Gender: The Basics

2nd edition

Hilary M. Lips

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781032524504
• eBook ISBN: 9781351712750
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Gender: The Basics is an engaging introduction to the influence of cultural, historical, biological, psychological, and economic forces on ways in which we have come to define and experience femininity and masculinity, and on the impact and importance of gender categories. Highlighting that there is far more to gender than biological sex, it examines theories and research about how and why gender categories and identities are developed and about how interpersonal and societal power relationships are gendered. It takes a global and intersectional perspective to examine the interaction between gender and a wide range of topics including:

• Relationships, intimacy, and concepts of sexuality across the lifespan
• The workplace and labour markets
• Gender related violence and war
• Public health, poverty, and development
• Gender and public leadership

This new edition includes increased coverage of trans visibility and activism, LGBTQ studies and critical masculinity studies, global developments in women's political leadership, links between gender and economic wellbeing, and cyberbullying.

Supporting theory with examples and case studies from a variety of contexts, suggestions for further reading, and a detailed glossary, this text is an essential read for anyone approaching the study of gender for the first time.

1

GENDER

EVERYBODY HAS/DOES ONE

Years ago, Ursula LeGuin (1969) described a fictional world in which there were no “women” or “men,” but only individuals. Gender categories were absent from this society—except for a few days in each individual’s monthly cycle when sexual desires became insistent and individuals became “female” or “male” for the time it took to establish a sexual relationship. Even then, no persistent biological or social tendency toward maleness or femaleness was established: one individual could be the father of some children and the mother of others.

My students have been intrigued but discomfited by this fantasy. Most say they cannot imagine a world without gender categories. It would be boring, bland, they protest. Everyone would be the same; relationships would be uninteresting. And how would anyone decide who was supposed to do what? Most react with similar perplexity and stubbornness when I ask them to “imagine yourself as still ‘you,’ but as a different gender.” They argue that they would not, could not, be the same person if they were a different gender—and anyway they would be unskilled and awkward at doing what the other gender is supposed to do.

These responses provide some clues to the pervasive importance of gender categories in our lives. They also suggest that we view gender not as a category that someone simply biologically “is” but as something that individuals do or act out. So what exactly is gender?

GENDER AND SEX: IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

Most of us are used to dividing people into two categories: female and male. If pressed, we might say the distinction is based on simple biology: male and female individuals look different, have different reproductive organs. Women have breasts. Men can grow beards. A woman can get pregnant and give birth. A man can inseminate a woman—even against her will.

However, we also know that individual women and men vary a great deal in how close they are to society’s ideals of femininity and masculinity. Simply being biologically female does not ensure that a person is “womanly,” and being biologically male does not mean that an individual is “manly.” Some people who are clearly men are described as not very masculine; some women are termed unfeminine. Clearly, there is something more complicated going on than placing people into well-defined biological categories. In fact, with respect to these issues, there seem to be two broad dimensions on which individuals might be categorized: biological and socio-cultural.

In recognition of these two dimensions, people who study the differences and similarities between women and men have sometimes made a distinction between sex and gender. They may use the term sex to mean biological femaleness and maleness, and the term gender to refer to culturally-mediated expectations and roles associated with masculinity and femininity (e.g., Oakley, 1972; Unger, 1979). Although this is the general approach taken in this book, it must be acknowledged that the biological and social dimensions that define women and men cannot be cleanly separated. For example, the biological fact that women can become pregnant helps shape social expectations for femininity. Men’s biologically based propensity to have larger, stronger bodies is enhanced by social norms that encourage men to work at becoming strong and reward them for doing so. Thus sex and gender are intertwined, and it is usually impossible to separate them completely. In fact, one researcher has suggested using gender/sex as “an umbrella term for both gender (socialization) and sex (biology, evolution) […] [that] […] reflects social locations or identities where gender and sex cannot be easily or at all disentangled” (van Anders, 2015, p. 1181). Furthermore, gender itself is multidimensional. One dimension is gender identity: thinking of oneself as male, female, or as someone who does not fit neatly into these categories. Another is gender role or gender expression: behaving in ways considered appropriate for women or men in the surrounding culture. Still another is sexual orientation: attraction to members of one’s own and/or other genders.

IS GENDER “BUILT IN,” OR DO WE CONSTRUCT IT?

As will be obvious in the discussion of theories about gender in Chapter 2, one key to the arguments surrounding gender is the debate about how strongly it is rooted in biology. Do our bodies predispose us to be, feel, and behave differently as males and females? How much are such differences affected by the way we are raised, by the culture in which we grow up? This nature-versus nurture question has haunted researchers who study every aspect of human behavior; however, it is particularly perplexing and complicated in the realm of gender. And the more we explore the role of nature and nurture, the more we confront the conclusion that virtually nothing in gender development is the result of only one or the other of these forces. Nature and nurture cannot be separated: they are intertwined and work together at every stage of human development. Thus, most people who have studied these issues deeply claim an interactionist position: they do not argue about how much nature or nurture influences particular aspects of development, but try instead to figure out how the two sets of influences interact to produce certain results.

THE ROLE OF BIOLOGY

THE STEPS IN HUMAN SEXUAL DIFFERENTIATION

The path to joining the category of male or female begins at conception. Through a series of developmental steps, a fertilized egg moves toward developing a body that will be classified as male or female:

• Step 1: Chromosomes. When sperm meets egg to produce fertilization, each normally contributes a set of 23 chromosomes, which pair up to form the genetic basis for the new individual. The twenty-third pair, known as the sex chromosomes, is the pair that initially determines sex. Normally, this pair comprises an X chromosome contributed by the mother’s egg and either an X or Y chromosome contributed by the father’s sperm. If the pair is XX, the pattern of development is predisposed to be female; if it is XY, the pattern is predisposed to be male. If some unusual combination, such as XO or XXX, occurs, development tends to proceed in a female direction—as long as no Y chromosome is present. Only the sperm, not the egg, can contribute a Y chromosome. Thus the genetic basis of sex is determined by the father.

• Step 2: Gonads. During the first seven weeks after conception, the embryo develops “neutral” gonads (proto-gonads) and the beginnings of both female and male sets of internal reproductive structures. Up until this point, the embryo has the potential to go either way, to develop either female or male reproductive equipment. In the eighth week, if a Y chromosome is present, the SRY gene on that chromosome promotes the organization of the neutral gonad into an embryonic testis. If there is no Y chromosome, a neutral gonad will start to become an ovary.

• Step 3: Hormones. Once formed, the testes or ovaries begin to secrete sex hormones, and these hormones influence the remaining steps in sexual differentiation. Testes secrete both testosterone, which influences the male reproductive tract to develop, and Mullerian Inhibiting Substance (MIS), which causes the female reproductive tract to atrophy and disappear. Ovaries secrete estrogens and progesterone, which organize the development of the female reproductive system.

• Step 4: Internal reproductive tract. Over the next four weeks, the sex hormones gradually organize the internal reproductive structures in a male or female direction. Under the influence of testosterone, these internal ducts become the vas deferens, epididymis, seminal vesicles, urethra, and prostate. If no significant amount of testosterone is present, the internal structures differentiate in a female direction: as fallopian tubes, uterus, and vagina.

• Step 5: External genitalia. Also by the end of the twelfth week, the external genitalia, which are indistinguishable by sex at eight weeks, differentiate as either male or female. Under the influence of testosterone, the “neutral” genitalia develop into a penis and scrotum; without the influence of testosterone, the genitalia develop as a clitoris and labia.

A careful reader may have noticed an overall pattern in these steps: at each stage, without the effect of a Y chromosome or male sex hormone, development apparently proceeds in a female direction. This is also true in other mammals. Some biologists like to say that the basic pattern of mammalian development is female—unless testosterone interferes.

Although we tend to think of female and male as two distinct, non-overlapping categories, the fact that sex develops through a series of sequential steps shows that there are some possibilities for these categories to be fuzzy. If, for example, a genetic male (XY) reaches step 3, in which testosterone is being secreted, but happens to have an inherited condition (androgen insensitivity syndrome) that makes cells unable to respond to testosterone, step 4 will not proceed in a male developmental direction. At birth, the baby will probably appear female and be classified as such; the male genetic configuration and testes may well not be discovered until young adulthood. There are varieties of ways in which the steps of sexual differentiation may be inconsistent, producing an individual whose indicators of biological sex are mixed. Such intersex individuals make up between 1 and 4 percent of the population.

There are two other aspects of the journey toward maleness or femaleness which appear even more complex than the development of a body that may be classified as male or female. One concerns the sexual differentiation of the brain. The other concerns the different ways in which individuals are treated and taught once they have been classified as female or male.

FEMALE BRAINS AND MALE BRAINS?

If different levels of prenatal hormones can affect the development of internal and external genitalia, might they not also affect the developing brain—producing different kinds of brains in females and males? For decades, popular books and articles have argued that women and men think and behave differently because their brains are different. In general terms, this notion is not new. Late in the nineteenth century, women were said to be intellectually inferior to men because they had smaller brains. When it was demonstrated that women’s brains were proportionately larger than men’s by weight, the argument shifted to the size of particular areas of the brain—first, the frontal lobes, then, when that proved untenable, the parietal lobes—that were said to be smaller in women. More recently, researchers have examined the size, shape, and density of various brain structures in women and men and have found some evidence for sex differences, for instance, in the corpus callosum (the structure that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain). Since there is a tremendous amount of individual variation in brain size and shape, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions about sex differences in brain morphology. Furthermore, it is not clear what functional significance these differences may have. Finally, it is uncertain whether the differences are “built in” or are the results of different life experiences—since brains are very plastic and responsive to experience.

The complexity of the issues is illustrated in the story of one set of researchers (Wood, Heitmiller, Andreasen, and Nopoulos, 2008) who set out to find a brain difference that would mesh with the often-reported finding that women show more interpersonal awareness than men. After using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the brains of 30 women and 30 men matched on age and IQ, they concluded that one particular brain structure, the straight gyrus (SG)—part of a brain region that had already been linked to the ability to interpret nonverbal cues—was proportionately larger in women than in men. Furthermore, size of the SG was correlated with scores on a test of interpersonal perception. Thus far, this may sound like a clear case of sex differences in brain structure causing sex differences in a particular ability. It turns out not to be so simple, however. In this study, both the size of the SG and the interpersonal perception scores were also correlated with a third variable: respondents’ scores on a measure of psychological femininity and masculinity. Respondents (both female and male) who described themselves as having more “feminine” qualities tended to have larger SGs and higher interpersonal perception scores. Furthermore, a subsequent study that examined the brains of children aged 7 to 17 found a surprising result: the SG was larger in boys than in girls, and interpersonal awareness scores were associated with smaller, not larger, SGs (Wood, Murko, and Nopoulos, 2009). In this younger sample, both higher interpersonal awareness and smaller SGs were associated with higher scores on psychological femininity. This complicated set of findings illustrates how perilous it can be to try to draw sweeping conclusions about sex differences in the brain and their relationship to female–male differences in behavior. It suggests, for example, the possibility that children’s experiences as boys or girls may affect brain development. It leaves us wondering whether women’s larger SGs come from many years of being socially sensitive, or whether their social sensitivity stems from their larger SGs—or whether both things may be true.

Another research emphasis has been on exploring possible sex differences in the organization of various cognitive abilities within the brain. Researchers cannot discern this organization by examining brains directly; rather, they ask respondents to perform specific tasks, such as reading, listening, and recognizing objects, and they use various methods to determine which part of the brain is activated and used to accomplish these tasks. Using this approach, some investigators have found results consistent with the idea that women and men may differ in how basic abilities, such as language, are distributed across the two hemispheres of the brain or among the different areas within hemispheres. The findings often involve small differences, are complex, and often contested, so it is not possible to sum them up in brief generalizations. This complexity has not prevented media commentators from trumpeting misleading headlines such as “Women are significantly more right-brained than men.”

If there were differences in the organization of female and male brains, how might this occur? For decades, there have been efforts to understand the extent to which prenatal hormones may be involved and may organize the developing brain in ways that produce average differences between girls and boys in certain interests and social behaviors. This too is a complicated area, but a reasonable amount of evidence suggests that levels of prenatal androgens are associated with later levels of certain kinds of interests (e.g., interest in babies) and behaviors (e.g., rough-and-tumble play) which are more strongly associated with one gender than with the other. For example, one study measured testosterone levels in amniotic fluid (the fluid that surrounds the fetus in the womb), and tested the association between those levels and the levels of masculine-typical play, measured when the children were aged 6 to 10 years (Auyeung et al., 2009). For both boys and girls, parents reported more masculine-typical activities and interests for children whose samples of amniotic fluid in utero had shown higher levels of testosterone. The association between prenatal hormone levels and later behavior does not prove definitively that one causes the other. However, this and other studies have been used to suggest that prenatal concentrations of sex hormones may contribute to female–male behavioral differences, and that, to the extent that hormones are responsible for these differences, they may also contribute to the large individual differences in such qualities among both girls and boys.

When we learn about scientific findings of differences in the brains of men and women in any particular sample—findings that involve sophisticated techniques such as neuroimaging—it is tempting to conclude that something really definitive has been proven about brain sex differences. However, experts caution that it would be wise to remain skeptical. Neuroimaging results can be affected by extraneous variables such as breathing rates or caffeine intake—a problem if samples are small. Furthermore, it is difficult to interpret the functional significance of differences in the size of brain structures or of more or less activation of a certain area of the brain. And if scientists are trying to link brain differences to behavior that is “feminine” or “masculine,” they have to define what behaviors fall into these categories—a daunting and controversial task.

The role of biology in producing gender-related behavior is comp...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Gender: everybody has/does one
• 2 Theoretical frameworks for thinking about gender
• 3 Power, inequalities, and prejudice
• 4 Relationships, intimacy, and sexualities
• 5 The gendered workplace
• 6 Gender, leadership, and public life
• 7 Global patterns of gender-related violence
• 8 Global patterns of gender and health
• 9 The shape of our future: gender and the aging population
• Epilogue: the future of gender
• Glossary
• Index