BUKIDNON STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

GENERAL EDUCATION COURSES DEPARTMENT

Gender & Society

GE EL 102
READINGS & ACTIVITIES COMPILATION
 Contents
01 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
SEX AND GENDER
A. Sex and Gender
B. Gender Identity and Sexual
Orientation

02 GENDER
A. Theorizing Gender
Biology constructs the Sexes
Sigmund Freud’s Stages of
Psychosexual Development
Sociological Theories on Gender
Social Construction
B. Socialization
C. Gender Inequality

03 SEX AND SEXUALITY

A. Basic Concept of Sex and Sexuality
B. Sexual Attitudes and Practices
C. Sociological Perspectives on Sex and
Sexuality

MIDTERM ACTIVITY OUTPUT

04 GAD LAWS AND APPLICATION OF
GENDER THEORIES
A. Gender-related Laws/Legal
Mandates
B. The Magna Carta of Women
C. The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action

05 SEXUAL PREJUDICE AND

DISCRIMINATION, GENDER
SENSITIVITY, GENDER AND
POLITICS, AND GENDER IN THE
WORKPLACE
A. Forms of Gender Discrimination
B. Gender Sensitivity
C. Gender in the Workplace

06 VALUES AND USE OF GENDER FAIR

LANGUAGE IN THE FILIPINO
COMMUNITY
Primer on Gender Fair Language

FINAL ACTIVITY OUTPUT

 COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course intends to develop students’ critical

thinking on the sociological experience of sex, sexuality and
gender, how these categories are both constituted by beliefs
and social institutions. Students are expected to survey
sociological studies of gendered interactions and explore the
value of sociological methods for understanding and
transforming gendered norms.

At the end of the course, the students will be able to:

❖ Describe the basic Psychological and Sociological
concepts of Sex and Gender Dynamics and related issues;

❖ Demonstrate comprehension in the different laws

promulgating GAD and application of different theories
of Gender;

❖ Campaign for desirable values and use of gender fair

language as a Filipino in one’s community
 References
Anonuevo, Carlos Antonio Q. “An Overview of the Gender Situation in the Philippines”. Retrieved September
13, 2020 from https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/philippinen/50069.pdf

Bussey, Kay, and Albert Bandura. “Social Cognitive Theory of Gender Development and
Differentiation.” Psychological Review, vol. 106, no. 4, 1999, pp. 676-713.

Christian, Barbara. "Doing Without The Generic He/Man in Technical Communication." Journal of Technical
Writing and Communication 16 (1986):87-98.

Dodd, Janet S., ed. The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors. Washington, DC: American
Chemical Society, 1986.

Ford, S. 2017. "How racism split the suffrage movement. Bust Magazine. https://bust.com/feminism/19147-
equal-means-equal.html.
Kintanar, Thelma and Tongson, Angela. “Gender Fair Language: A Primer” University of the Philippines 1998.
Retrieved September 13, 2020 from https://library.pcw.gov.ph/sites/default/files/Gender-
fair%20language%20a%20primer.pdf
Lindsey, L. L. (2015). Gender roles: A sociological perspective. Routledge.

Martin, Carol Lynn, and Diane Ruble. “Children’s Search for Gender Cues: Cognitive Perspectives on
Gender Development.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol, 13, no. 2, 2004, pp. 67-
70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00276.x

Martyna, Wendy. "The Psychology of the Generic Masculine." Women and Language in Literature and
Society. Ed. S. McConnell-Ginet, R. Borker, and N.Furman. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980.

McSorley, Brittany. “Gender Socialization.” Udemy, 12 May 2014, https://blog.udemy.com/gender-socialization/

Michals, D. "Soujourner Truth." National Women's History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-

resources/biographies/sojourner-truth.

Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing For Writers, Editors and Speakers. New
York: Lippincott & Crowell, 1980.

Nilsen, Alleen Pace. "Winning the Great He/She Battle." College English 46 (1984): 151-157

Rampton, M. (2015). "Four waves of feminism." Pacific

UniversityOregon. https://www.pacificu.edu/about/media/four-waves-feminism.

Redfern, Jenny R. “Gender Fair Language” Retrieved September 13, 2020 from
https://www.cyut.edu.tw/~lhli/rmtw/A10.pdf

Vinney, Cynthia. "What Is Gender Socialization? Definition and Examples." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020,
thoughtco.com/gender-socialization-definition-examples-4582435.

Council of Biology Editors. CBE Style Manual. Bethesda: Council of Biology Editors, Inc., 1983.

“Gender: Early Socialization: Sythesis.” Encyclopedia of Early Childhood Development, Aug.

2014, http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/gender-early-socialization/synthesis
Gender Equality Guidelines For UNESCO Publications. Retrieved September 13, 2020 from
https://en.unesco.org/system/files/ge_guidelines_for_publications_ -_annex_4.pdf
"Equal Rights Amendment." This Day in History. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/equal-rights-
amendment-passed-by-congress.

"Pay, equity, and discrimination." (2018). Institute for Women's Policy

Research. https://iwpr.org/issue/employment-education-economic-change/pay-equity-discrimination/.

https://teachingsexualhealth.ca/parents/teaching-your-child/sex-vs-sexuality/
https://teachingsexualhealth.ca/app/uploads/sites/4/TSH-The-Sexuality-Wheel-Tool-English.pdf
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-sex-and-sexuality/
https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Event/Gender/GenderAtWork_web2.pdf
https://www.healthline.com/health/psychosexual-stages
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-introtosociology/chapter/theories-of-gender-and-sex/
https://ecc.gov.ph/11th-anniversary-of-the-magna-carta-of-women-ra-9710/
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sexual-orientation-gender/gender-gender-identity/what-are-
gender-roles-and-stereotypes
https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/triple-burden-women-conflicting-gender-norms/
https://openpress.usask.ca/soc112/chapter/identity-sex-gender-and-sexuality/
 TOPIC 01
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEX AND GENDER
We are surrounded by gender lore from the time we are very small. It is ever-present in conversation,
humor, and conflict, and it is called upon to explain everything from driving styles to food preferences. Gender is
embedded so thoroughly in our institutions, our actions, our beliefs, and our desires, that it appears to us to be
completely natural. The world swarms with ideas about gender – and these ideas are so commonplace that we
take it for granted that they are true, accepting common adage as scientific fact (Eckert, P. & McConnell G., 2019).
What is sex? And what is gender? How are the concepts of gender identity, gender role and sexual identity
explained? How does an individual’s sex, gender, gender identity, gender role and sexual orientation shape the
way a person learns, love, work, thrive, and suffer? How does an individual’s social relationships govern his or hers
gender identity and sexual orientation? In this module we will be exploring the differences of these concepts.

Learning Outcome/s
At the end of this topic, you are expected to be able to:
• Demonstrate clear understanding between the differences of sex, gender, gender identity, sexual
orientation, and gender roles.

A. SEX AND GENDER

Sex refers to the biological characteristics distinguishing male and female. This definition emphasizes male and female
differences in chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, reproductive systems, and other physiological components. Gender
refers to those social, cultural, and psychological traits linked to males and females through particular social contexts. Sex
makes us male or female; under makes us masculine or feminine. Sex is an ascribed status because a person is born with
it, but gender is an achieved status because it must be learned. This relatively simple distinction masks a number of
problems associated with its usage. It implies that all people can be conveniently placed into unambiguous either-or
categories. Certainly the ascribed status of sex is less likely to be altered than the achieved status of gender. Some people
believe however, that they were born with the wrong body and are willing to undergo major surgery to make their gender
identity consistent with their biological sex.
Sex is a biological categorization based primarily on reproductive potential, whereas gender is the social elaboration of
biological sex. Not surprisingly, social norms for heterosexual coupling and care of any resulting children are closely
intertwined with gender. But while we think of sex as biological and gender as social, this distinction is not clear-cut.
People tend to think of gender as the result of nurture – as social and hence fluid – while sex is the result of nature, simply
given by biology. But the sharp demarcation fails because there is no single objective biological criterion for male or female
sex. Sex is based in a combination of anatomical, endocrinal and chromosomal features, and the selection among these
criteria for sex assignment is based very much on cultural beliefs about what actually makes someone male or female.
Thus the very definition of the biological categories male and female, and people’s understanding of themselves and others
as male or female, is ultimately social. Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) sums up the situation as follows: labeling someone a
man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs
about gender – not science – can define our sex.

Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place.
Biology offers up dichotomous male and female prototypes, but it also offers us many individuals who do not fit those
prototypes in a variety of ways. Blackless et al. (2000) estimate that 1 in 100 babies are born with bodies that differ in
some way from standard male or female. These bodies may have such conditions as unusual chromosomal makeup (e.g.,
1 in 1,000 male babies are born with two X chromosomes as well as a Y, hormonal differences such as insensitivity to
androgens (1 in 13,000 births), or a range of configurations and combinations of genitals and reproductive organs. The
attribution of intersex does not end at birth – for example, 1 in 66 girls experience growth of the clitoris in childhood or
adolescence (known as late onset adrenal hyperplasia).

It is commonly argued that biological differences between males and females determine gender by causing enduring
differences in capabilities and dispositions. Higher levels of testosterone, for example, are said to lead men to be more
aggressive than women; and left-brain dominance is said to lead men to be more rational while their relative lack of brain
lateralization should lead women to be more emotional. But the relation between physiology and behavior is not simple,
and it is all too easy to leap for gender dichotomies. And the physiology itself is more complex than is usually acknowledged.
It has been shown that hormonal levels, brain activity patterns, and even brain anatomy can be a result of different activity
as well as a cause. For example research with species ranging from rhesus monkeys (Rose et al. 1972) to fish (Fox et al.
1997) has documented changes in hormone levels as a result of changes in social position.

To whatever extent gender may be related to biology, it does not flow naturally and directly from our bodies. The
individual’s chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, and secondary sex characteristics do not determine occupation, gait, or
use of color terminology. Gender is the very process of creating a dichotomy by effacing similarity and elaborating on
difference, and where there are biological differences, these differences are exaggerated and extended in the service of
constructing gender. Actual differences between males and females tend to be scalar rather than dichotomous, with many
women and men occupying the same positions on the scale. Consider our voices. On average, men’s vocal tracts are
longer than women’s, yielding a lower voice pitch. But individuals’ actual conversational voice pitch across society does
not simply conform to the size of the vocal tract. At the age of four to five years, well before puberty differentiates male
and female vocal tracts, boys and girls learn to differentiate their voices as boys consciously and unconsciously lower their
voice pitch while girls raise theirs.

The book Language and Gender by Eckert and McConnell focused on gender as a social construction – as the means by
which society jointly accomplishes the differentiation that constitutes the gender order. While they recognized that biology
imposes certain physiological constraints on the average male and female, they treated the elaboration and magnification
of male and female differences and the erasure of differences among males and among females as entirely social. They do
not mean that individuals are helpless pawns shaped by external social forces: the social emerges as individuals develop
their own perspectives, react to others, and interpret others’ reactions to them. Nor do they mean that someone’s
gender identity (or sexual orientation) can just be freely chosen. While no adult is literally “born this way”, they
acknowledged the possibility that everyone is constrained both by their initial biological endowment and by the social
environment in which they mature.

Here is a table that differentiates the simple differences between sex and gender.
 B. GENDER IDENTITY and SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Gender development does not end with childhood or adolescence. Gender continues to be transformed as we move into
the marketplace – as we learn to act like secretaries, lawyers, managers, janitors. And it continues to be transformed as
our family status changes – as we learn to be wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, sisters and
brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers. As we age, we continue to learn new ways of being men and women: what’s
expected from the teenage girl is rather different from expectations for a woman in her mid-forties and those expectations
differ from those for a woman approaching eighty. Those not caught up in heterosexual alliances are not thereby rendered
exempt from gender expectations. Personals looking for lesbian partners, for example, often specify that respondents
should be “feminine” in appearance: no “butch” need apply (Livia 2002).

In line with the statement above we can connect gender identity and sexual orientation. Gender identity is an individual’s
self-conception of being male or female based on his or her association with masculine or feminine gender roles. Another
definition of gender identity is that it is the innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how
individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One's gender identity can be the same or different from
their sex assigned at birth. While Sexual orientation or the preference for sexual partners of one gender (sex) or the
other, also varies. People who experience sexual pleasure with members of their own sex are likely to consider themselves
masculine or feminine according to gender norms. Simply saying sexual orientation is the term referring to the person’s
pattern of emotional, romantic and sexual attraction to people of particular gender-and on how one’s identity is based on
those attractions whether they act it out or not.
Usually sexual orientation is sub divided into these categories, but this categories also have sub categories.

• Heterosexual – people attracted to people of the opposite sex

• Homosexual – people attracted to people of one’s own sex
• Bisexual – people attracted to people of either sex
• Pansexual – people attracted to people of any gender identity
• Asexual – people who are not sexually attracted to other people
• Aromantic – people with little or no romantic attraction regardless of sex and gender

Sexual orientation involves a person’s feelings and sense of identity, and is not necessarily noticeable towards others.
People may or may not act on the attractions that they feel. You may want to ask as to what are the determinants of an
individual’s sexual orientation? Most scientists would argue that sexual orientation is not determined by only one
underlying factor but is a product of combinations of biological, environmental, emotional, hormonal and neurological
factors. But sexual orientation can be driven largely by biological mechanisms enabling the sex characteristics to perform
its functional duties for reproduction. Bottom line is that a number of things contributes to a person’s sexual orientation.
Considering the uniqueness of each individual, the factors that affect a person’s sexual orientation is also unique to each.
How do people identify their sexual orientation? Well, most individuals do discover their sexual orientation in their
teenage years or during young adulthood. For example, an individual may notice that their sexual thoughts and activities
focus on people of the same sex, or both sexes. It is possible for individuals to be curious about people of the same sex
without being homosexual or bisexual and they may not pursue those attractions.

Gender Roles. Gender roles are expected attitudes and behaviors a society associates with each sex. But first, let us
define a role. Roles are simply performed according to social norms that are shared rules which guide people’s behavior
in specific situations. Example men are expected to perform their role as the father and breadwinner in the family as to
women are expected to perform their roles as the mother and nurturer in the family. Roles are socially constructed but
this does not mean that an individual cannot deviate from this social norms and follow what he wants to be. Examples
are same sex parents, mothers who are breadwinners and fathers who are nurturers.
NAME: ____________________________________ SECTION CODE: ___________________
EXCERCISE
SEX vs. GENDER: Analyze the following statements about men and women and label them accordingly.
Put S if the statement talks about individuals sexual construct and put G if the statement talks about
individuals gender construct.

Example: Sex 1. Women give birth to babies, men don't.

Gender 2. Girls are gentle, boys are rough.
3. In one case, when a child brought up as a girl learned that he was actually a boy, his school marks improved
dramatically.
4. Amongst Indian agriculture workers, women are paid 40-60 per cent of the male wage.
5. In the Philippines, most long-distance truck drivers are men.
6. Women can breastfeed babies, men can bottle-feed babies.
7. Most building-site workers in the Philippines are men.
8. In ancient Egypt men stayed at home and did weaving. Women handled family business. Women inherited
property and men did not.
9. Men's voices break at puberty; women's do not.
10. In one study of 224 cultures, there were 5 in which men did all the cooking, and 36 in which women did all
the house building.
11. According to UN statistics, women do 67 per cent of the world's work, yet their earnings for it only amounts
to 10 percent of the world's income.
12. There are more women than men in the caring professions such as nursing.
13. Men are susceptible to prostate cancer, women are not.
14. Women are susceptible to breast cancer, men are not.
15. Men are expected to take up engineering courses while women are expected to become teachers.

Give at least five gender roles in the given settings:

CHURCH SCHOOL HOME SPORTS CAREER

 TOPIC 02
GENDER
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this topic, you are expected to
• Demonstrate understanding on the Biological, Psychological and Sociological Theories of Gender
• Identify the concepts and issues on social construction, socialization, and gender inequality

I. THEORIZING GENDER: How do we explain gender in society?

There are various perspectives on the origins of gender. But for this part, we will focus on the biological,
psychological and sociological theories of gender.

A. Ordained by Nature: Biology constructs the Sexes

Biological explanations have the ring of "true" science to them because their theories are based on "objective scientific
facts” the arguments of natural scientists are extraordinarily persuasive. Also, this perspective seems to accord with
our own observations: women and men seem so different to us most of the time-so different, in fact, that we often
appear to be from different planets.

Below is a summary of biological explanations of gender THEN and how these are viewed NOW.

THEN NOW
• Theologians warned against woman suffrage: • Species are always changing, always adapting.
God had created man and woman for different As Charles Darwin proposed in his Theory of
purposes, and those reproductive differences Evolution, natural selection enables the survival
were decisive and reproduction of the good genes, be it man
• Some argued that woman's normal biological or woman.
processes made her unfit for the public world • Many writers placed women's social and
of work and school. political aspirations over the purposes for
• Women would grow bigger and heavier brains which their bodies had been designed.
and that their uteruses would shrink if they • Attribute difference in fertility or in mental
went to college. illness among college-educated women to
enlarged opportunities or frustrated ambitions,
respectively, but not to shrinking wombs.

This discipline has evolved overtime with the "application" of these observations to behavior within the society. Edward
Wilson, a professor of entomology at Harvard, helped to found Sociobiology expanding his original field of expertise to
include human behavior as well as bugs.

Sociobiologists often use a language of intention and choice, referring to "strategies" that makes it sound as if our genes
were endowed with instrumental rationality and that each of our cells acted in a feminine or masculine way. Thus they
seem to suggest that the differences we observe between women and men today have come from centuries of
advantageous evolutionary choices. For instance, "he" produces billions of tiny sperm; "she" produces one gigantic
ovum. For the male, reproductive success depends upon his ability to fertilize a large number of eggs. Toward this end,
he tries to fertilize as many eggs as he can. Thus males have a "natural" propensity toward promiscuity, or the
polygamous nature. By contrast, females require only one successful mating before their egg can be fertilized, and
therefore they tend to be extremely choosy about which male will be the lucky fellow. The dilemma for these
monogamous females, then, is how to extract parental commitment from these recalcitrant rogue males, who would
much prefer to be out fertilizing other females than stay home with the wife and kids. Women's strategy is to "hold
out" for emotional, and therefore parental, commitment before engaging in sexual relations.

In every society, females placed a high premium on signs of economic prosperity, whereas men placed their highest
premium on youth and beauty, whose signal traits were large breasts and ample hips-i.e., signs of fertility. In this
discipline it is believed that males' biological predisposition is to reproduce, and their reproductive success comes
from spreading their seed as far and wide as possible while women are actually the ones with the power because they
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get to choose which males will be successful. Do you agree?

"In hunter-gatherer societies, men hunt and women stay at home. This strong bias persists in most agricultural and industrial
societies, and, on that ground alone, appears to have a genetic origin” writes Edward Wilson.

B. The Evolutionary Imperative: From Social Darwinism To Sociobiology And Evolutionary Psychology

Sociobiologists tend to ignore other behavior among primates. For example, sexual contact with same-sex others is
"part of the normal sexual repertoire of all animals, expressed variously over the lifetime of an individual.” In fact,
same-sex sexual contact is present in the animal kingdom-ranging from bighorn sheep and giraffes, both of which have
what can be described only as gay orgies, to dolphins, whales, manatees, and Japanese macaques and bonobos, which
bond through "lesbian" sexual choices.

The newest incarnation of sociobiology is called "evolutionary psychology” which declares an ability to explain
psychological differences between women and men through their evolutionary trajectories. Men are understood to be
more aggressive, controlling, and managing-skills that were honed over centuries of evolution as hunters and, fighters.
After an equal amount of time raising children and performing domestic tasks, women are said to be more reactive,
more emotional, "programmed to be passive”.

The single trait most highly valued by both women and men was love and kindness according to a research by
Psychologist, David Buss. Could it be that love, harmony, and kindness are even more important to our reproductive
success than his sexual conquest and her monogamous reticence-that, in essence, evolutionary success depends more
on our similarities than our differences? These are virtues that cannot be solely explained by genetics alone.

SIGMUND FREUD'S STAGES OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

Ever heard the phrases "libido", “penis envy,” “Oedipal complex,” or “oral fixation”? They were all coined by famed
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud as part of his psychosexual theory of development. “The theory originated from Freud
in early 1900s as a way to understand and explain mental illness and emotional disturbance,” explains
psychotherapist Dana Dorfman, PhD. Each stage is associated with a specific conflict. The theory is more multilayered
than a wedding cake, but it boils down to this: sexual pleasure plays a major role in human development. However,
Freud explained that this pleasure is not solely gained from sexual intercourse or self-gratification.

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According to Freud, every “healthy” child evolves through five different stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital.

Each stage is associated with a specific part of the body, or more specifically, erogenous zone. Each zone is a source
of pleasure and conflict during its respective stage. “A child’s ability to resolve that conflict determines whether or not
they were able to move onto the next stage,” explains licensed professional counselor Dr. Mark Mayfield, founder and
CEO of Mayfield Counseling Centers.

Observe the charts below. Chart A is the ideal and healthy distribution of libido, the energy that the child (or the
individual) expends throughout the stages. On the other hand, Chart B shows you the fixation of libido at a certain
stage. Certain behaviors (independent of biological sex) usually arise during adolescence to adulthood varying in
degrees or frequency.

Ideally the libido should be equally distributed across all the stages, it’s possible to get “stuck” and stop progressing.
If you resolve the conflict in a given stage, you progress to the next level of development. But if something goes awry,
Freud believed you would stay exactly where you are. You either remain stuck, never progressing to the next stage,
or progress but exhibit remnants or unresolved issues from the previous stage. Freud believed there were two reasons
people got stuck: (A) their developmental needs weren’t adequately met during the stage, which caused frustration,
(B) Their developmental needs were so well met that they didn’t want to leave the state of indulgence. Both can lead
to what he calls a “fixation” on the erogenous zone associated with the stage. For instance, an individual “stuck” in the
oral stage may overly enjoy having things in their mouth.

Chart A.
Healthy Individual

Chart B.
Fixated Individual

#1 ORAL STAGE (birth to 1 yr; EZ: mouth)

The oral stage occurs between birth to about 18 months. During this time, an infant gets most of their pleasure
from their mouth. This is associated with behaviors like eating and thumb-sucking. Freud believed an infant can develop
oral fixation if their oral needs aren’t met. This could happen if they’re weaned too early or late. In this scenario,
they’re unable to appropriately adjust to new eating habits. Oral fixation might also occur if the infant is: (A) neglected
and underfed (lack of oral stimulation), (B) overprotected and overfed (excess oral stimulation).

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As a result, these unmet needs were believed to determine personality traits and behavioral tendencies in adulthood.
Somehow, these fixations manifests differently among men and women. For instance, orally fixated women tend to be
more gossipy or overly talkative, engage in overeating and nail biting, while men tend to succumb to smoking, and
saying curse words.

#2 ANAL STAGE (1yr- 3yrs; EZ: anus & bladder)

Putting things into the anal canal may be in vogue, but in this stage the pleasure is derived not from
inserting into, but pushing out of, the anus. Yep, that’s code for pooping. Freud believed that during this stage, potty
training and learning to control your bowel movements and bladder are a major source of pleasure and tension. Toilet
training is basically a parent telling a kid when and where they can poop, and it’s a person’s first real encounter with
authority. The theory says that how a parent approaches the toilet training process influences how someone interacts
with authority as they get older. Harsh potty training is thought to cause adults to be anal retentive: perfectionists,
obsessed with cleanliness, and controlling. Liberal training, on the other hand, is said to cause a person to be anal
expulsive: messy, disorganized, oversharing, and having poor boundaries.

#3 PHALLIC STAGE (3yrs-6yrs; EZ: genitals)

As you might guess from the name, this stage involves fixation on the penis. Freud proposed that for young
boys, this meant obsession with their own penis. For young girls, this meant fixation on the fact that they don’t have a
penis, an experience he called “penis envy.”

The Oedipus complex is one of Freud’s most controversial ideas. It’s based on the Greek myth where a young man
named Oedipus kills his father and then marries his mother. When he discovers what he’s done, he pokes his eyes
out. “Freud believed that every boy is sexually attracted to his mother,” explains Dr. Mayfield. And that every boy
believes that if his father found out, his father would take away the thing the little boy loves most in the world: his
penis. Herein lies castration anxiety. According to Freud, boys eventually decide to become their fathers — through
imitation — rather than fighting them. Freud called this “identification” and believed it was ultimately how the Oedipus
complex got resolved.

Another psychologist, Carl Jung, coined “the Electra Complex” in 1913 to describe a similar sensation in girls. In short,
it says that young girls compete with their mothers for sexual attention from their fathers. But Freud rejected the
label, arguing that the two genders undergo distinct experiences in this phase that shouldn’t be combined. So
what did Freud believe happened to girls in this stage? He proposed that girls love their moms until they realize they
don’t have a penis, and then become more attached to their fathers. Later, they begin to identify with their mothers
out of fear of losing their love — a phenomenon he coined the “feminine Oedipus attitude.” He believed this stage
was crucial for girls to understand their role as women in the world, as well as their sexuality.

Generally, when you ask a man about his ideal girl, he would tend to answer "I want to find someone who's like my
mom." Or when you ask a woman about her ideal partner, the answer would still go along the lines of finding the
qualities of her father.

#4 LATENCY PHASE (6yrs-12yrs; EZ: inactive)

During the latency stage, the libido is in “do not disturb mode. ”Freud argued that this is when sexual energy
was channeled into industrious, asexual activities like learning, hobbies, and social relationships. He felt that this stage
is when people develop healthy social and communication skills. He believed failure to move through this stage could
result in lifelong immaturity, or the inability to have and maintain happy, healthy, and fulfilling sexual and non-sexual
relationships as an adult.

#5 GENITAL STAGE (12yrs & up; EZ: genitals)

The last stage in this theory begins at puberty and, like “Grey’s Anatomy,” never ends. It’s when the libido
reemerges. According to Freud, this is when an individual begins to have strong sexual interest in the opposite sex.
And, if the stage is successful, this is when folks have heterosexual intercourse and develop loving, lifelong relationships
with someone of the opposite sex.

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ACTIVITY 2.1 GE EL 102
NAME: ____________________________________ SECTION CODE: ___________________
Instruction
A. Encircle the behaviors represented by the images below observed among women. Box those that
are seen in men.

(nailbiting) (secretive) (cursing) (overeating)

(gossiping) (smoking) (chewing gum) (alcoholism)

B. Identify the stage of fixation portrayed below.

____________________________________ ___________________________________

_________________________________________
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C. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES ON GENDER

Sociological theories help sociologists to explain complex human behavior, social phenomena, and social
structures. Let’s examine how each theoretical perspective might explain the gender pay gap. In 2017, full-time working
women made 80.5 cents to every dollar earned by men, meaning there is a gender wage gap of 19.5 percent. This gap
is even more pronounced for black and Hispanic women. So why do women make less than men?

Not only do we need to examine at each woman’s experience in the workforce, we should understand
intersectionality, or how each person’s experience is also influenced by race/ethnicity, social class, age, etc. We then
want to examine the structures and processes that shape these experiences. We can think about how each theoretical
perspective gives us a new lens to view the same social phenomena of the wage gap.

Structural Functionalism
Structural functionalism has provided one of the most important perspectives of sociological research in the twentieth
century and has been a major influence on research in the social sciences, including gender studies. Viewing the family
as the most integral component of society, assumptions about gender roles within marriage assume a prominent place
in this perspective. Functionalists argue that gender roles were established well before the pre-industrial era when
men typically took care of responsibilities outside of the home, such as hunting, and women typically took care of the
domestic responsibilities in or around the home. These roles were considered functional because women were often
limited by the physical restraints of pregnancy and nursing and unable to leave the home for long periods of time. Once
established, these roles were passed on to subsequent generations since they served as an effective means of keeping
the family system functioning properly. When changes occurred in the social and economic climate of the United States
during World War II, changes in the family structure also occurred. Many women had to assume the role of
breadwinner (or modern hunter-gatherer) alongside their domestic role in order to stabilize a rapidly changing society.
When the men returned from war and wanted to reclaim their jobs, society fell back into a state of imbalance, as many
women did not want to forfeit their wage-earning positions (Hawke 2007).

Conflict Theory
According to conflict theory, society is a struggle for dominance among social groups (like women versus men) that
compete for scarce resources. When sociologists examine gender from this perspective, we can view men as the
dominant group and women as the subordinate group. According to conflict theory, social problems are created when
dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups. Consider the Women’s Suffrage Movement or the debate
over women’s “right to choose” their reproductive futures. It is difficult for women to rise above men, as dominant
group members create the rules for success and opportunity in society (Farrington and Chertok 1993). Friedrich
Engels, a German sociologist, studied family structure and gender roles. Engels suggested that the same owner-worker
relationship seen in the labor force is also seen in the household, with women assuming the role of the proletariat.
This is due to women’s dependence on men for the attainment of wages, which is even worse for women who are
entirely dependent upon their spouses for economic support. Contemporary conflict theorists suggest that when
women become wage earners, they can gain power in the family structure and create more democratic arrangements
in the home, although they may still carry the majority of the domestic burden, as noted earlier (Rismanand and
Johnson-Sumerford 1998).

10
 Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism aims to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human
interaction. This is certainly relevant to the discussion of masculinity and femininity. Imagine that you walk into a bank
hoping to get a small loan for school, a home, or a small business venture. If you meet with a male loan officer, you
may state your case logically by listing all the hard numbers that make you a qualified applicant as a means of appealing
to the analytical characteristics associated with masculinity. If you meet with a female loan officer, you may make an
emotional appeal by stating your good intentions as a means of appealing to the caring characteristics associated with
femininity. Because the meanings attached to symbols are socially created and not natural, and fluid, not static, we act
and react to symbols based on the current assigned meaning. The word gay, for example, once meant “cheerful,” but
by the 1960s it carried the primary meaning of “homosexual.” In transition, it was even known to mean “careless” or
“bright and showing” (Oxford American Dictionary 2010). Furthermore, the word gay (as it refers to a homosexual),
carried a somewhat negative and unfavorable meaning fifty years ago, but it has since gained more neutral and even
positive connotations. When people perform tasks or possess characteristics based on the gender role assigned to
them, they are said to be doing gender. This notion is based on the work of West and Zimmerman (1987). Whether
we are expressing our masculinity or femininity, West and Zimmerman argue, we are always “doing gender.” Thus,
gender is something we do or perform, not something we are. In other words, both gender and sexuality are socially
constructed.

D. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION: Studying Gender as a Social Fact

“Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender

JUDITH LORBER

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 its taken-for-granted assumptions and presuppositions is like thinking
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 re-created 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 “doing gender”
(West & Zimmerman, 1987). And everyone “does gender” without thinking about it. Today, on the subway, I saw a
well-dressed man with a year-old child in a stroller. Yesterday, on a bus, I saw a man with a tiny baby in a carrier on
his chest. Seeing men taking care of small children in public is increasingly common—at least in New York City. But
both men are quite obviously stared at—and smiled at, approvingly. Everyone was doing gender—the men who were
changing the role of fathers and the other passengers, who were applauding them silently. But there was more
gendering going on that probably fewer people noticed. The baby was wearing a white crocheted cap and white clothes.
You couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The child in the stroller was wearing a dark blue T-shirt and dark print pants.
As they started to leave the train, the father put a Yankees baseball cap on the child’s head. Ah, a boy, I thought. Then
I noticed the gleam of tiny earrings in the child’s ears, and as they got off, I saw the little flowered sneakers and lace-
trimmed socks. Not a boy after all. Gender done.

Gender is such a familiar part of daily life that it usually takes a deliberate disruption of our expectations of how women
and men are supposed to act to pay attention to how it is produced. Gender signs and signals are so ubiquitous that
we usually fail to note them—unless they are missing or ambiguous. Then we are uncomfortable until we have
successfully placed the other person in a gender status; otherwise, we feel socially dislocated. In our society, in addition
to man and woman, the status can be transvestite (a person who dresses in opposite-gender clothes) and transsexual
(a person who has had sexchange surgery). Transvestites and transsexuals carefully construct their gender status by
dressing, speaking, walking, gesturing in the ways prescribed for women or men—whichever they want to be taken
for—and so does any “normal” person.

For the individual, gender construction starts with assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look
like at birth. Then babies are dressed or adorned in a way that displays the category because parents don’t want to be
constantly asked whether their baby is a girl or a boy. A sex category becomes a gender status through naming, dress,
11
and the use of other gender markers. Once a child’s gender is evident, others treat those in one gender differently
from those in the other, and the children respond to the different treatment by feeling different and behaving differently
As soon as they can talk, they start to refer to themselves as members of their gender. Sex doesn’t come into play
again until puberty, but by that time, sexual feelings and desires and practices have been shaped by gendered norms
and expectations. Adolescent boys and girls approach and avoid each other in an elaborately scripted and gendered
mating dance. Parenting is gendered, with different expectations for mothers and for fathers, and people of different
genders work at different kinds of jobs. The work adults do as mothers and fathers and as low-level workers and high-
level bosses, shapes women’s and men’s life experiences, and these experiences produce different feelings,
consciousness, relationships, skills—ways of being that we call feminine or masculine. All of these processes constitute
the social construction of gender.

Gendered roles change—today fathers are taking care of little children, girls and boys are wearing unisex clothing and
getting the same education, women and men are working at the same jobs. Although many traditional social groups
are quite strict about maintaining gender differences, in other social groups they seem to be blurring. Then why the
one-year-old’s earrings? Why is it still so important to mark a child as a girl or a boy, to make sure she is not taken
for a boy or he for a girl? What would happen if they were? They would, quite literally, have changed places in their
social world.

To explain why gendering is done from birth, constantly and by everyone, we have to look not only at the way
individuals experience gender but at gender as a social institution. As a social institution, gender is one of the major
ways that human beings organize their lives. Human society depends on a predictable division of labor, a designated
allocation of scarce goods, assigned responsibility for children and others who cannot care for themselves, common
values and their systematic transmission to new members, legitimate leadership, music, art, stories, games, and other
symbolic productions. One way of choosing people for the different tasks of society is on the basis of their talents,
motivations, and competence—their demonstrated achievements. The other way is on the basis of gender, race,
ethnicity—ascribed membership in a category of people. Although societies vary in the extent to which they use one
or the other of these ways of allocating people to work and to carry out other responsibilities, every society uses
gender and age grades. Every society classifies people as “girl and boy children,” “girls and boys ready to be married,”
and “fully adult women and men,” constructs similarities among them and differences between them, and assigns them
to different roles and responsibilities. Personality characteristics, feelings, motivations, and ambitions flow from these
different life experiences so that the members of these different groups become different kinds of people. The process
of gendering and its outcome are legitimated by religion, law, science, and the society’s entire set of values.
•••
Western society’s values legitimate gendering by claiming that it all comes from physiology— female and male
procreative differences. But gender and sex are not equivalent, and gender as a social construction does not flow
automatically from genitalia and reproductive organs, the main physiological differences of females and males. In the
construction of ascribed social statuses, physiological differences such as sex, stage of development, color of skin, and
size are crude markers. They are not the source of the social statuses of gender, age, grade, and race. Social statuses
are carefully constructed through prescribed processes of teaching, learning, emulation, and enforcement. Whatever
genes, hormones, and biological evolution contribute to human social institutions is materially as well as qualitatively
transformed by social practices. Every social institution has a material base, but culture and social practices transform
that base into something with qualitatively different patterns and constraints. The economy is much more than
producing food and goods and distributing them to eaters and users; family and kinship are not the equivalent of having
sex and procreating; morals and religions cannot be equated with the fears and ecstasies of the brain; language goes
far beyond the sounds produced by tongue and larynx. No one eats “money” or “credit”; the concepts of “god” and
“angels” are the subjects of theological disquisitions; not only words but objects, such as their flag, “speak” to the
citizens of a country.

Similarly, gender cannot be equated with biological and physiological differences between human females and
males. The building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses. Western societies have only two
genders, “man” and “woman.” Some societies have three genders— men, women, and berdaches or hijras or
xaniths. Berdaches, hijras, and xaniths are biological males who behave, dress, work, and are treated in most
respects as social women; they are therefore not men, nor are they female women; they are, in our language,
“male women.”2 There are African and American Indian societies that have a gender status called manly
hearted women—biological females who work, marry, and parent as men; their social status is “female men”
(Amadiume, 1987; Blackwood, 1984). They do not have to behave or dress as men to have the social
responsibilities and prerogatives of husbands and fathers; what makes them men is enough wealth to buy a
wife.
12
Modern Western societies’ transsexuals and transvestites are the nearest equivalent of these crossover genders, but
they are not institutionalized as third genders (Bolin, 1987). Transsexuals are biological males and females who have
sex-change operations to alter their genitalia. They do so in order to bring their physical anatomy in congruence with
the way they want to live and with their own sense of gender identity. They do not become a third gender; they change
genders. Transvestites are males who live as women and females who live as men but do not intend to have sex-change
surgery. Their dress, appearance, and mannerisms fall within the range of what is expected from members of the
opposite gender, so that they “pass.” They also change genders, sometimes temporarily, some for most of their lives.
Transvestite women have fought in wars as men soldiers as recently as the nineteenth century; some married women,
and others went back to being women and married men once the war was over. Some were discovered when their
wounds were treated; others not until they died. In order to work as a jazz musician, a man’s occupation, Billy Tipton,
a woman, lived most of her life as a man. She died recently at seventy-four, leaving a wife and three adopted sons for
whom she was husband and father, and musicians with whom she had played and traveled, for whom she was “one of
the boys” (New York Times, 1989).4 There have been many other such occurrences of women passing as men who
do more prestigious or lucrative men’s work (Matthaei, 1982, p. 192–93).

Genders, therefore, are not attached to a biological substratum. Gender boundaries are breachable, and individual and
socially organized shifts from one gender to another call attention to “cultural, social, or aesthetic dissonances”
(Garber, 1992, p. 16). These odd or deviant or third genders show us what we ordinarily take for granted—that people
have to learn to be women and men. Because transvestism is direct evidence of how gender is constructed, Marjorie
Garber claims it as “extraordinary power … to disrupt, expose, and challenge, putting in question the very notion of
the ‘original’ and of stable identity” (1992, 16).

GENDER BENDING
It is difficult to see how gender is constructed because we take it for granted that it’s all biology, or hormones, or
human nature. The differences between women and men seem to be self-evident, and we think they would occur no
matter what society did. But in actuality, human females and males are physiologically more similar in appearance than
are the two sexes of many species of animals and are more alike than different in traits and behavior (C. F. Epstein,
1988). Without the deliberate use of gendered clothing, hairstyles, jewelry, and cosmetics, women and men would
look far more alike.6 Even societies that do not cover women’s breasts have gender-identifying clothing, scarification,
jewelry, and hairstyles.

The ease with which many transvestite women pass as men and transvestite men as women is corroborated by the
common gender misidentification in Westernized societies of people in jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. Men with long
hair may be addressed as “miss,” and women with short hair are often taken for men unless they offset the potential
ambiguity with deliberate gender markers (Devor, 1987, 1989). Jan Morris, in Conundrum, an autobiographical account
of events just before and just after a sex-change operation, described how easy it was to shift back and forth from
being a man to being a woman when testing how it would feel to change gender status. During this time, Morris still
had a penis and wore more or less unisex clothing; the context alone made the man and the woman:

Sometimes the arena of my ambivalence was uncomfortably small. At the Travellers’ Club,
for example, I was obviously known as a man or sorts—women were only allowed on the
premises at all during a few hours of the day, and even then were hidden away as far as
possible in lesser rooms or alcoves. But I had another club, only a few hundred yards
away, where I was known only as a woman, and often I went directly from one to the
other, imperceptibly changing roles on the way—“Cheerio, sir,” the porter would say at
one club, and “Hello, madam,” the porter would greet me at the other. (1975, p. 132)

Gender shifts are actually a common phenomenon in public roles as well. Queen Elizabeth II of England bore children,
but when she went to Saudi Arabia on a state visit, she was considered an honorary man so that she could confer and
dine with the men who were heads of a state that forbids unrelated men and women to have lace-to-unveiled-face
contact. In contemporary Egypt, lower-class women who run restaurants or shops dress in men’s clothing and engage
in unfeminine aggressive behavior, and middle-class educated women of professional or managerial status can take
positions of authority (Rugh, 1986, p. 131). In these situations, there is an important status change: These women are
treated by the others in the situation as if they are men. From their own point of view, they are still women. From the
social perspective, however, they are men.

In many cultures, gender bending is prevalent in theater or dance—the Japanese kabuki are men actors who play both
13
women and men; in Shakespeare’s theater company, there were no actresses—Juliet and Lady Macbeth were played
by boys. Shakespeare’s comedies are full of witty comments on gender shifts. Women characters frequently
masquerade as young men, and other women characters fall in love with them; the boys playing these masquerading
women, meanwhile, are acting out pining for the love of men characters.
•••
But despite the ease with which gender boundaries can be traversed in work, in social relationships, and in cultural
productions, gender statuses remain. Transvestites and transsexuals do not challenge the social construction of gender.
Their goal is to be feminine women and masculine men (Kando, 1973). Those who do not want to change their
anatomy but do want to change their gender behavior fare less well in establishing their social identity.…

Paradoxically, then, bending gender rules and passing between genders does not erode but rather preserves gender
boundaries. In societies with only two genders, the gender dichotomy is not disturbed by transvestites, because others
feel that a transvestite is only transitorily ambiguous—is “really a man or woman underneath.” After sex-change
surgery, transsexuals end up in a conventional gender status—a “man” or a “woman” with the appropriate genitals
(Eichler 1989). When women dress as men for business reasons, they are indicating that in that situation, they want
to be treated the way men are treated; when they dress as women, they want to be treated as women:

By their male dress, female entrepreneurs signal their desire to suspend the expectations
of accepted feminine conduct without losing respect and reputation. By wearing what is
“unattractive” they signify that they are not intending to display their physical charms
while engaging in public activity Their loud, aggressive banter contrasts with the modest
demeanor that attracts men.… Overt signalling of a suspension of the rules preserves
normal conduct from eroding expectations. (Rugh, 1986, p. 131)

FOR INDIVIDUALS, GENDER MEANS SAMENESS

Although the possible combinations of genitalia, body shapes, clothing, mannerisms, sexuality, and roles could produce
infinite varieties in human beings, the social institution of gender depends on the production and maintenance of a
limited number of gender statuses and of making the members of these statuses similar to each other. Individuals are
born sexed but not gendered, and they have to be taught to be masculine or feminine.9 As Simone de Beauvoir said:
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.…; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature … which
is described as feminine.” (1952, p. 267).

Children learn to walk, talk, and gesture the way their social group says girls and boys should. Ray Birdwhistell, in his
analysis of body motion as human communication, calls these learned gender displays tertiary sex characteristics and
argues that they are needed to distinguish genders because humans are a weakly dimorphic species—their only sex
markers are genitalia (1970, p. 39–46). Clothing, paradoxically, often hides the sex but displays the gender.

In early childhood, humans develop gendered personality structures and sexual orientations through their interactions
with parents of the same and opposite gender. As adolescents, they conduct their sexual behavior according to
gendered scripts. Schools, parents, peers, and the mass media guide young people into gendered work and family roles.
As adults, they take on a gendered social status in their society’s stratification system. Gender is thus both ascribed
and achieved (West & Zimmerman, 1987).

The achievement of gender was most dramatically revealed in a case of an accidental transsexual—a baby boy whose
penis was destroyed in the course of a botched circumcision when he was seven months old (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972,
p. 118–23). The child’s sex category was changed to “female,” and a vagina was surgically constructed when the child
was seventeen months old. The parents were advised that they could successfully raise the child, one of identical twins,
as a girl. Physicians assured them that the child was too young to have formed a gender identity. Children’s sense of
which gender they belong to usually develops around the age of three, at the time that they start to group objects and
recognize that the people around them also fit into categories—big, little; pink-skinned, brown-skinned; boys, girls.
Three has also been the age when children’s appearance is ritually gendered, usually by cutting a boy’s hair or dressing
him in distinctively masculine clothing. In Victorian times, English boys wore dresses up to the age of three, when they
were put into short pants. (Garber, 1992, p. 1–2)

The parents of the accidental transsexual bent over backward to feminize the child—and succeeded. Frilly dresses,
hair ribbons, and jewelry created a pride in looks, neatness, and “daintiness.” More significant, the child’s dominance
was also feminized:

14
 The girl had many tomboyish traits, such as abundant physical energy a high level of activity,
stubbornness, and being often the dominant one in a girls’ group. Her mother tried to modify
her tomboyishness: “… I teach her to be more polite and quiet. I always wanted those virtues. I
never did manage, but I’m going to try to manage them to—my daughter—to be more quiet and
ladylike.” From the beginning the girl had been the dominant twin. By the age of three, her
dominance over her brother was, as her mother described it, that of a mother hen. The boy in
turn took up for his sister, if anyone threatened her. (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972, 122)

This child was not a tomboy because of male genes or hormones; according to her mother, she herself had also been
a tomboy. What the mother had learned poorly while growing up as a “natural” female she insisted that her physically
reconstructed son-daughter learn well. For both mother and child, the social construction of gender overrode any
possibly inborn traits.

People go along with the imposition of gender norms because the weight of morality as well as immediate social
pressure enforces them. Consider how many instructions for properly gendered behavior are packed into this
mother’s admonition to her daughter: “This is how to hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to
prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming” (Kincaid, 1978).

Gender norms are inscribed in the way people move, gesture, and even eat. In one African society, men were supposed
to eat with their “whole mouth, wholeheartedly, and not, like women, just with the lips, that is halfheartedly, with
reservation and restraint” (Bordieu, [1980] 1990, p. 70). Men and women in this society learned to walk in ways that
proclaimed their different positions in the society:

The manly man … stands up straight into the face of the person he approaches, or wishes to
welcome. Ever on the alert, because ever threatened, he misses nothing of what happens around
him.… Conversely, a well brought-up woman … is expected to walk with a slight stoop, avoiding
every misplaced movement of her body, her head or her arms, looking down, keeping her eyes
on the spot where she will next put her foot, especially if she happens to have to walk past the
men’s assembly.

Many cultures go beyond clothing, gestures, and demeanor in gendering children. They inscribe gender directly into
bodies. In traditional Chinese society, mothers bound their daughters’ feet into three-inch stumps to enhance their
sexual attractiveness. Jewish fathers circumcise their infant sons to show their covenant with God. Women in African
societies remove the clitoris of prepubescent girls, scrape their labia, and make the lips grow together to preserve
their chastity and ensure their marriageability. In Western societies, women augment their breast size with silicone
and reconstruct their faces with cosmetic surgery to conform to cultural ideals of feminine beauty.…

Most parents create a gendered world for their newborn by naming, birth announcements, and dress. Children’s
relationships with same-gendered and different-gendered caretakers structure their self-identifications and
personalities. Through cognitive development, children extract and apply to their own actions the appropriate behavior
for those who belong in their own gender, as well as race, religion, ethnic group, and social class, rejecting what is not
appropriate. If their social categories are highly valued, they value themselves highly; if their social categories are low
status, they lose selfesteem (Chodorow, 1974). Many feminist parents who want to raise androgynous children soon
lose their children to the pull of gendered norms (T. Gordon, 1990, p. 87–90). My son attended a carefully non-sexist
elementary school, which didn’t even have girls’ and boys’ bathrooms. When he was seven or eight years old, I attended
a class play about “squares” and “circles” and their need for each other and noticed that all the girl squares and circles
wore makeup, but none of the boy squares and circles did. I asked the teacher about it after the play, and she said,
“Bobby said he was not going to wear makeup, and he is a powerful child, so none of the boys would either.” In a long
discussion about conformity, my son confronted me with the question of who the conformists were, the boys who
followed their leader or the girls who listened to the woman teacher. In actuality, they both were, because they both
followed same-gender leaders and acted in gender-appropriate ways. (Actors may wear makeup, but real boys don’t.)

For human beings there is no essential femaleness or maleness, femininity or masculinity, womanhood or manhood,
but once gender is ascribed, the social order constructs and holds individuals to strongly gendered norms and
expectations. Individuals may vary on many of the components of gender and may shift genders temporarily or
permanently, but they must fit into the limited number of gender statuses their society recognizes. In the process, they
re-create their society’s version of women and men: “If we do gender appropriately, we simultaneously sustain,
reproduce, and render legitimate the institutional arrangements.… If we fail to do gender appropriately, we as
15
individuals— not the institutional arrangements—may be called to account (for our character, motives, and
predispositions)” (West & Zimmerman, 1987, p. 146).

The gendered practices of everyday life reproduce a society’s view of how women and men should act (Bourdieu,
[1980], 1990). Gendered social arrangements are justified by religion and cultural productions and backed by law, but
the most powerful means of sustaining the moral hegemony of the dominant gender ideology is that the process is
made invisible; any possible alternatives are virtually unthinkable (Foucault, 1972; Gramsci, 1971).

FOR SOCIETY, GENDER MEANS DIFFERENCE

The persuasiveness of gender as a way of structuring social life demands that gender statuses be clearly differentiated.
Varied talents, sexual preferences, identities, personalities, interests, and ways of interacting fragment the individual’s
bodily and social experiences. Nonetheless, these are organized in Western cultures into two and only two socially
and legally recognized gender statuses, “man” and “woman.”10 In the social construction of gender, it does not matter
what men and women actually do; it does not even matter if they do exactly the same thing. The social institution of
gender insists only that what they do is perceived as different.

If men and women are doing the same tasks, they are usually spatially segregated to maintain gender separation, and
often the tasks are given different job titles as well, such as executive secretary and administrative assistant (Reskin,
1988). If the differences between women and men begin to blur, society’s “sameness taboo” goes into action (G. Rubin,
1975, p. 178). At a rock and roll dance at West Point in 1976, the year women were admitted to the prestigious
military academy for the first time, the school’s administrators “were reportedly perturbed by the sight of mirror-
image couples dancing in short hair and dress gray trousers,” and a rule was established that women cadets could
dance at these events only if they wore skirts (Barkalow & Raab, 1970, p. 53). Women recruits in the U.S. Marine
Corps are required to wear makeup—at a minimum, lipstick and eye shadow—and they have to take classes in makeup,
hair care, poise, and etiquette. This feminization is part of a deliberate policy of making them clearly distinguishable
from men Marines. Christine Williams quotes a twenty five-year-old woman drill instructor as saying: “A lot of the
recruits who come here don’t wear makeup; they’re tomboyish or athletic. A lot of them have the preconceived idea
that going into the military means they can still be a tomboy. They don’t realize that you are a Woman Marine” (1989,
p. 76–77).

If gender differences were genetic, physiological, or hormonal, gender bending and gender ambiguity would occur only
in hermaphrodites, who are born with chromosomes and genitalia that are not clearly female or male. Since gender
differences are socially constructed, all men and all women can enact the behavior of the other, because they know
the other’s social script: “`Man’ and ‘woman’ are at once empty and overflowing categories. Empty because they have
no ultimate, transcendental meaning. Overflowing because even when they appear to be fixed, they still contain within
them alternative, denied, or suppressed definitions” (J. W. Scott, 1988a, p. 49). Nonetheless, though individuals may
be able to shift gender statuses, the gender boundaries have to hold, or the whole gendered social order will come
crashing down.

Paradoxically, it is the social importance of gender statuses and their external markers—clothing, mannerisms, and
spatial segregation—that makes gender bending or gender crossing possible—or even necessary. The social viability
of differentiated gender statuses produces the need or desire to shift statuses. Without gender differentiation,
transvestitism and transsexuality could be meaningless. You couldn’t dress in the opposite gender’s clothing if all
clothing were unisex. There would be no need to reconstruct genitalia to match identity if interests and life-styles
were not gendered. There would be no need for women to pass as men to do certain kinds of work of jobs were not
typed as “women’s work” and “men’s work.” Women would not have to dress as men in public life in order to give
orders or aggressively bargain with customers.
Gender boundaries are preserved when transsexuals create congruous autobiographies of always having felt like what
they are now. The transvestite’s story also “recuperates social and sexual norms” (Garber, 1992, p. 69). In the
transvestite’s normalized narrative, he or she “is ‘compelled’ by social and economic forces to disguise himself or
herself in order to get a job, escape repression, or gain artistic or political ‘freedom” (Garber, 1992, p. 70). The “true
identity,” when revealed, causes amazement over how easily and successfully the person passed as a member of the
opposite gender, not a suspicion that gender itself is something of a put-on.

16
ACTIVITY 2.3 GE EL 102
NAME: ____________________________________ SECTION CODE: ___________________
INSTRUCTION: Respond to the following questions about the article, "Night to His Day". Use extra
paper if the space provided below is insufficient.

a) Is it still so important to mark a child as a girl or a boy? (Why? Why not?)

b) What is your stand about the "third gender"?

c) What are culture bound "gendered" practices that you observe in our country?

17
II. SOCIALIZATION: How do we learn gender?

The organization of society is profoundly gendered, meaning that the “natural” distinction between male and female,
and the attribution of different qualities to each, underlies institutional structures from the family, to the occupational
structure, to the division between public and private, to access to power and beyond. Patriarchy is the set of
institutional structures (like property rights, access to positions of power, and relationship to sources of income)
which are based on the belief that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories. How does the
“naturalness” of the distinction between male and female get established? How does it serve to organize everyday
life?

The phrase “boys will be boys” is often used to justify behaviour such as pushing, shoving, or other forms of aggression
from young boys. The phrase implies that such behaviour is unchangeable and something that is part of a boy’s nature.
Aggressive behaviour, when it does not inflict significant harm, is often accepted from boys and men because it is
congruent with the cultural script for masculinity. The “script” written by society is in some ways similar to a script
written by a playwright. Just as a playwright expects actors to adhere to a prescribed script, society expects women
and men to behave according to the expectations of their respective gender role. Scripts are generally learned
through socialization, which teaches people to behave according to social norms.

Socialization is the process whereby individuals learn the culture of their society. This process begins early in
life. Children develop an understanding of gender categories at a young age. Studies have shown that children can
discern male voices from female voices at six months old, and can differentiate between men and women in
photographs at nine months old. Between 11 and 14 months, children develop the ability to associate sight and sound,
matching male and female voices with photographs of men and women. By age three, children have formed their own
gender identity. They have also begun to learn their culture’s gender norms, including which toys, activities, behaviors,
and attitudes are associated with each gender.

Because gender categorization is a significant part of a child's social development, children tend to be especially
attentive to same-gender models. When a child observes same-gender models consistently exhibit specific behaviors
that differ from the behaviors of other-gender models, the child is more likely to exhibit the behaviors learned from
the same-gender models. These models include parents, peers, teachers, and figures in the media.

Children’s knowledge of gender roles and stereotypes can impact their attitudes towards their own and other
genders. Young children, in particular, may become especially rigid about what boys and girls "can" and "cannot" do.
This either-or thinking about gender reaches its peak between the ages of 5 and 7 and then becomes more flexible.

Read the story below.

The Story of X by Lois Gould

Once upon a time, a Baby named X was born. It was named X so

that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or girl. Its parents could tell,
of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else. They couldn't even tell Baby
X - at least not until much, much later.
You see, X was a part of a very important Secret Scientific
Xperiment known officially as Project Baby X. This Xperiment was going
to cost Xactly 23 billion dollars and 72 cents. Which might seem like a
lot for one Baby, even if it was an important Secret Scientific Xperiment
Baby. But when you remember the cost of strained carrots, stuffed
bunnies, booster shots, 28 shiny quarters from the tooth fairy...you begin
to see how it adds up.
Long before Baby X was born, the smartest scientists had to work out
the secret details of the Xperiment and to write the Official Instruction
Manual in secret code for Baby X's parents, whoever they were. These
parents had to be selected very carefully. Thousands of people
volunteered to take thousands of tests with thousands of tricky questions.
Almost everybody failed because it turned out almost everybody wanted
a boy or a girl and not a Baby X at all. Also, almost everybody thought a
Baby X would be more trouble than a boy or girl. (They were right too!)

18
 There were families with grandparents named Milton and Agatha, who wanted the baby named Milton or
Agatha instead of X, even if it was an X. There were aunts who wanted to knit tiny dresses and uncles who wanted
to send tiny baseball mitts. Worst of all, there were families with other children who couldn't keep a Secret. Not if
they knew the Secret was worth 23 billion dollars and 72 cents - and all you had to do was take one little peek at
Baby X in the bathtub to know what it was.
Finally, the scientists found the Joneses, who really wanted to raise an X more than any other kind of baby -
no matter how much trouble it was. The Joneses promised to take turns holding X, feeding X, and singing X to sleep.
And they promised never to hire any babysitters. The scientists knew that a babysitter would probably peek at X in
the bathtub, too.
The day the Joneses brought their baby home, lots of friends and relatives came to see it. And the first thing
they asked was, what kind of a baby X was. When the Joneses said, "It's an X!" nobody knew what to say. They
couldn't say, "Look at her cute little dimples!" On the other hand, they couldn't say, "Look at his husky little biceps!"
And they didn't feel right about saying just plain "kitchycoo". The relatives all felt embarrassed about having an X in
the family. "People will think there's something wrong with it!" they whispered. "Nonsense!" the Joneses said stoutly.
"What could possibly be wrong with this perfectly adorable X?"
Clearly, nothing at all was wrong. Nevertheless, the cousins who had sent a tiny football helmet could not
come and visit any more. And the neighbors who sent a pink-flowered romper suit pulled their shades down when
the Joneses passed their house.
The Official Instruction Manual had warned the new parents that this would happen, so they didn't fret about
it. Besides, they were too busy learning how to bring up Baby X. Ms. and Mr. Jones had to be Xtra careful. If they
kept bouncing it up in the air and saying how strong and active it was, they'd be treating it more like a boy than an X.
But if all they did was cuddle it and kiss it and tell it how sweet and dainty it was, they'd be treating it more like a girl
than an X. On page 1654 of the Official Instruction Manual, the scientists prescribed: "Plenty of bouncing and plenty
of cuddling, both. X ought to be strong and sweet and active. Forget about dainty altogether".
There were other problems, too. Toys, for instance. And clothes. On his first shopping trip, Mr. Jones told
the store clerk, "I need some things for a new baby". The clerk smiled and said, "Well, now, is it a boy or a girl?" "It's
an X," Mr. Jones said, smiling back. But the clerk got all red in the face and said huffily, "In that case, I'm afraid I can't
help you, sir.î Mr. Jones wandered the aisles trying to find what X needed. But everything was in sections marked
BOYS or GIRLS: "Boys' Pajamas" and "Girls' Underwear" and "Boys' Fire Engines" and "Girls' Housekeeping Sets". Mr.
Jones went home without buying anything for X.
That night he and Ms. Jones consulted page 2326 of the Official Instruction Manual. It said firmly: "Buy plenty
of everything!" So they bought all kinds of toys. A boy doll that made pee-pee and cried "Pa-Pa". And a girl doll that
talked in three languages and said, "I am the Pre-i-dent of Gen-er-al Mo-tors". They bought a storybook about a brave
princess who rescued a handsome prince from his tower, and another one about a sister and brother who grew up
to be a baseball star and a ballet star and you had to guess which.
The head scientists of Project Baby X checked all their purchases and told them to keep up the good work.
They also reminded the Joneses to see page 4629 of the Manual where it said, "Never make Baby X feel embarrassed
or ashamed about what it wants to play with. And if X gets dirty climbing rocks, never say, "nice little Xes don't get
dirty climbing rocks".
Likewise, it said, "if X falls down and cries, never say, "Brave little Xes don't cry. Because, of course, nice little
Xes do get dirty, and brave little Xes do cry. No matter how dirty X gets or how hard it cries, don't worry. It's all
part of the Xperiment."
Whenever the Joneses pushed Baby X's stroller in the park, smiling strangers would come over and coo: "is
that a boy or a girl?" The Joneses would smile back and say, "it's an X". The stringers would stop smiling then and
often snarl something nasty - as if the Joneses had said something nasty to them.
Once a little girl grabbed X's shovel in the sandbox and zonked X on the head with it. "Now, now Tracy," the
mother began to scold, "little girls mustn't hit little - and she turned to ask X, "Are you a little boy or a little girl,
dear?" Mr. Jones, who was sitting near the sandbox, held his breath and crossed his fingers. X smiled politely, even
though X's head had never been zonked so hard in its life. "I'm a little X", said X. "You're a what?" the lady exclaimed
angrily. "You're a little b-r-a-t, you mean!" "But little girls mustn't hit little Xes either!" said X, retrieving the shove l
with another polite smile. "What good's hitting, anyway?" X's father finally X-hailed, uncrossed his fingers, and grinned.
And at their next secret Project Baby X meeting,t he scientists grinned, too. Baby X was doing fine.
But then it was time for X to start school. The Joneses were really worried about this, because school was
even more full of rules for boys and girls, and there were no rules for Xes. Teachers would tell boys to form a line,
and girls to form another line. There would be boys' games and girls' games, and boys' secrets and girls' secrets. The
school library would have a list of recommended books for girls and a different list for boys. There would even be a
bathroom marked BOYS and another one marked GIRLS. Pretty soon, boys and girls would hardly talk to each other.
What would happen to poor little X?
19
 The Joneses spent weeks consulting their Instruction Manual. There were 249 pages of advice under "First
Day of School". Then they were all summoned to an Urgent Xtra Special Conference with the smart scientists of
Project Baby X.
The scientists had to make sure that X's mother had taught X how to throw and catch a ball properly, and
that X's father had been sure to teach X what to serve at a doll's tea party. X had to know how to shoot marbles
and jump rope and, most of all, what to say when the other children asked whether X was a boy or a girl.
Finally, X was ready. X's teacher had promised that the class could line up alphabetically, instead of forming
separate lines for boys and girls. And X had permission to use the principal's bathroom because it wasn't marked
anything except BATHROOM. But nobody could help X with the biggest problem of all - Other Children. Nobody
in X's class had ever known an X.
Nobody had even heard grown-ups say, "Some of my best friends are Xes". What would other children think?
Would they make Xist jokes? or Would they make friends? You couldn't tell what X was by its clothes. Overalls don't
even button right to left, like girls' clothes, or left to right, like boys' clothes. And did X have a girl's short haircut or
a boy's long haircut? As for the games X liked, either X played ball very well for a girl, or else played house very well
for a boy.
The children tried to find out by asking X tricky questions, like "who's your favorite sports star?" X had two
favorite sports stars: a girl jockey named Robyn Smith and a boy archery champion named Robin Hood. Then they
asked, "What's your favorite TV show?" And X said: "Lassie" which stars a girl dog played by a boy dog. When X said
its favorite toy was a doll, everyone decided that X must be a girl. But then X said the doll was really a robot and
that X had computerized it and it was programmed to bake fudge and then clean up the kitchen. After X told them
that, they gave up guessing what X was. All they knew was they'd like to see X's doll.
After school, X wanted to play with the other children. "How about shooting baskets in the gym?" X asked
the girls. But all they did was make faces and giggle behind X's back. "Boy, is he weird," whispered Jim to Joe. "How
about weaving some baskets in the arts and crafts room?" X asked the boys. But they all made faces and giggled behind
X's back, too. "Boy, is she weird," whispered Susie to Peggy.
That night, Ms. and Mr. Jones asked X how things had gone at school. X tried to smile, but there were two
big tears in its eyes. "The lessons are okay," X began, "but...." "But?" said Ms. Jones. "The Other Children hate me," X
whispered. "Hate you?" said Mr. Jones. X nodded, which made the two big tears roll down and splash on its overalls.
Once more, the Joneses reached for their Instruction Manual. Under "Other Children", it said: "What did you Xpect?
Other Children have to obey silly boy-girl rules, because their parents taught them to. Lucky X - you don't have rules
at all. All you have to do is be yourself. P.S. We're not saying it'll be easy.
X liked being itself. But X cried a lot that night. So X's father held X tight and cried a little too. X's mother
cheered them up with an Xciting story about an enchanted prince called Sleeping Handsome, who woke up when
Princess Charming kissed him.
The next morning, they all felt much better, and little X went back to school with a brave smile and a clean
pair of red and white checked overalls.
There was a seven-letter word spelling bee in class that day. And a seven-lap boys' relay race in the gym. And
a seven-layer-cake baking contest in the girls' kitchen corner. X won the spelling bee. X also won the relay race. And
X almost won the baking contest Xcept it forgot to light the oven. (Remember nobody's perfect.)
One of the Other Children noticed something else, too. He said: "X doesn't care about winning. X just thinks
it's fun playing boys' stuff and girls' stuff. "Come to think of it," said another one of the Other Children. "X is having
twice as much fun as we are!"
After school that day, the girl who beat X in the baking contest gave X a big slice of her winning cake. And the
boy X beat in the relay race asked X to race him home. From then on, some really funny things began to happen.
Susie, who sat next to X, refused to wear pink dresses to school any more. She wanted red and white checked
overalls - just like X's. Overalls, she told her parents, were better for climbing monkey bars. Then Jim, the class
football nut, started wheeling his little sister's doll carriage around the football field. He'd put on his entire football
uniform, except for the helmet. Then he'd put the helmet in the carriage, lovingly tucked under an old set of shoulder
pads. Then he'd jog around the field, pushing the carriage and singing "Rockabye Baby" to his helmet. He said X did
the same thing, so it must be okay. After all, X was the team's star quarterback.
Susie's parents were horrified by her behavior, and Jim's parents were worried sick about his. But the worst
came when the twins, Joe and Peggy, decided to share everything with each other. Peggy used Joe's hockey skates,
and his microscope, and took half his newspaper route. Joe used Peggy's needlepoint kit, and her cookbooks, and
took two of her three baby-sitting jobs. Peggy ran the lawn mower, and Joe ran the vacuum cleaner. Their parents
weren't one bit pleased with Peggy's science experiments, or with Joe's terrific needlepoint pillows. They didn't care
that Peggy mowed the lawn better, and that Joe vacuumed the carpet better. In fact, they were furious. It's all that
little X's fault, they agreed. X doesn't know what it is or what it's supposed to be! So X wants to mix everybody else
up, too! Peggy and Joe were forbidden to play with X any more. So was Susie and then Jim and then all the Other
20
Children. But it was too late. The Other Children stayed mixed up and happy and free and refused to go back to the
way they'd been before X.
Finally, the parents held an emergency meeting to discuss "The X Problem". They sent a report to the principal
stating that X was a "bad influence" and demanding immediate action. The Joneses, they said, should be forced to tell
whether X was a boy or a girl. And X should be force to behave like whichever it was.
If the Joneses refused to tell, the parents said, then X must take an Xamination. An Impartial Team of Xperts
would Xtract the secret. Then X would start obeying all the old rules. Or else. And if X turned out to be some kind
of mixed-up misfit, then X must be Xpelled from school. Immediately! So that no little Xes would ever come to
school again. The principal was very upset. Was X a bad influence? A mixed-up misfit? But X was an Xcellent student!
X set a fine Xample! X was Xtraordinary! X was president of the student council, X had won first prize in the art
show, honorable mention in the science fair, and six events on field day, including the potato race.
Nevertheless, insisted the parents, X is a Problem Child. X is the biggest problem child we have ever had! So
the principal reluctantly notified X's parents and the Joneses reported this to the Project X scientists, who referred
them to page 85769 of the Instruction Manual. "Sooner or later," it said, "X will have to be Xamined by an Impartial
Team of Xperts." "This may be the only way any of us will know for sure whether X is mixed up - or everyone else
is."
At Xactly 9 o'clock the next day, X reported to the school health office. The principal, along with a committee
from the Parents' Association, X's teacher, X's classmates, and Ms. and Mr. Jones, waited in the hall outside. Inside,
the Xperts had set up their famous testing machine: the Superpsychobiometer. Nobody knew Xactly how the machine
worked, but everybody knew that this examination would reveal Xactly what everyone wanted to know about X, but
were afraid to ask.
It was terribly quiet in the hall. Almost spooky. They could hear very strange noises from the room. There
were buzzes. And a beep or two. And several Bells. An occasional light flashed under the door. Was it an X-ray?
Through it all, you could hear the Xperts' voices, asking questions, and X's voice answering answers. I wouldn't like
to be in X's overalls right now, the children thought. At last, the door opened. Everyone crowded around to hear
the results. X didn't look any different. In fact, X was smiling. But the Impartial Team of Xperts looked terrible. They
looked as if they were crying! "What happened?" everyone began shouting. "Sssh," sshed the principal. "The Xperts
are trying to speak." Wiping his eyes and clearing his throat, one Xpert began: "In our opinion," he whispered - you
could tell he must be very upset - "In our opinion, young X here- " "Yes! Yes!" shouted a parent. "Young X," said the
other Xpert, frowning, "is just about the least mixed-up child we've ever Xamined!" Xclaimed the two Xperts
together. Behind the closed door, the Superpsychamedicosocietymeter made a noise like a contented hum. "Yay for
X!" yelled one of the children. And then the others began yelling, too. Clapping and cheering and jumping up and
down.
"SSSH!" SSShed the principal, but nobody did. The Parents' Committee was angry and bewildered. How could
X have passed the whole Xamination? Didn't X have an identify problem! Wasn't X messed up at all! Wasn't X any
kind of a misfit? How could it not be, when it didn't even know what it was?
"Don't you see?" asked the Xperts. "X isn't one bit mixed up! As for being a misfit - ridiculous! X knows
perfectly well what it is! Don't you, X?" The Xperts winked. X winked back. "But what is X?" shrieked Peggy and Joe's
parents. "We still want to know what it is!" "Ah, yes," said the Xperts, winking again. "Well, don't worry. You'll all
know one of these days. And you won't need us to tell you."
"What? What do they mean?" Jim's parents grumbled suspiciously. Susie and Peggy and Joe all answered at
once. "They mean that by the time it matters which sex X is, it won't be a secret any more!" With that, the Xperts
reached out to hug Ms. and Mr. Jones. "If we ever have an X of our own," they whispered, "we sure hope you'll lend
us your Instruction Manual."
Needless to say, the Joneses were very happy. The Project Baby X
scientists were rather pleased, too. So were Susie, Jim, Peggy, Joe and all
the Other Children. Even the parents promised not to make any trouble.
Later that day, all X's friends put on their red and white checked overalls
and went over to see X. They found X in the backyard, playing with a very
tiny baby that none of them had ever seen before. The baby was wearing
very tiny red and white checked overalls.
"How do you like our new baby?" X asked the Other Children
proudly. "It's got cute dimples," said Jim. "It's got husky biceps, too," said
Susie. "What kind of baby is it?" asked Joe and Peggy. X frowned at them.
"Can't you tell?" Then, X broke into a big, mischievous grin. "It's a Y!"

21
ACTIVITY 2.4
NAME: _____________________________________ SECTION CODE: ____________
INSTRUCTION: Create a visual version of the OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION MANUAL for raising
Baby X. List down 3 things you would add to the story’s manual. (You may use another sheet of
paper for your output).

Below is the rubric for this activity.

22
 In resolution to the Story of X, we proceed to discuss the factors that contribute to our idea of gender.

Agents of Gender Socialization

As children, we develop gender-related beliefs and expectations through our observations of and
interactions with the people around us. An "agent" of gender socialization is any person or group that plays a
role in the childhood gender socialization process. The four primary agents of gender socialization are parents,
teachers, peers, and the media.

Parents are typically a child’s first source of information about gender. Starting at birth, parents
communicate different expectations to their children depending on their sex. For example, a
son may engage in more roughhousing with his father, while a mother takes her daughter
shopping. The child may learn from their parents that certain activities or toys correspond with
a particular gender (think of a family that gives their son a truck and their daughter a doll). Even
parents who emphasize gender equality may inadvertently reinforce some stereotypes due to
their own gender socialization.

Teachers and school administrators model gender roles and sometimes demonstrate gender
stereotypes by responding to male and female students in different ways. For example,
separating students by gender for activities or disciplining students differently depending on
their gender may reinforce children’s developing beliefs and assumptions.

Peer interactions also contribute to gender socialization. Children tend to play with same-
gender peers. Through these interactions, they learn what their peers expect of them as boys
or girls. These lessons may be direct, such as when a peer tells the child that a certain behavior
is or is not "appropriate" for their gender. They can also be indirect, as the child observes
same- and other-gendered peers' behavior over time. These comments and comparisons may
become less overt over time, but adults continue to turn to same-gendered peers for
information about how they are supposed to look and act as a man or a woman.

Media, including movies, TV, and books, teaches children about what it means to be a boy or a
girl. Media conveys information about the role of gender in people’s lives and can reinforce
gender stereotypes. For example, consider an animated film that depicts two female characters:
a beautiful but passive heroine, and an ugly but active villain. This media model, and countless
others, reinforces ideas about which behaviors are acceptable and valued (and which are not)
for a particular gender.

III. GENDER INEQUALITY

Over the years, the world has gotten closer to achieving gender equality. There is better representation of women
in politics, more economic opportunities, and better healthcare in many places of the world. However, the World
Economic Forum estimates it will take another century before true gender equality becomes a reality. What drives
the gap between genders? Here are 10 causes of gender inequality:

#1. Uneven access to education

Around the world, women still have less access to education than men. ¼ of young women between 15-24 will not
finish primary school. That group makes up 58% of the people not completing that basic education. Of all the illiterate
people in the world, ⅔ are women. When girls are not educated on the same level as boys, it has a huge effect on
their future and the kinds of opportunities they’ll get.

#2. Lack of employment equality

Only 6 countries in the world give women the same legal work rights as men. In fact, most economies give women
only ¾ the rights of men. Studies show that if employment became a more even playing field, it has a positive domino
effect on other areas prone to gender inequality.
23
#3. Job segregation
One of the causes for gender inequality within employment is the division of jobs. In most societies, there’s an inherent
belief that men are simply better equipped to handle certain jobs. Most of the time, those are the jobs that pay the
best. This discrimination results in lower income for women. Women also take on the primary responsibility for
unpaid labor, so even as they participate in the paid workforce, they have extra work that never gets recognized
financially.

#4. Lack of legal protections

According to research from the World Bank, over one billion women don’t have legal protection against domestic
sexual violence or domestic economic violence. Both have a significant impact on women’s ability to thrive and live
in freedom. In many countries, there’s also a lack of legal protections against harassment in the workplace, at school,
and in public. These places become unsafe and without protection, women frequently have to make decisions that
compromise and limit their goals.

#5. Lack of bodily autonomy

Many women around the world do not have authority over their own bodies or when they become parents. Accessing
birth control is frequently very difficult. According to the World Health Organization, over 200 million women who
don’t want to get pregnant are not using contraception. There are various reasons for this such as a lack of options,
limited access, and cultural/religious opposition. On a global scale, about 40% of pregnancies are not planned and
while 50% of them do end in abortion, 38% result in births. These mothers often become financially dependent on
another person or the state, losing their freedom.

#6. Poor medical care

In addition to limited access to contraception, women overall receive lower-quality medical care than men. This is
linked to other gender inequality reasons such as a lack of education and job opportunities, which results in more
women being in poverty. They are less likely to be able to afford good healthcare. There’s also been less research
into diseases that affect women more than men, such as autoimmune disorders and chronic pain conditions. Many
women also experience discrimination and dismissal from their doctors, broadening the gender gap in healthcare
quality.

#7. Lack of religious freedom

When religious freedom is attacked, women suffer the most. According to the World Economic Forum, when
extremist ideologies (such as ISIS) come into a community and restrict religious freedom, gender inequality gets
worse. In a study performed by Georgetown University and Brigham Young University, researchers were also able
to connect religious intolerance with women’s ability to participate in the economy. When there’s more religious
freedom, an economy becomes more stable thanks to women’s participation.

#8. Lack of political representation

Of all national parliaments at the beginning of 2019, only 24.3% of seats were filled by women. As of June of 2019, 11
Heads of State were women. Despite progress in this area over the years, women are still grossly underrepresented
in government and the political process. This means that certain issues that female politicians tend to bring up – such
as parental leave and childcare, pensions, gender equality laws and gender-based violence – are often neglected.

#9. Racism
It would be impossible to talk about gender inequality without talking about racism. It affects what jobs women of
color are able to get and how much they’re paid, as well as how they are viewed by legal and healthcare
systems. Gender inequality and racism have been closely-linked for a long time. According to Sally Kitch, a professor
and author, European settlers in Virginia decided what work could be taxed based on the race of the woman
performing the work. African women’s work was “labor,” so it was taxable, while work performed by English women
was “domestic” and not taxable. The pay gaps between white women and women of color continues that legacy of
discrimination and contributes to gender inequality.

#10. Societal mindsets

It’s less tangible than some of the other causes on this list, but the overall mindset of a society has a significant impact
on gender inequality. How society determines the differences and value of men vs. women plays a starring role in
every arena, whether it’s employment or the legal system or healthcare. Beliefs about gender run deep and even
though progress can be made through laws and structural changes, there’s often a pushback following times of major
change. It’s also common for everyone (men and women) to ignore other areas of gender inequality when there’s
24
progress, such as better representation for women in leadership. These types of mindsets prop up gender inequality
and delay significant change.

As part of its sustainable goals, the UN published gender equality as Goal #5.

Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous
and sustainable world. There has been progress over the last decades: More girls are going to school, fewer girls are
forced into early marriage, more women are serving in parliament and positions of leadership, and laws are being
reformed to advance gender equality. Despite these gains, many challenges remain: discriminatory laws and social
norms remain pervasive, women continue to be underrepresented at all levels of political leadership, and 1 in 5
women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 report experiencing physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner
within a 12-month period.The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse the limited progress that has been
made on gender equality and women’s rights. The coronavirus outbreak exacerbates existing inequalities for women
and girls across every sphere – from health and the economy, to security and social protection. Women play a
disproportionate role in responding to the virus, including as frontline healthcare workers and carers at home.
Women’s unpaid care work has increased significantly as a result of school closures and the increased needs of older
people. Women are also harder hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, as they disproportionately work in
insecure labour markets. Nearly 60 per cent of women work in the informal economy, which puts them at greater
risk of falling into poverty. The pandemic has also led to a steep increase in violence against women and girls. With
lockdown measures in place, many women are trapped at home with their abusers, struggling to access services that
are suffering from cuts and restrictions. Emerging data shows that, since the outbreak of the pandemic, violence
against women and girls – and particularly domestic violence – has intensified.

25
ACTIVITY 2.4
NAME: ___________________________________ SECTION CODE:____________
INSTRUCTION: Referring to SDG #5, identify social issues that are observed in your locality. Create
your goals and interventions according to the issue you have identified. An example is already given
below.

ISSUE COMMON GOALS INTERVENTION

EXPERIENCE
EXAMPLE Women are limited to Allow for women’s Conduct job evaluations and screening
1) EMPLOYMENT secretarial jobs inclusion in higher office of effective employees for promotion
positions

2)

3)

4)

26
 TOPIC 03
SEX AND SEXUALITY
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this topic, you are expected to
• Differentiate sex and sexuality
• Explain the concepts on sexual attitudes and practices, sexuality around the world, sociological perspective
of sex and sexuality

To understand what affects a person’s sexual health and development, it’s important to understand the difference
between sex and sexuality. While these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, sex is just one part of a
person’s sexuality.

I. BASIC CONCEPT OF SEX AND SEXUALITY

Sex
The term sex refers to categories (male, female) to which people are typically assigned at birth based on physical
characteristics (e.g. genitals). Some people may be assigned intersex, when their reproductive, sexual or genetic
biology doesn’t fit the traditional definitions of male or female.

The term is often used to mean ‘sexual activity’ or ‘sexual intercourse’. Here, we use the term ‘sex’ when talking
about males, females, and intersex, and ‘sexual activity’ when talking about behaviours like kissing and intercourse.

Sexuality
Sexuality is an important and central part of every human being. A person’s sexuality includes everything from
their biological sex, gender identity and sexual orientation to pregnancy and reproduction. While sexuality can
include all of these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or expressed. Sexuality is influenced by the
interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious and
spiritual factors.

As mature individuals, you teach your child (or your nieces and nephews) about sexual health, not just sex. Sexual
health includes things like personal hygiene, healthy relationships, sexuality and consent.

Shown here is the Genderbread Person. This is a diagram that helps us understand gender and sexuality, and the
parts that make up both. This model is meant to accurately depict the complexity of how these concepts show up
in our society; it is not a depiction of what dream society could be.

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The Sexuality Wheel

The Sexuality Wheel shows how broad the idea of sexuality really is. Each part of the wheel represents a part of
who we are, and how these parts are all connected and influenced by each other. The boxes on the left side of
the wheel show who we are by nature, while the ones on the right show who we are taught or who we learn to
be. When all parts of the wheel are healthy, our sexuality is healthy.

WHO WE ARE BY NATURE WHO WE LEARN TO BE

Personality Relationships
A combination of traits that make up a person's unique The way people are connected and how they act
character. toward one another.

Gender identity Sexual Activity

The person's internal sense of identity as a female, Sexual activity includes kissing, sexual touching, and
male, both will neither. sexual intercourse (e.g. oral, anal, vaginal).

Gender expression Communication

How a person presents their gender. This can include The way people connect and share information, goals,
appearance, name, or social behaviour. ideas, and create understanding.

Sexual orientation Socialization

A person's emotional and sexual attraction to other Learned behaviours that include customs, attitudes and
people. It can be fluid and may or may not reflect values that are acceptable to a social group,
sexual behaviours. community, or culture.

Biological sex Self-Image

The physical sex characteristics that categorise people How a person thinks about or sees themselves,
as male or female at birth, including genitalia, body including their personality, their appearance, and their
shape, hormones, etc. values.

Values
A collection of ideas that people see as important: a set of beliefs about how things are.
Experiences
What people have done, gone through, or been exposed to in their life. Personal experiences help form peoples
values.

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II. SEXUAL ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES

In the area of sexuality, sociologists focus their attention on sexual attitudes and practices, not on physiology or
anatomy. Sexuality is viewed as a person’s capacity for sexual feelings. Studying sexual attitudes and practices is a
particularly interesting field of sociology because sexual behavior is a cultural universal. Throughout time and place,
the vast majority of human beings have participated in sexual relationships (Broude 2003). Each society, however,
interprets sexuality and sexual activity in different ways. Many societies around the world have different attitudes
about premarital sex, the age of sexual consent, homosexuality, masturbation, and other sexual behaviors
(Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb 1998). At the same time, sociologists have learned that certain norms are shared
among most societies. The incest taboo is present in every society, though which relative is deemed unacceptable
for sex varies widely from culture to culture. For example, sometimes the relatives of the father are considered
acceptable sexual partners for a woman while the relatives of the mother are not. Likewise, societies generally
have norms that reinforce their accepted social system of sexuality.

What is considered “normal” in terms of sexual behavior is based on the mores and values of the society. Societies
that value monogamy, for example, would likely oppose extramarital sex. Individuals are socialized to sexual
attitudes by their family, education system, peers, media, and religion. Historically, religion has been the greatest
influence on sexual behavior in most societies, but in more recent years, peers and the media have emerged as
two of the strongest influences, particularly among U.S. teens (Potard, Courtois, and Rusch 2008). Let us take a
closer look at sexual attitudes in the United States and around the world.

Sexuality around the World

Cross-national research on sexual attitudes in industrialized nations reveals that normative standards differ across
the world. For example, several studies have shown that Scandinavian students are more tolerant of premarital
sex than are U.S. students (Grose 2007). A study of 37 countries reported that non-Western societies—like
China, Iran, and India—valued chastity highly in a potential mate, while Western European countries—such as
France, the Netherlands, and Sweden—placed little value on prior sexual experiences (Buss 1989).

Even among Western cultures, attitudes can differ. For example, according to a 33,590-person survey across 24
countries, 89 percent of Swedes responded that there is nothing wrong with premarital sex, while only 42 percent
of Irish responded this way. From the same study, 93 percent of Filipinos responded that sex before age 16 is
always wrong or almost always wrong, while only 75 percent of Russians responded this way (Widmer, Treas, and
Newcomb 1998). Sexual attitudes can also vary within a country. For instance, 45 percent of Spaniards responded
that homosexuality is always wrong, while 42 percent responded that it is never wrong; only 13 percent responded
somewhere in the middle (Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb 1998).

Of industrialized nations, Sweden is thought to be the most liberal when it comes to attitudes about sex, including
sexual practices and sexual openness. The country has very few regulations on sexual images in the media, and sex
education, which starts around age six, is a compulsory part of Swedish school curricula. Sweden’s permissive
approach to sex has helped the country avoid some of the major social problems associated with sex. For example,
rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease are among the world’s lowest (Grose 2007). It would
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appear that Sweden is a model for the benefits of sexual freedom and frankness. However, implementing Swedish
ideals and policies regarding sexuality in other, more politically conservative, nations would likely be met with
resistance.

Sexuality in the United States

The United States prides itself on being the land of the “free,” but it is rather restrictive when it comes to its
citizens’ general attitudes about sex compared to other industrialized nations. In an international survey, 29 percent
of U.S. respondents stated that premarital sex is always wrong, while the average among the 24 countries surveyed
was 17 percent. Similar discrepancies were found in questions about the condemnation of sex before the age of
16, extramarital sex, and homosexuality, with total disapproval of these acts being 12, 13, and 11 percent higher,
respectively, in the United States, than the study’s average (Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb 1998).

U.S. culture is particularly restrictive in its attitudes about sex when it comes to women and sexuality. It is widely
believed that men are more sexual than are women. In fact, there is a popular notion that men think about sex
every seven seconds. Research, however, suggests that men think about sex an average of 19 times per day,
compared to 10 times per day for women (Fisher, Moore, and Pittenger 2011).

Belief that men have—or have the right to—more sexual urges than women creates a double standard. Ira Reiss,
a pioneer researcher in the field of sexual studies, defined the double standard as prohibiting premarital sexual
intercourse for women but allowing it for men (Reiss 1960). This standard has evolved into allowing women to
engage in premarital sex only within committed love relationships, but allowing men to engage in sexual
relationships with as many partners as they wish without condition (Milhausen and Herold 1999). Due to this
double standard, a woman is likely to have fewer sexual partners in her life time than a man. According to a
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey, the average thirty-five-year-old woman has had three
opposite-sex sexual partners while the average thirty-five-year-old man has had twice as many (Centers for Disease
Control 2011).

The future of a society’s sexual attitudes may be somewhat predicted by the values and beliefs that a country’s
youth expresses about sex and sexuality. Data from the most recent National Survey of Family Growth reveals
that 70 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls ages fifteen to nineteen said they “agree” or “strongly agree” that
“it’s okay for an unmarried female to have a child” (National Survey of Family Growth 2013). In a separate survey,
65 percent of teens stated that they “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” that although waiting until marriage
for sex is a nice idea, it’s not realistic (NBC News 2005). This does not mean that today’s youth have given up
traditional sexual values such as monogamy. Nearly all college men (98.9 percent) and women (99.2 percent) who
participated in a 2002 study on sexual attitudes stated they wished to settle down with one mutually exclusive
sexual partner at some point in their lives, ideally within the next five years (Pedersen et al. 2002).

Sex Education
One of the biggest controversies regarding sexual attitudes is sexual education in U.S. classrooms. Unlike in
Sweden, sex education is not required in all public school curricula in the United States. The heart of the
controversy is not about whether sex education should be taught in school (studies have shown that only seven
percent of U.S. adults oppose sex education in schools); it is about the type of sex education that should be taught.

Much of the debate is over the issue of abstinence. In a 2005 survey, 15 percent of U.S. respondents believed that
schools should teach abstinence exclusively and should not provide contraceptives or information on how to
obtain them. Forty-six percent believed schools should institute an abstinence-plus approach, which teaches
children that abstinence is best but still gives information about protected sex. Thirty-six percent believed teaching
about abstinence is not important and that sex education should focus on sexual safety and responsibility (NPR
2010).

Research suggests that while government officials may still be debating about the content of sexual education in
public schools, the majority of U.S. adults are not. Those who advocated abstinence-only programs may be the
proverbial squeaky wheel when it comes to this controversy, since they represent only 15 percent of parents.
Fifty-five percent of respondents feel giving teens information about sex and how to obtain and use protection will
not encourage them to have sexual relations earlier than they would under an abstinence program. About 77
percent think such a curriculum would make teens more likely to practice safe sex now and in the future (NPR
2004).

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 Sweden, whose comprehensive sex education program in its public schools educates participants about safe sex,
can serve as a model for this approach. The teenage birthrate in Sweden is 7 per 1,000 births, compared with 49
per 1,000 births in the United States. Among fifteen to nineteen year olds, reported cases of gonorrhea in Sweden
are nearly 600 times lower than in the United States (Grose 2007).

III. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SEX AND SEXUALITY

Sociologists representing all three major theoretical perspectives study the role sexuality plays in social life today.
Scholars recognize that sexuality continues to be an important and defining social location and that the manner in
which sexuality is constructed has a significant effect on perceptions, interactions, and outcomes.

Structural Functionalism
When it comes to sexuality, functionalists stress the importance of regulating sexual behavior to ensure marital
cohesion and family stability. Since functionalists identify the family unit as the most integral component in society, they
maintain a strict focus on it at all times and argue in favor of social arrangements that promote and ensure family
preservation.
Functionalists such as Talcott Parsons (1955) have long argued that the regulation of sexual activity is an important
function of the family. Social norms surrounding family life have, traditionally, encouraged sexual activity within the
family unit (marriage) and have discouraged activity outside of it (premarital and extramarital sex). From a functionalist
point of view, the purpose of encouraging sexual activity in the confines of marriage is to intensify the bond between
spouses and to ensure that procreation occurs within a stable, legally recognized relationship. This structure gives
offspring the best possible chance for appropriate socialization and the provision of basic resources.
From a functionalist standpoint, homosexuality cannot be promoted on a large-scale as an acceptable substitute for
heterosexuality. If this occurred, procreation would eventually cease. Thus, homosexuality, if occurring predominantly
within the population, is dysfunctional to society. This criticism does not take into account the increasing legal
acceptance of same-sex marriage, or the rise in gay and lesbian couples who choose to bear and raise children through
a variety of available resources.

Conflict Theory
From a conflict theory perspective, sexuality is another area in which power differentials are present and where
dominant groups actively work to promote their worldview as well as their economic interests. Recently, we have
seen the debate over the legalization of gay marriage intensify nationwide.
For conflict theorists, there are two key dimensions to the debate over same-sex marriage—one ideological and the
other economic. Dominant groups (in this instance, heterosexuals) wish for their worldview—which embraces
traditional marriage and the nuclear family—to win out over what they see as the intrusion of a secular, individually
driven worldview. On the other hand, many gay and lesbian activists argue that legal marriage is a fundamental right
that cannot be denied based on sexual orientation and that, historically, there already exists a precedent for changes
to marriage laws: the 1960s legalization of formerly forbidden interracial marriages is one example.
From an economic perspective, activists in favor of same-sex marriage point out that legal marriage brings with it
certain entitlements, many of which are financial in nature, like Social Security benefits and medical insurance
(Solmonese 2008). Denial of these benefits to gay couples is wrong, they argue. Conflict theory suggests that as long
as heterosexuals and homosexuals struggle over these social and financial resources, there will be some degree of
conflict.

Symbolic Interactionism
Interactionists focus on the meanings associated with sexuality and with sexual orientation. Since femininity is devalued
in U.S. society, those who adopt such traits are subject to ridicule; this is especially true for boys or men. Just as
masculinity is the symbolic norm, so too has heterosexuality come to signify normalcy. Prior to 1973, the American
Psychological Association (APA) defined homosexuality as an abnormal or deviant disorder. Interactionist labeling
theory recognizes the impact this has made. Before 1973, the APA was powerful in shaping social attitudes toward
homosexuality by defining it as pathological. Today, the APA cites no association between sexual orientation and
psychopathology and sees homosexuality as a normal aspect of human sexuality (APA 2008).
Interactionists are also interested in how discussions of homosexuals often focus almost exclusively on the sex lives
of gays and lesbians; homosexuals, especially men, may be assumed to be hypersexual and, in some cases, deviant.
Interactionism might also focus on the slurs used to describe homosexuals. Labels such as “queen” and “fag” are often
used to demean homosexual men by feminizing them. This subsequently affects how homosexuals perceive themselves.
Recall Cooley’s “looking-glass self,” which suggests that self develops as a result of our interpretation and evaluation
32
of the responses of others (Cooley 1902). Constant exposure to derogatory labels, jokes, and pervasive homophobia
would lead to a negative self-image, or worse, self-hate. The CDC reports that homosexual youths who experience
high levels of social rejection are six times more likely to have high levels of depression and eight times more likely to
have attempted suicide (CDC 2011).

Queer Theory
Queer Theory is an interdisciplinary approach to sexuality studies that identifies Western society’s rigid splitting of
gender into male and female roles and questions the manner in which we have been taught to think about sexual
orientation. According to Jagose (1996), Queer [Theory] focuses on mismatches between anatomical sex, gender
identity, and sexual orientation, not just division into male/female or homosexual/hetereosexual. By calling their
discipline “queer,” scholars reject the effects of labeling; instead, they embraced the word “queer” and reclaimed it for
their own purposes. The perspective highlights the need for a more flexible and fluid conceptualization of sexuality—
one that allows for change, negotiation, and freedom. The current schema used to classify individuals as either
“heterosexual” or “homosexual” pits one orientation against the other. This mirrors other oppressive schemas in our
culture, especially those surrounding gender and race (black versus white, male versus female).
Queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argued against U.S. society’s monolithic definition of sexuality and its reduction
to a single factor: the sex of someone’s desired partner. Sedgwick identified dozens of other ways in which people’s
sexualities were different, such as:

• Even identical genital acts mean very different things to different people.
• Sexuality makes up a large share of the self-perceived identity of some people, a small share of others’.
• Some people spend a lot of time thinking about sex, others little.
• Some people like to have a lot of sex, others little or none.
• Many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don’t do, or don’t
even want to do.
• Some people like spontaneous sexual scenes, others like highly scripted ones, others like spontaneous-
sounding ones that are nonetheless totally predictable.
• Some people, homo- hetero- and bisexual, experience their sexuality as deeply embedded in a matrix of gender
meanings and gender differentials. Others of each sexuality do not (Sedgwick 1990).

Thus, theorists utilizing queer theory strive to question the ways society perceives and experiences sex, gender, and
sexuality, opening the door to new scholarly understanding.

Throughout this chapter we have examined the complexities of gender, sex, and sexuality. Differentiating between
sex, gender, and sexual orientation is an important first step to a deeper understanding and critical analysis of these
issues. Understanding the sociology of sex, gender, and sexuality will help to build awareness of the inequalities
experienced by subordinate categories such as women, homosexuals, and transgender individuals.

SUMMARY
When studying sex and sexuality, sociologists focus their attention on sexual attitudes and practices, not on physiology
or anatomy. Norms regarding gender and sexuality vary across cultures. In general, the United States tends to be fairly
conservative in its sexual attitudes. As a result, homosexuals continue to face opposition and discrimination in most
major social institutions.

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 MIDTERM ACTIVITY OUTPUT
Gender and Advertising
STEP 1: Search magazines, websites, newspapers, blogs, or other media venues to find advertisements. Search for
advertisements with people in them that are related in some way to sex, gender, or sexuality, as discussed in this
module. They can be either print ads or commercials.

STEP 2: Find two different advertisements—one that portrays a “negative” or stereotypical view on gender or
sexuality, and then one that portrays a “positive” view on gender or sexuality. Post pictures or provide links to these
advertisements.

STEP 3: Answer the following questions about BOTH advertisements, in a paper of 250-500 words.

How does this advertisement portray gender, sex, or sexuality? What is the ad intentionally trying to sell? What
unintentional messages might it also be sending?

Who is the intended audience of this advertisement? Are there any stereotypes in this ad? How do you think this ad
is received? Do you think it is effective? Explain.

If you could make adjustments or changes to this advertisement, what would you do, and why?

STEP 4: Write a summary paragraph describing your own personal views on gender in advertising. Do you think
advertising on the whole is becoming less stereotyped, or more so? How have you seen examples of this in your own
life? What steps, if any, do you think should be taken to improve future advertisements?

Below is the rubric for your output.

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 TOPIC 04
GAD LAWS
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the chapter, the students are expected to:
1. Identify and understand the different laws concerning gender.
2. Identify the sociocultural factors that influence the lives of men and women.

INTRODUCTION

Gender bias, discrimination, and violence are surprisingly common almost everywhere. These topics often go
undiscussed thoroughly at school.

These discussions can be challenging. For some youth, this is an immensely personal or even heated topic that brings
up questions of equality and privilege. Others may question whether gender biases even exist. Finally, the idea that
biases can be implicit- and discrimination unconscious- may itself be a novel concept to some. Due to rapid increase
of cases in different gender issues, lawmakers and organizations developed laws in order to protect every individual’s
rights.

The GAD approach emerged in the 80’s to replace the women in development focus. GAD is not only concerned
with women but also concerned with the social construction of gender and their assignments. Gender and
Development focuses on social, economic, political and cultural forces that determine how differently individuals
participate in, benefit from, and control the resources and activities. Fortunately, the payoff in broaching these topics
is huge. By allowing students to explore this topic, share the ideas for improvement, and participate in community-
building and empathy-promoting activities, it is a step towards ensuring that there is a place where everyone is
respected, supported, and empowered.

Gender-related Laws/Legal Mandates

Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 11313 or the Safe Spaces Act

Executive Order 209 – The Family Code of The Philippines

Proclamation 74 – Declaring the 17th Day of October of Every Year As National Children’s Day

Proclamation 267 – Declaring the Month of October of Every Year As National Children’s Month

Proclamation 847 – Declaring the Fourth Sunday of September As Family Thanksgiving Day

Proclamation 1105 – Declaring October 15, 1997, And of Every Year Thereafter, As “National Rural Women’s Day”

Republic Act 6949 – An act to declare march eight of every year as a working special holiday to be known as national
women’s day

Republic Act 6955 – An act to declare unlawful the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign
nationals on a mail-order basis and other similar practices, including the advertisement, publication, printing or
distribution of brochures, fliers and other propaganda materials in furtherance thereof and providing penalty therefor

Republic Act 7192 – An act promoting the integration of women as full and equal partners of men in development and
nation building and for other purposes

Republic Act 7277 – An act providing for the rehabilitation, self-development and self-reliance of disabled persons and
their integration into the mainstream of society and for other purposes

Republic Act 7322 – An act increasing maternity benefits in favor of women workers in the private sector, amending
for the purpose section 14-a of republic act no. 1161, as amended, and for other purposes

35
Republic Act 7432 – An act to maximize the contribution of senior citizens to nation building, grant benefits and special
privileges and for other purposes

Republic Act 7600 – An act providing incentives to all government and private health institutions with rooming-in and
breastfeeding practices and for other purposes

Republic Act 7877 – An act declaring sexual harassment unlawful in the employment, education or training
environment, and for other purposes

Republic Act 8042 – An act to institute the policies of overseas employment and establish a higher standard of
protection and promotion of the welfare of migrant workers, their families and overseas Filipinos in distress, and for
other purposes

Republic Act 8187 – An act granting paternity leave of seven (7) days with full pay to all married male employees in
the private and public sectors for the first four (4) deliveries of the legitimate spouse with whom he is cohabiting and
for other purposes

Republic Act 8353 – An act expanding the definition of the crime of rape, reclassifying the same as a crime against
persons, amending for the purpose act no. 3815, as amended, otherwise known as the revised penal code, and for
other purposes

Republic Act 8371 – An act to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous cultural communities/
indigenous peoples, creating a national commission on indigenous peoples, establishing implementing mechanisms,
appropriating funds therefor, and for other purposes

Republic Act 8552 – An act establishing the rules and policies on the domestic adoption of Filipino children and for
other purposes.

Republic Act 8972 – An act providing for benefits and privileges to solo parents and their children, appropriating funds
therefor and for other purposes

Republic Act 8980 – An act promulgating a comprehensive policy and a national system for early childhood care and
development (eccd), providing funds therefor and for other purposes

Republic Act 9208 – An act to institute policies to eliminate trafficking in persons especially women and children,
establishing the necessary institutional mechanisms for the protection and support of trafficked persons, providing
penalties for its violations, and for other purposes

Republic Act 9262 – A Briefer – The Anti-Violence Against Women And Their Children Act of 2004

Republic Act 9710 – Magna Carta of Women

Republic Act 9775 – A act defining and penalizing the crime of child pornography, prescribing penalties therefor and
for other purposes

Republic Act 9995 – An act defining and penalizing the crime of photo and video voyeurism, prescribing penalties
therefor, and for other purposes

Republic Act 10354 – An act providing for a national policy on responsible parenthood and reproductive health

Republic Act 10398 – An act declaring November Twenty-Five of every year as National Consciousness Day for the
Elimination of Violence Against Women and Children

36
37
 REPUBLIC ACT 9710
The Magna Carta
of
Women
is a comprehensive women’s rights law. It seeks to eliminate discrimination against women and recognizes, protects,
fulfills, and promote rights of Filipino women especially those in the marginalized sector.

http://ecc.gov.ph/11th-anniversary-of-the-magna-carta-of-women-ra-9710/

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 ACTIVITY 4.1

Activity Title: Activity No.:

Name: Date:

Section: Score:

Instructions: Look around you. Think about how the sociocultural factors (e.g., poverty, education, the economy,
media) influence the lives of men and women. List other factors in the spaces below.

SOCIOCULTURAL FACTORS MEN WOMEN

POVERTY

EDUCATION

ECONOMY

MEDIA

45
 The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action flagged 12 key areas where urgent action was needed to ensure greater equality
and opportunities for women and men, girls and boys.

AREAS OF
DESCRIPTION UN WOMEN ACTION
CONCERN
• women are more likely to be the last to
eat Launches programs that
• least likely to access healthcare provide:
• are routinely trapped in time-consuming, • training, loans, and practical
1 unpaid domestic tasks skills to empower women
Women and • have more limited options to work or economically
poverty build businesses • give women a voice
• adequate education may lie out of reach • strengthen social services
• some end up forced into sexual • increase awareness of women’s
exploitation as part of a basic struggle to rights
survive

• a girl or a woman in school has a far

greater shot at realizing her full potential promotes women’s right to
throughout her life an education in all fields
• they become better equipped to secure support educational
2 a decent, well-paid job programs to promote gender
Education and • educated women make substantial equality and women’s rights
training of women contributions to flourishing economies revise formal school
and the improved health, nutrition and curricula and policies
education of their families help train teachers, students
• however, early marriages and domestic and parents
work take many young girls out of school

advocates for government

to better coordinate the
• physical and mental health is the basis for
provision of health services for
well-being and participation in many
women and girls
aspects of life
supports non-governmental
• discrimination prevents some women
partners providing essential
from accessing the health care services
services
3 they need, or renders them more
work to end practices that
Women and health susceptible to illness
bring danger to women and girls
• the husband may refuse to use condoms
(i.e., child marriage, female
despite a high risk of transmitting HIV
genital cutting, dietary
• early marriage exposes girls to the
restrictions, and others)
potentially devastating health impacts of
support and empower
bearing children at too young an age
women living with HIV and
AIDS

46
 • around the world, 1 in 3 women have
ending violence against
experienced physical or sexual violence,
women is one of UN Women’s
mostly by an intimate partner
key priorities
• about 120 million girls have been forced
supports expanding access
into intercourse or other sexual acts at
to quality multi-sectorial
some point in their lives
4 responses for survivors
• in 29 countries alone, 133 million women
Violence against covering safety, shelter, health,
and girls have undergone female genital
women justice and other essential
mutilation
services
• more than 700 million women alive
advocate for laws and help
today were married as children
guide policies and action plans
• almost all of the estimated 4.5 million
to help step-up investments in
victims of forced sexual exploitation are
prevention
women and girls.

• when diverse women participate in

peace negotiations, the quality and
durability of peace agreements increases engage women in all aspects
• when women are signatories of peace of negotiations, peacebuilding,
agreements, they are more likely to be and reconstruction to build
implemented inclusive societies
• women are often the first to notice the train peacekeepers to
5
rising tensions that can escalate to detect, address, and stop
Women and armed
violence conflict-related sexual violence
conflict
• they are the first responders in the supports the reform of
aftermath of conflict justice and security institutions
• yet, women around the world continue ensures that public services
to be excluded from peace and political are fully responsive to women’s
processes because of discriminatory needs
laws, social stereotypes, and institutional
obstacles

undertake improvements in
• women have vast and positive impacts on eliminating occupational
the economy, in business, agriculture, segregation, especially by
and industry, and as domestic workers, promoting the equal
6 market vendors, migrant workers, and participation of women in highly
Women and the through their unpaid care work skilled jobs, STEM industries,
economy • despite some progress, there is and senior management
persisting obstacles to women’s full and is committed to promoting
equal participation, including the lack of the balance of work and
an enabling environment domestic responsibilities for
women and men
• women are often dynamic leaders of
change, galvanizing women and men to advocates for reforms to
get involved, claim their rights, ensure women’s fair access to
strengthen their communities and decision-making
7
protect their planet provide training for women
Women in power
• discriminatory laws and practices hold political candidates to help build
and decision-
women back, as do limits on education, their skills
making
income and time away from caregiving voter and civic education
• yet women still have far to go towards and sensitization campaigns on
equal representation in positions of gender equality
power and leadership

47
 • 143 out of 195 countries guarantee
works with governments to
equality between women and men in
develop informed national
their constitutions as of 2014
8 action plans, ensure gender-
• yet, discrimination against women
Institutional responsive budgeting, and
persists in many areas, directly and
mechanisms strengthen coordination among
indirectly, through: laws and policies;
diverse actors for sustained and
gender-based stereotypes; and social
meaningful action
norms and practices

• women and girls are entitled to the full

and equal enjoyment of all of their human
rights and to be free from all forms of provides technical assistance
discrimination to ensure that governments
9
• human rights cover every aspect of life – create national laws, policies,
Human rights of
health, education, political participation, and plans to ensure women’s
women
economic well-being, and freedom from rights and protect them against
violence, among many others violations
• women and girls need to know their
rights and have the power to claim them

• women in all types of media tend to be

thin and sexualized collaborates closely with the
• they talk less than men and have fewer media as a key ally in advancing
opinions women’s rights
• less likely, in the entertainment industry, undertake research on the
10 to play roles as leaders or professionals, portrayal of women in news
Women and the or even as women who work for a living media as well as the
media • while women represent half of the entertainment industry
world’s population, less than one third of conduct special workshops
all speaking characters in film are female and trainings with journalists
• cyberviolence has extended the globally to encourage gender-
harassment and stalking of women and sensitive reporting
girls to the online world

seeks to ensure women are

involved in environmental
• Among the most affected of climate
decision-making at all levels,
change are women, as they gather water,
11 integrating their concerns in
fish, or farm land affected by flooding
Women and the policies and program
• meanwhile, their voices are often the last
environment establishing ways to assess
to be heard in environmental planning
the impact of development and
and management
environmental policies on
women

48
 empower girls and young
• girls play multiple roles in the household,
women to pursue their dreams,
society, and the economy – they go to
confront discrimination, and
school, help with housework, work in
prevent violence of all kinds
factories, make friends, care for elder
raise awareness of girls’
and younger family members, and
rights, support programs that
prepare themselves to take on the
12 work with educators, parents
responsibilities of adulthood
The girl child and fathers in particular, and
• though life for the girl child is steadily
with religious leaders
improving, many are still subjected to
advocate with governments
horrific practices, such as female genital
and other partners, striving for
mutilation, son preference (often
a world where girls can live free
resulting in female infanticide), child
from fear, violence, and
marriage, sexual exploitation and abuse
discrimination

ACTIVITY 4.2: Create and ADVOCACY MATERIAL for a GAD Law listed on the first page of
this chapter. Examples of this advocacy material are seen through RA 9262 and RA 7877 from
the previous pages.

Below is the rubric for your advocacy material

49
 TOPIC 05
SEXUAL PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION,
GENDER SENSITIVITY, GENDER AND POLITICS, AND
GENDER IN THE WORKPLACE
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this chapter, the students are expected to
• Differentiate sexual prejudice and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender sensitivity, gender
and politics, and gender in the workplace

Women around the world face discrimination and other challenges based on their gender. Article 1 of the CEDAW
defines gender discrimination as:

any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has
the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or
exercise by women … of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the
political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.

Women are subjected to biases and prejudice in the community, in their own homes, and in their work places in
several ways, ranging from under payment (lack of pay parity) and gender segregation to harassment and sexual
assault. Hence gender equality and empowerment for women and girls has been designated as Goal 5 of the SDGs
adopted by the United Nation in 2015.

Family and domestic violence have also been highlighted as a fundamental problem in many countries around the
world. This treatment of women is the manifestation of the oppression they face due to their gender identity. Stressing
this point, Iris Marion Young (2009) explains that gender discrimination is compounded by five types of oppression
experienced by many women: violence, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and cultural imperialism (Young,
2009).

A. Forms Of Gender Discrimination

The following paragraphs discuss the notions of sexism, implicit sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault, all of
which are common forms of gender discrimination against women.

Sexism
Sexism is the prejudice or discrimination based on sex, especially in the form of discrimination against women (
Merriam-Webster). It can also mean the unfair treatment of people based on their sex or gender. Although the origin
of the term as it is used around the world is not entirely clear, it is associated with the "second wave of feminism"
which lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s, and was likely modelled on the concept of racism (Masequesmay, 2014).
Sexism is based on the idea that women are inferior to men, and functions to oppress women in society.
One of the ways in which sexism is manifested in countries and cultures around the world is through the socialization
of gender norms. For example, for centuries in the West, gender roles have depicted women as the more nurturing,
emotional, and physically weaker gender. Thus, women have been relegated to the domestic sphere, while gender
roles have depicted men as more fit for public life, leadership positions, activities in business, politics, and academia.
Children can be socialized from an early age to believe that women and men have different and proper gender roles
in society. Those children may then grow up to perpetuate the existence of these damaging and restrictive roles in
society. An example of this process is the differences in toys marketed to boys and girls. This video shows that when
adults think of a baby as a boy, they give the baby toy vehicles, action figures or construction equipment, and when
they consider the baby to be a girl they offer her dolls and kitchen sets. As demonstrated in this video, sayings such
as "run like a girl" or "throw like a girl" teach girls that they are physically weaker than boys and are also insulting to
girls. It is important to note that these gender roles are limiting for everyone - while girls are taught that they are
physically weaker ("run like a girl"), boys are taught that they are emotionally weaker ("boys don't cry"). These views
of gender roles, and the socialization that keeps them alive, have led to discrimination against women in public life, as
they are often seen as inappropriately defying their assigned gender role. Essentially, the power structure at the basis
of discrimination and violence against women is reinforced through the process of internalizing stereotypes and
50
gender roles. This historical process, it should be stressed, does not exclude any region of the world; however, in
some regions it entails greater violence for women.

Sexism may arise because of socialized concepts of privilege and entitlement. "Privilege" is defined by the Oxford
English Dictionary as "A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or
group". "Entitlement" is defined as both the "fact of having a right to something" and the "belief that one is inherently
deserving of privileges or special treatment".

An extreme form of sexism is misogyny, or the "hatred of women" (Masequesmay, 2017). The presence of misogyny
in cultures and societies often leads to high rates of violence against women and the commodification and
objectification of women. Structural and cultural norms can breed misogyny.

Although most forms of sexism and discrimination negatively impact women, men can be affected as well. According
to a survey conducted in five countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, France and the UK), a significant number of men
suffer from gender-based discrimination at the workplace, especially in areas with a greater presence of female
compared to male workers, such in health-related services (Eurofound, 2018, p. 10). However, women suffer from
discrimination in the workplace, including within the health sector, because of historical-structural conditions that
have greater implications than cases of discrimination against men.

Implicit Bias / Implicit Sexism

Prejudice and discrimination can be described as a form of intergroup bias. According to the US National Judicial
Education Program, the most prominent forms of gender bias are "(i) Stereotyped thinking about the nature and roles
of women and men; (ii) Devaluing what is perceived as 'woman's work'; (iii) Lack of knowledge of the social and
economic realities of women's and men's lives" (Halilovic and others, 2017, p. 29).

Bias can often be implicit. "Implicit Bias," sometimes referred to as unconscious bias, is defined by Brownstein (2015)
in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as:

a term of art referring to relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social
behaviour. While psychologists in the field of "implicit social cognition" study "implicit attitudes" toward consumer
products, self-esteem, food, alcohol, political values, and more, the most striking and well-known research has focused
on implicit attitudes toward members of socially stigmatized groups, such as African-Americans, women, and the
LGBTQ [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer] community.

Implicit sexism or "everyday sexism" has been highlighted through a project founded by Laura Bates in 2012. Through
her website, more than 100,000 women and men have shared their experiences of gender imbalance. In Laura's TED
talks, she highlights behavioural and policy changes that were triggered by the sharing of these anecdotes from around
the globe. In Nigeria, playwright Ifeoma Fafunwa, has brought attention to similar issues through her play called HEAR
WORD! Naija Woman Talk True, a collection of monologues based on true-life stories of Nigerian women that
challenges social, cultural, and political norms. Implicit bias from the perspective of an African-American woman is
discussed in the 2014 TED talk by Melanie Funchness.

Implicit sexism was first analysed through a study conducted on the "blind" auditions for the symphony orchestra in
New York from the 1970s and 1980s. The findings show that blind auditions (using a screen to conceal the candidates'
identity from the jury) significantly increased the chances that female musicians would be selected. This is explained
further in this article and illustrated in this video.
In another study, focused on hiring practices at university science faculties, staff members were asked to review
several job applications. The applications reviewed were identical, apart from the gender of the name of the applicant.
They found that science faculty members (both male and female) were more likely to rate the male candidates as
better qualified than the female candidates and want to hire more men than women. They also found that male
candidates were given a higher starting salary compared to female candidates, and that the employers were willing to
invest more in the development of the male candidate than the female candidate (Moss-Racusin and others, 2012).

Other studies show that women are interviewed more critically than their male counterparts, and are interrupted
more often (Yorke, 2017). Implicit bias impacts not only the recruitment decision, but also the salary of the individual
and the amount of development that is invested in their ongoing progression. Similarly, the study by Eagly and Karau
(2002) found that it is more difficult for women to become leaders and to achieve success in leadership roles because
51
a perceived incongruity between the female gender role and leadership roles leads to two forms of prejudice:
(a) Perceiving women less favourably than men as potential occupants of leadership roles.
(b) Evaluating behaviour that fulfils the prescriptions of a leader role less favourably when it is enacted by a woman.

Another interesting study focuses on gendered wording in job announcements. The study shows that when job ads
mostly include words associated with male stereotypes (e.g. 'leader', 'competitive' and 'dominant') they are found less
appealing by women compared to job ads that mostly include words associated with female stereotypes (e.g. 'support',
'understand', and 'interpersonal'). Therefore, job ads with more "masculine" wording reinforce gender inequality in
traditionally male-dominated occupations and thereby amount to "institutional-level mechanism of inequality
maintenance" (Gaucher and others, 2011). Finally, this interesting report discusses why women are less likely than
men to apply to jobs for which they do not meet all of the advertised requirements.

Sexual harassment and assault

Sexual harassment is a legal term that refers to unsolicited verbal or physical behaviour of a sexual nature
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). It includes any sexually motivated behaviour that the recipient finds offensive.
Women and girls can be victims of sexual harassment in the home, the workplace, in school, and the larger community,
among other places. Examples of such harassment could be unwanted touching, comments of a sexually suggestive
nature, rude or offensive comments about one's gender identity or gender expression, questions prying into the
personal private life about their sexual history or orientation, just to name a few. Boys can also be victims of sexual
harassment, with the harassers almost always being men. This illustrates that sexual violence stems from male
supremacy over what is considered undervalued or what can be dominated through the body. It is important to
emphasize the effects of this patriarchal power, which is expressed in everything that is considered undervalued and
hierarchized by that supremacy.

One example of public sexual harassment that exists in many cultures around the world is "catcalling." Some defend
this behaviour, saying that it's part of the culture and is not intended to offend or cause any distress. In France, for
example, a law has been proposed which would criminalize this form of harassment and impose fines against men
who catcall women. Marlene Schiappa, the French Minister of Gender Equality who is promoting this law, has said
that she hopes the law would embarrass the men who harass women and would then lead to change. She stated that
there has been opposition to the planned legislation, and that men have responded by saying that catcalling is merely
"French culture" (Bell and Jones, 2017).

Sexual harassment extends beyond the street, workplace, or other physical space women may occupy and is ever-
present in the virtual world. Women are harassed on social media and the Internet has provided a large platform for
the abuse, objectification, and harassment of women. Despite all the benefits social media brings in marshalling and
supporting like-minded people, the anonymity afforded by social media also creates an additional forum for women
to be abused. Many people feel that more should be done by social media owners (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
etc.) to protect the vulnerable and to act against those inciting violence, racism and sexism online. As illustrated in
the example provided in Exercise 5 of this Module, women in the public eye, rather than men or other vulnerable
groups, are particularly singled out for online abuse (also known as "trolling") simply for doing their jobs (in this case,
sports journalism or commentary).

Sexual assault or sexual abuse is another pervasive issue that women face around the world (UN Women, 2017).
This form of violence and discrimination perpetrated on women because of their gender is particularly prevalent in
university campuses. Studies in the United States have uncovered that one in five women in universities in the US
have experienced sexual assault (Krebs and others, 2016), and this has been replicated in other parts of the Western
world (AHRC, 2017). Sexual assault is the manifestation of misogynistic and sexist societal norms, and is very
widespread across the globe today.

The very public exposure of sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace has gained a new level of awareness, when
high profile women have thrown their support behind the #metoo campaign, that was started by black activist Tarana
Burke in as early as 2007, and called out inappropriate behaviour by male colleagues in Hollywood and national media
stars, stating "Time's Up". In addition, there are several large ongoing investigations of sexual abuse allegations against
established religious organizations, children's charities, sporting organizations and other government institutions. It
appears that community attitudes are changing and vulnerable people feel more confident and comfortable speaking
out against abuse and discrimination caused by those in more powerful positions in society.

52
However, women continue to face discrimination and other types of harm because of their gender, and it remains
imperative that we ask ourselves what we can do to eradicate violence against women and ensure that women have
equal rights and power in society. These issues are at the heart of feminism and feminist ethics.

B. GENDER SENSITIVITY
Gender sensitivity is the act of being sensitive to the ways people think about gender. It is practiced to ensure that
people rely less on assumptions about traditional and outdated views on the roles of men and women.

Because of gender sensitivity there has been an emphasis on how language matters; our choice of words can express
gender sensitivity (or insensitivity); use more inclusive language and gender neutral words. The use of gender
discriminatory language pushes women on the low, making them less valuable than men.

When individuals are gender sensitive, there is a contribution to gender equality which benefits both men and women
by giving them wider choices. Gender Sensitization is the modification of behavior by raising awareness equality
concerns; presides over gender sensitivity.

Gender-Sensitive Policy Design & Implementation

There are social protection programs that require policy makers to assess causes of women’s exclusion and to address
gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities (i.e., in the same job title, men are paid more wage than women)
It is then a must that states/constitutions acknowledge that the impact of the social protection programs are not
gender neutral; therefore they should:

a. Design and implement social protection strategies which recognize the multiple forms of
discrimination that women experience, and ensure that these programs address women’s need
throughout their lifetime. At this point, policy makers must conduct data analyses that assesses the
vulnerabilities of BOTH genders as potential beneficiaries
b. Ensure respect and acknowledge the role of women as care providers without reinforcing patterns of
discrimination and negative stereotyping
c. Establish accessible, gender-sensitive good quality social services which take into account the obstacles
faced by women in accessing such services
d. Ensure gender-sensitivity eligibility criteria and do not impose requirements that disproportionately
disadvantage women
e. Policy makers should ensure the effective participation of women in the administration of social
protection programs and ensuring a gender balance at all levels of social protection programs
f. Ensure participation and accountability mechanisms are designed and implemented to facilitate the
meaningful participation of women in all program stages
g. Promote gender equality and mobilization of women

A Human Rights-Based Approach to Social Protection and the Gender Perspective

3 Key Points

1. Transformative Social Protection

There is a need to contextualize social protection mechanisms as part of a broader effort to change the way societies
function. It needs to be put as transformative. One of the misunderstandings about human rights is that the “goal” or
desired end state of human rights is the accumulated circumstances of individuals confusing goals such as ending
poverty or getting children into school. Despite these being good things, the ambition of human rights goes beyond.
The issue of gender equality in social protection systems is not only about how well they reduce poverty in women.
It leads to questions such as how women’s agency and leadership in the design of social protection systems can
strengthen women’s voice in decisions and actions. SPS which address issues of employment can aspire not only to
secure women’s employment for women, but also to challenge gender stereotypes by promoting women’s
employment in areas such as science, technology, and engineering.
Gender mainstreaming is about making sure that what you do reflects your responsibility to take every opportunity
to advance gender equality.
53
2. The Gendered Dynamics of Society
Gender-sensitive social protection systems also need to address the role of men and boys, and think of gender in
terms of relationships rather than individuals. Women’s over-representation in low -pay, vulnerable labor, the burden
of unpaid care work, domestic violence, and exclusion from decision-making make the case for ensuring that SPS be
judged in terms of their contribution to improve women’s situation. However, the role of men and boys cannot be
disregarded.

3. The Special Circumstances of Adolescent Girls

Women of minorities or indigenous groups, women with disabilities, and women of different ages all require
consideration in terms on the intersecting aspects of their identity which drive their experiences. There is a cross-
overs of roles that lead adolescent girls to this special circumstance. The economic and other cost of failure to provide
adolescent girls with the opportunity to develop to their full potential have been estimated elsewhere. The number
of adolescent girls worldwide living below the poverty line represents the collective failure of taking the policies into
action. Perhaps because these girls do not have the opportunity to be properly represented and heard in policy
dialogues.

Social protection is important. It is not limited to the goal of reducing poverty. However, getting the most from this
system requires a supportive change in the underlying gender dynamics of societies, addressing the different yet
connected roles of women, men, girls, and boys.

C. GENDER IN THE WORKPLACE

GENDER EQUALITY IN THE WORLD OF WORK MATTERS

Jobs can bring gains for women, their families, businesses, and communities. Jobs boost self-esteem and pull
families out of poverty. Yet gender disparities persist in the world of work. Closing these gaps, while working
to stimulate job creation more broadly, is a prerequisite for ending extreme poverty and boosting shared
prosperity.

Gender equality in the world of work is a win-win on many fronts. A large and growing body of evidence
demonstrates both the business and the development case. Booz & Company estimates that raising female
employment to male levels could have a direct impact on GDP, increasing it by 34 percent in Egypt, 12 percent
in the United Arab Emirates, 10 percent in South Africa, and 9 percent in Japan, taking into account losses in
economy-wide labor productivity that could occur as new workers entered the labor force. Yet almost half of
women’s productive potential globally is unutilized, compared to 22 percent of men’s, according to the
International Labour Organization. In places where women’s paid work has increased, as in Latin America and
the Caribbean, gains have made significant contributions to overall poverty reduction.

Both the World Development Report 2013 on Jobs (WDR 2013) and the World Development Report 2012
on Gender Equality and Development (WDR 2012) provide valuable and complementary frameworks to help
policy makers advance gender equality in the world of work. The WDR 2013 approach helps us to understand
how and when promoting gender equality in the world of work adds significant development value. The WDR
2012, meanwhile, offers an important framework for diagnosing and addressing gender-specific constraints. An
important link between the two WDRs is the notion of agency—women’s ability to make choices they value
and to act on those choices. Jobs can increase women’s agency by expanding their life choices and their capacity
to better support their families and more actively participate in communities and societies. Conversely,
significant constraints on agency pose major barriers to women’s work and help explain the persistence of
gender gaps.

Following the WDR 2013, “jobs” are broadly defined to include various forms of wage and non-wage work,
formal and informal. Informal work is the largest source of employment throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle
East, and working women are more likely than working men to be self-employed or farming. The jobs that are
best for women’s economic empowerment—and development goals more broadly—depend on country-
specific jobs challenges.

54
Where Do We Stand?
Gender equality in the world of work is multidimensional. Broadly, key dimensions include labor force
participation, employment, firm and farming characteristics, earnings, and job quality. The last is the most
difficult to measure and varies by context. However, full-time wage employment is a strong predictor of
subjective well-being, and jobs that provide higher earnings, benefits, rights, and opportunities for skills
development are more likely to expand women’s agency.

On virtually every global measure, women are more economically excluded than men. Trends suggest that
women’s labor force participation (ages 15–64) worldwide over the last two decades has stagnated, declining
from 57 to 55 percent globally. Participation is as low as 25 percent in the Middle East and North Africa.
Globally, Gallup estimates that men are nearly twice as likely as women to have full-time jobs—and, in South
Asia, they are more than three times as likely.
Gender gaps are evident among farmers, entrepreneurs, and employees alike. Because of gender-specific
constraints, female farmers tend to have lower output per unit of land and are less likely to be active in
commercial farming than men. In the Central Highlands of Ethiopia, the value of output per hectare of female-
headed households has been estimated to be 35 percent lower than that of male-headed households, a
disparity stemming mainly from unequal access to productive inputs. Female entrepreneurs typically operate
smaller firms and in less profitable sectors. In Latin America and the Caribbean, half of established businesses
owned by women have no employees, compared to 38 percent of businesses owned by men. Female
employees are more likely to work in temporary and part-time jobs, are less likely to be promoted, and are
concentrated in occupations and sectors with lower barriers to entry. Women and girls also do the vast
majority of unpaid care and housework.

Women generally earn less than men. ILO analysis of 83 countries shows that women in paid work earn on
average between 10 and 30 percent less than men. Gaps are particularly acute in the Middle East and North
Africa, but also persist in high-income OECD countries.

Gender sorting into different jobs, industries, and firm types explains much of the pay gap. Throughout the
world, women are concentrated in less-productive jobs and run enterprises in less-productive sectors, with
fewer opportunities for business scale-up or career advancement. The latest Grant Thornton International
Business Report indicates that the share of women in senior management roles globally is only 24 percent.
Across developing countries, 18 percent of non-agricultural self-employed males work in business-oriented
services, compared to only 5 percent of females; women are more heavily concentrated in retail services,
often in the informal sector.

Overlapping Disadvantages and Gender Equality at Work

Gender-smart jobs strategies need to identify and address multiple deprivations and constraints that underlie
gender inequality in the world of work. The WDR 2012 provides a valuable framework for understanding the
challenges. It highlights key outcome areas—agency, endowments, and economic opportunities—and
underscores the fact that disparities are driven by multiple constraints that arise in formal and informal
institutions, markets, and households. The constraints are most severe among women who face other
disadvantages, such as being a member of an ethnic minority, having a disability, or being poor.

Social norms are a key factor underlying deprivations and constraints throughout the lifecycle. Norms affect
women’s work by dictating the way they spend their time and undervaluing their potential. Housework, child-
rearing, and elderly care are often considered primarily women’s responsibility. Further, nearly four in 10
people globally (close to one-half in developing countries) agree that, when jobs are scarce, men should have
more right to jobs than women. Research shows that women are frequently disadvantaged by gender biases
in performance and hiring evaluations.

Jobs can increase women’s agency, but a lack of agency also restricts women’s job opportunities. In most
developing countries, women have fewer choices in fundamental areas of day-today life, including their own
movements, sexual and reproductive health decisions, ability to use household assets, and whether and when
to go to school, work, or participate in other economic-related activities. Further, a large proportion of
women in the world lack freedom from violence. The World Health Organization estimates that more than
35 percent of women have experienced gender-based violence. Without addressing these critical constraints
on agency, women cannot take full advantage of potential economic opportunities.

55
 Inequalities in endowments and assets contribute to gaps in the world of work. While there has been important
progress globally, in some countries fundamental deprivations persist. In 2010–12, female-to-male enrollment
ratios for primary school were less than 90 percent in 16 countries, mainly in Africa, and some 57 million
primary school age children were not enrolled. Many women lack access to land and financial capital. Other
deep-seated differences also persist. For example, young women and men often follow different educational
streams and develop differences in aspirations and skills that underlie occupational segregations later in life. A
wider account of productive inputs shows women disadvantaged in areas such as access to financial services,
technology, training, information, and social networks.

Legal discrimination is a remarkably common barrier to women’s work. Of 143 economies, 128 had at least
one legal differentiation in 2013.13 These barriers include restricting women’s ability to access institutions
(such as obtaining an ID card or conducting official transactions), own or use property, build credit, or get a
job. In 15 countries, women still require their husbands’ consent to work. In many economies, especially in
the Middle East and North Africa, women face the cumulative effects of multiple legal constraints.
Igniting Gender Equality in the World of Work

While there are no “magic formulas,” effectively tackling gender inequality at work is likely to be an integral
part of addressing country jobs challenges. Overcoming gender inequality involves understanding local
specificities and developing bold, coordinated actions to address multiple constraints. It requires investments
in people’s skills and capabilities, and supporting their abilities to contribute to higher productivity activities
and economy-wide competitiveness over their life cycles. Four broad areas are likely to be important.

1. Integrate gender into jobs diagnostics. Growth and labor market country diagnostics can identify the gender-
specific constraints that women face in accessing productive jobs. A joint World Bank and Asian Development
Bank gender assessment for Lao PDR found persistent wage gaps and self-employed women running smaller
businesses. These diagnostics led to growth strategy recommendations focused on improving access to finance
and business training for women entrepreneurs. A gender assessment in Vietnam identified adverse impacts
of gender differences in statutory retirement ages and outlined policy options for addressing the problem.

2. Level the playing field through government actions across the lifecycle. Biases can begin very early in life,
sometimes in subtle ways, and start trajectories of inequality that become increasingly difficult and costly to
resolve. Policy actions across the lifecycle to advance gender equality in the world of work will typically include
both (a) broad-based actions that, while benefiting everyone, may have an even greater impact on women’s
economic opportunities (such as early childhood development programming or reducing inefficiencies to
business registration) as well as (b) targeted actions to remove or offset gender-specific constraints. The report
discusses evidence behind a wider range of targeted actions, but selected examples are highlighted here.

During childhood and youth, policy actions can tackle inequalities through education and training. A growing
body of evidence demonstrates the value of cash transfers with special incentives as a demand-side tool for
boosting equality in schooling. Examples of supply-side strategies that have shown positive results by addressing
gender-specific constraints include increasing the proximity of schools to homes in Afghanistan and building
“girlfriendly” schools in Burkina Faso that improve facilities and incentives for girls’ education while engaging
parents and teachers. Education systems can challenge stereotypes through curricula. Tanzania’s national
curriculum includes substantial gender-related material in its secondary school civics syllabus and examinations.
Multicomponent skills-development programs can also make a difference. A World Bank-supported youth
employment program in Liberia that included vocational and life skills training, along with job placement help,
boosted young women’s employment by 47 percent and average weekly earnings by 80 percent.

For women of productive age, actions can focus on removing barriers to getting paid work. Eliminating legal
and formal barriers to women’s work is key to leveling the playing field. Reforms should focus on removing
restrictions to women’s work in labor and employment; removing unequal status provisions, such as head-of-
household provisions, in family law; allowing and encouraging women’s ownership and joint-titling of land;
enforcing equitable inheritance laws; and applying nondiscrimination principles to customary laws. Most
countries have made significant progress toward more equitable laws over recent decades, but there has been
less progress in some regions, notably in the Middle East and North Africa and in South Asia.
Beyond addressing legal discrimination, targeted policies can address more subtle constraints. Strategies can
include family friendly leave and flexibility policies, extending affordable childcare and early child development
programs, and developing technology and infrastructure to reduce burdens on women’s time for household
56
 chores and care work. The World Bank estimates that adding one year of preschool education in Turkey, for
example, could increase female labor force participation by 9 percent. Father-friendly leave policies in the UK
and Nordic countries have strengthened opportunities and incentives for men to share in domestic
responsibilities. A World Bank-supported program in Cambodia reduced women’s time devoted to collecting
firewood and increased their incomes by selling low-cost, fuel-efficient cookstoves through local female
vendors.

During elderly years, governments can support equitable old-age labor regulations combined with appropriate
social protection. The importance of this demographic cannot be ignored. In developing countries, the old-age
dependency ratio is expected to increase by 144 percent from 2010 to 2050, whereas the child dependency
ratio is projected to fall by 20 percent during the same period. This translates to increased elderly care
responsibilities for productive age women, as well as potential challenges for elderly people themselves. Many
governments have removed differences in retirement and pension ages, but gaps remain in 49 countries. World
Bank analysis showed that mandatory earlier retirement causes early labor force withdrawal of urban women
in China. In developing countries, many elderly women are outside the scope of formal social protection—
although studies in Brazil and South Africa have shown that pensions received by elderly women significantly
increased granddaughters’ education and health. More policy experimentation is needed on interventions for
updating older women’s and men’s skills and increasing connections to the labor market.

3. Proactive private sector leadership and innovation for gender equality. The private sector accounts for about
three out of four jobs in countries like Egypt, Finland, and France and nine out of 10 jobs in countries such as
Brazil, Chile, Japan, and South Africa. With International Finance Corporation (IFC) support, commercial banks
in Cambodia, Nigeria, and Romania, among other countries, are increasing their female clientele, and
companies in male-dominated sectors, such as chemicals and construction, are increasing women’s access to
jobs through more concerted recruitment and family-friendly work arrangements. Multinational firms have
increased profitability in South Korea by actively recruiting women for local managerial positions. While
success stories are encouraging, a focus on gender equality is still all too rare. ManpowerGroup surveys report
that only 2 percent of employers across 42 countries have adopted strategies to recruit more women.
Private and public sector actors can form powerful partnerships to support women’s entrepreneurship, which
in turn contributes to growth and a dynamic private sector. Women’s entrepreneurship can be fostered
through a combination of increased access to capital, networks, and new markets; high-quality business skills
and development training; and access to broader services that offset gender-specific constraints.

4. Global action is needed to fill knowledge gaps about both the problems of, and the solutions to, gender
inequality in the world of work. This involves addressing data gaps in such areas as earnings disparities, control
over assets, and gender-based violence in homes and workplaces. But it also means contributing to stronger
evidence on what works for increasing gender equality in the world of work. The World Bank recently
launched enGENDER IMPACT, a gateway to its gender-related impact evaluations. This effort complements
gender innovation and evaluation initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, and
efforts by the IFC to highlight good business practices.

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 ACTIVITY 5
MAKE A GENDER-FAIR JOB POSTING FOR A MANAGERIAL POSITION. What are the important elements to be included
in a job posting? BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF A BIASED JOB POSTING FOR A SECRETARIAL POSITION.

Here is the rubric for your output

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 TOPIC 06
VALUES AND USE OF GENDER FAIR LANGUAGE IN
THE FILIPINO COMMUNITY
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter, the students are expected to
1. Campaign for desirable values and use of gender fair language as a Filipino in one’s community
2. Demonstrate gender equality and interrelated activism, gender fair language/sexism

Introduction

The underlying principle of gender-inclusive language is that in all communications women and men are equal and
should be treated and respected equally. In language, this equality takes the form of overall gender balance, parallel
word choices for both men and women, and elimination of terms that stereotype, exclude, or demean women.

Our language and society reflect one another, so it is important for us as communicators to recognize and respect
change in the meaning and acceptability of words. Concern about the use of sexist language is part of our increased
awareness that the perceived meanings of some words have changed in response to the changing roles of men and
women in our society. For example, girl once meant a young person of either sex, while youth indicated only a young
man. Now, girl applies only to young female persons, while youth can refer to young persons of either sex. Just as you
would not use girl with its outdated meaning, you should not use other words connoting gender that do not accurately
represent the people behind them.

Sexism in Language

What is sexism in language?

It is the use of language which devalues members of one sex, almost invariably women, thus fosters gender inequality.
It discriminates against women by rendering them invisible or trivializing them at the same time that it perpetuates
notions of male supremacy.

On the other hand, gender fair language is...

a non-sexist language, according to Marilyn Schwartz in Guidelines for Bias- free Publishing, refers to language that avoids
gender stereotyping.
Journalistic writing should treat males and females equally by not only providing equal coverage of males and females,
but also using gender neutral language..

WHY IS THERE A NEED TO USE NON-SEXIST LANGUAGE?

As stated in the Civil Service Commission's Memorandum Circular No. 12, "language is an essential tool in
communication. It articulates consciousness, reflects culture, and affects socialization. Hence, the need to recognize
the importance of transforming language from traditional usage to a more liberating one, that which is gender-
sensitive."

Guidelines for Non- Sexist Writing

Below are some suggestions on how to use non-sexist language.

1. Eliminate the generic use of HE, HIS, or HIM unless the antecedent is obviously male by:
a. Using plural nouns
Traditional: The lawyer uses his brief to guide him. Suggested: The lawyers use their briefs to guide them,

b. Deleting he, his, and him altogether, rewording if necessary

Traditional: The architect uses his blueprint to guide him. Suggested: The architect uses the blueprint as a guide.

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c. Substituting articles (a, an, the) for his; using who instead of he
Traditional: The writer should know his readers well. Suggested: The writer should know the readers well.

d. Using One, We or You e. Using the passive voice

Traditional: The manager must submit his proposal today. Suggested: The proposal must be submitted by the
manager today.

2. Eliminate the generic use of Man, instead use People, Person(s), Human(s), Human Being(s),
Humankind, Humanity, The Human Race
Traditional: ordinary man, mankind, the brotherhood of man Suggested: ordinary people, humanity, the human family

3. Eliminate sexism in symbolic representations of gender in words, sentences, and text by:
a. Taking the context of the word, analyzing its meaning, and eliminating sexism in the concept:
Traditional: feelings of brotherhood, feelings of fraternity Suggested: feelings of kinship, solidarity
b. Finding precise words to delineate the thing itself from supposedly sex- linked characteristics:
Traditional: Titanic was a great ship, but she rests at the bottom of the sea. Suggested: Titanic was a great ship,
but it now rests at the bottom of the sea.

4. Eliminate Sexual Stereotyping of Roles by:

a. Using the same term for both genders when it comes to profession or employment:
Traditional: Salesman, Stewardess Suggested: Sales agent, Flight attendant

b. Using gender fair terms in lexical terms

Traditional: Sportsmanship Suggested: Highest ideals of fair play
c. Treating men and women in a parallel manner
Traditional: I now pronounce you man and wife. Suggested: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
d. Avoiding language that reinforces stereotyping images
Traditional: a man’s job, the director’s girl Friday Suggested: a big job, the director’s assistant
e. Avoiding language that catches attention to the sex role of men and women
Traditional: working mothers, spinsters or old maids Suggested: wage-earning mothers, unmarried women

5. Eliminate sexism when addressing persons formally by:

a. Using Ms. instead of Mrs.
Traditional: Mrs. Dela Cruz Suggested: Ms. dela Cruz
b. Using a married woman’s first name instead of her husband’s
Traditional: Mrs. Juan dela Cruz Suggested: Ms. Maria Santos-dela Cruz
c. Using the corresponding titles for females:
Traditional: Dra. Concepcion Reyes Suggested: Dr. Concepcion Reyes
d. Using the title of the job or group in letters to unknown persons
Traditional: Dear Sir Suggested: Dear Editor, Dear Credit Manager, Dear Colleagues

On Filipino Gender Neutral Language And Gender Equality

In Filipino, mostly Tagalog, we only use “siya” (them) to refer to a person. There’s no “him/her” or “he/she” either.
As posted in preen.ph, “We just don’t distinguish the gender through the pronoun. So there has to be additional
indicators in a sentence to let the audience know if the person in question is a he or she, like name, title, or genderized
nouns/labels/classifications. ”One can argue that Filipino language isn’t gender-neutral since we have words like
“ate/kuya” (big sister/brother) and “tita/tito” (aunt/uncle). However, the former is of Chinese origin; the latter is
Spanish. What’s even more interesting is we call our husband or wife “asawa” (spouse) or “kabiyak” (other half)—
there are no gender indicators.

However, the State, its agencies and officials are constantly finding ways to integrate gender fair language in the
workplace and in institutions. One instance is the issuance of CSC's memorandum on the Use of Non-Sexist Language
in All Official Documents, Communications, and Issuances.

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Moreover, the Philippines is a main player in the international women’s arena and this is anchored on a very vibrant
local women’s movement. Numerous organizations and NGOs exist for the cause of gender equality and other
related women issues.

This puts the gender equality issues at the forefront of national discourse and precludes further downslide of women
status in the modern Philippine society. Indeed, there are many handles for the changes to happen. These legal and
policy gains resulted from the strong voice of women that started even during the anti-dictatorship struggle that
culminated with the ascension of Corazon Aquino as the first woman president of the country.

Summary
Our language and society reflect one another, so it is important for us as communicators to recognize and respect
change in the meaning and acceptability of words. Concern about the use of sexist language is part of our increased
awareness that the perceived meanings of some words have changed in response to the changing roles of men and
women in our society. For example, girl once meant a young person of either sex, while youth indicated only a young
man. Now, girl applies only to young female persons, while youth can refer to young persons of either sex. Just as
you would not use girl with its outdated meaning, you should not use other words connoting gender that do not
accurately represent the people behind them. If you write with nonsexist language, you write to represent with
fairness the gender identified in many words. Gender-fair language minimizes unnecessary concern about gender in
your subject matter, allowing both you and your reader to focus on what people do rather than on which sex they
happen to be.

FINAL ACTIVITY OUTPUT

Make an original slogan on GENDER FAIRNESS. Below is the rubric for your output.

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SLOGAN EXAMPLE

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.one.org%2Finternational%2Fblog%2F5-gender-equality-
campaigns%2F&psig=AOvVaw0AXstuLToZFvK5CDGXcmXp&ust=1601099005895000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAI
QjRxqFwoTCLCF3q_Ng-wCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

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