diametrically opposed to my insistence that their genders in no way entail a natural predilection for them being football players rather than cheerleaders, that they should have a preference for playing with dolls rather than trucks, or that they ought not spruce up their appearance with earrings and nail polish rather than looking plain and boring, etc.
I must say, I don’t get it.
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Page 6:
Um… yeah.