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 The Concept of Gender and Society
Definitions of Gender and Society

Gender is a word that is used to talk about how people

express masculine (traits most people think of as male) or
feminine (traits most people think of as female) traits. It is
commonly used for a person's sex (male or female) but this
word only means someone's biology (body parts). Gender
refers to those characteristics and roles of women and men
that are socially constructed.

Gender is used to describe the characteristics of

women and men that are socially constructed, while
sex refers to those that are biologically determined.
People are born female or male, but learn to be girls
and boys who grow into women and men.
 The Concept of Gender and Society

Transgender is a person who identifies or

expresses a gender identity that differs from the
one that corresponds to the person's sex at birth.

Hermaphrodite is a person having both male or female

organs or other sexual characteristics are faced with
the nature of gender sexual identity, and what makes
up one's sense of self. A person's ability to make a
choice is defined by the amount of control over the
situation. Therefore, one's gender is a choice.
 Difference of Sex from Gender

Sex refers to physical or physiological differences

between males and females, including both primary sex
characteristics (the reproductive system) and secondary
characteristics such as height and muscularity.

Gender is a term that refers to social or cultural

distinctions associated with being male or female.
Gender identity is the extent to which one identifies
as being either masculine or feminine. berdache to
refer to individuals who occasionally or permanently
dressed and lived as the opposite gender.

 Difference of Sex from Gender

Berdache to refer to Fa'afafine, which translates as "the way

of the woman," is a term used to
individuals who occasionally
describe individuals who are born
or permanently dressed and biologically.
lived as the opposite gender
Gender is also a social construct. As the World Health
Organization (WHO) explains: "Gender refers to the socially
constructed characteristics of women and men, such as
norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of
women and men. It varies from society to society and can be
Sexual Orientation changed."
A person's sexual orientation is

their emotional and sexual

attraction to a particular sex Homosexuality, the attraction to
(male or female). individuals of one's own sexuality, the
attraction to individuals of either sex.
Heterosexuality, the attraction to
individuals of the opposite sex; Asexuality, no attraction to either sex.
 Gender Roles
Gender roles are cultural and personal. They determine
how males and females should think, speak, dress and
interact within the context of society. Learning plays a
role in this process of shaping gender roles. These gender
schemas are deeply embedded cognitive frameworks
regarding what defines masculine and feminine. For
example, girls and women are generally expected to dress
in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating,
and nurturing. Men are generally expected to be strong,
aggressive, and bold.
GENDER COMMUNITY GENDER
ROLES COMMUNITY POLITICS
PRODUCTIVE MANAGING IDENTITY
ROLE
ROLES ROLE
 Gender Roles
GENDER ROLES PRODUCTIVE
ROLES COMMUNITY MANAGING
- Activities carried out by men ROLE
and women in goods and - Activities undertaken
services, for sale, exchange, or primarily by women at the
to meet the subsistence needs community level, to ensure
of the family. Reproductive the provision and
roles: Activities needed to maintenance of scarce
ensure the reproduction of resources of collective
society's labor force. consumption such as water,
health care and education.
This is voluntary unpaid work
undertaken in 'free' time.
 Gender Roles
COMMUNITY POLITICS GENDER IDENTITY
ROLE - Is defined as a personal
- Activities undertaken conception of oneself as male or
female (or rarely, both or neither).
primarily by men at the
The terms "sex" and "gender"
community level, refers to two differences
organizing at the formal identifiers. Sex denotes biological
political level, often within characteristics differentiating
the framework of national males and females, While gender
politics. This work is denotes social and cultural
usually undertaken by men characteristics of masculine and
and may be paid directly or feminine behavior. Sex and gender
result in increased power are not always synchronous,
and status. individuals who strongly identify
with the opposing gender are
considered transgendered.
Society And Its Meaning
The term "society" came from the 12th Century
French société (meaning 'company). This was in turn
from the Latin word ,societas', which in turn was
derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend, ally";
adjectival form socialis) used to describe a bond or
interaction between friendly parties or at least civil.
Without an article, the term can refer to the
entirety of humanity (also: "society in general",
"society at large", etc.), although those who are
unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in
this sense may be deemed to be "antisocial".
Society is the term to describe human beings
together (collective, the sum of their social
networks and social interactions). It can also mean
a specific group of people who interact, as well as a
wider society of which they are members.
Society And Its Meaning
"A society consists of individuals belonging to
groups which may vary in size." Anthony Giddens
(2000) states; "A society is a group of people
who live in a particular territory, are subject to
a common system of political authority, and are
aware of having a distinct identity from other
groups around them."

According to sociologists, a society is a group of

people with common territory, interaction, and
culture. Social groups consist of two or more people
who interact and identify with one another. Society is
important because it provides us with a system and a
platform to work together for the betterment of the
world.
What are the "seven spheres of society"?
1. Government-Where justice and peace are safeguarded and authority is used to serve
a set of citizens.
2. Economics (Science, Technology & Business)- Where provision is created and
stewardship is modelled. Science and technology form part of its creative force, with
enterprise being the distributor of ideas and resources.
3. Faith, Spirituality & Belief - Engagement with the immaterial, spiritual realm,
extension of mercy and the promotion of reconciled relationships; person-to person
and person-to-God.
4. Education- The equipping of people for their life purpose through personal
transformation and the multiplication of knowledge
5. Family - Where life is multiplied, belonging is found and individual identity is first
established.
6. Media- The transfer of wisdom and the promotion of healthy relationships
through forms of communication that are life-giving.
7. Celebration (Arts, Entertainment, and Sports) - The strengthening of hope and the
building of community through holistic presentations of life that engage the whole
person.
Types of Society
Society are social group that differ according to subsistence startegies the ways that humans
use technology to provide needs for themselves
Sociologist place societies in these broad categories:
*Pre- Industrial
*Industrial
*Post industrial PRE INDUSTRIAL SOCITIES - Which food production carried out through the
use of human and animal labour it is the main economic activity.
These societies can be subdivided according to their technology and their producing of food .
*Hunting and gathering
*Pastoral
*Horticultural
*Agricultural
*Feudal
 Types of Society
HUNTING AND GATHERING are the earliest form of society.
The member survive primarily by hunting trapping fishing
gathering and edible plants so the majority of the members time
is spent looking for and gathering food. A hunting gathering
society has five characteristic .

1. Family is the society primary institution family determines the distribution of food and how to socialize
children
2. These societies are small compared to others, they generally have less than 50 members
3.Hunting and gathering societies are nomadic which means that they move constantly in order to find food
and water.
4.Members of hunting and gathering societies are mutually dependent upon each other.
5.Men are typically responsible for hunting and women are typically gathers.
* PASTORAL SOCIETIES are a slightly more efficient form of subsistence rather the searching for food on a
daily basis member rely on domesticated animals to meet their food needs.
* Pastoralist live a nomadic life moving their herds from pasture to pasture.
*Pastoral societies can support larger populations
* Since there are food surpluses fewer people are needed to produced food, therefore you see a division of
labor the specialization of individuals in the performance of specific economic activities becomes more
complex.
Types of Society
HORTICULAR SOCITIES - Emerged between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago in Latin America
and parts of the middle east.
* The fruits and vegetables grown in garden plot that have been cleared from the jungle
or forest provide the main source of food in industrial society.
*Culturalists use human labor and simple foods to cultivate land for one or more seasons.
*This allows them to build permanent of semi-permanent villages.
*The size of the village depends on the land available farming
*Specialized roles that are part of multicultural life include those of craft of people
shamans or religious leaders and traders and as with pastoral societies surplus in food
lead to inequalities in wealth in power.
AGRICULTURAL SOCITIES - rely on the use of technology in order to cultivate crops in
large areas including wheat rice and corn, technological advances led to an increase in
food supplies an increase in population and the development of trade center. Agricultural
societies developed roughly in the order
*Animals are used to pull plows
*Plowing allows for the cultivation of larger areas of land
*High volume of food production allows people to build permanent home in a single
location
*Town develop which eventually grow into cities.
Types of Society

FEUDAL SOCITIES - Also known as the feudal system was the combination of the legal
economic military and cultural customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the
9th and 15 centuries it is broadly define as structuring society around relationship
that were derived from holding of land in exchange of service or labor.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY - emphasis shifts from production of food to the production of
manufactured goods this shift is made possible chances in production method, the bulk
of production is carried out through the use of machines
*Industrialization changes the location of work
*Production and work move from the home to the factory * Industrial society makes
urbanization.
POST INDUSTRIAL SOCITIES - It is the stage of society's development when the
service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy
dominated by information service and high technology than the production of good.
 What is Gender
Equality Societies

-Which both men and women as equal member -Have the

opportunities to participate in all kinds of activity
*Women who desire an active role in society may participate in
activities of their choosing .
* While men could enjoy a fullfilling home and community life .
-Equally enjoy in political,economic and cultural beliefs .
-The human right of men and women are equally respected .

 Feminist Movement
and Feminist Theory

The Feminist Movement

Also known as the women’s liberation movement, the women’s
movement, or simply feminism refers to a series of political
campaigns for reform on a variety of issues that affect
women’s quality of life.

First Wave Second Wave Feminist

Feminism Patriarchy Assumption
Feminism Theory
(1848-1920) (1960- 1980)
The Key to Patriarchy
Third Wave Fourth Wave Standpoint Theory
Feminism Feminism
(1990s-2008) (2008-present) Intersectional Theory
 First Wave Feminism
(1848-1920)

The first women’s right convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York from July 19-20,
1848, and advertised itself as “a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious
condition and rights of woman”
There was a notable connection between the movement to abolish slavery and the women’s
rights movement. Frederick Douglass was heavily involved in both projects and believed it
was essential for both groups to work together
In 1851, Lucy Gage led a women’s convention in Ohio where Sojourner Truth, who was born
a slave and gave birth to five children in slavery, gave her famous, “Ain’t I a Woman?”
speech. The truth she was Isabella Bom, bought and sold four times during her lifetime. His
five-year-old son was illegally sold into slavery in Alabama. Though in 1827, with the help of
an abolitionist family, she was able to buy her freedom and to successfully sue for the
return of her son. After that, she become an activist and speaker, she renamed herself
Sojourner Truth and dedicated her life to working toward the end of slavery and for
women’s rights and temperance.
 Second Wave Feminism
(1960- 1980)

Second Wave were influenced by other Margaret Sanger – Birth Control

advocate from the first wave, lived to
President Kennedy – Made
contemporaneous social movements. women’s rights a key issue of
Whereas the first wave of feminism was see the Food and Drug Administration
approve the combined oral the New Frontier (a slate of
generally propelled by middle class,
western, cisgender, white women, the contraceptive pill in 1960, which was ambitious domestic and
second phase drew in women of color and made available in 1961. foreign policy initiatives)
women from developing nations, seeking
sisterhood and solidarity, and claiming Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) proposed by first wave feminists in
“Women’s struggle is class struggle.” 1923, premised on legal equality of the sexes.
Feminists spoke of women as a social class Betty Friedan (1963) – influenced by Simone De Beauvoir’s 1947 book
and coined phrases such as “the personal is “The Second Sex” wrote the bestselling “The Feminine Mystique”
political” and “identity politics” in effort to which objected to the mainstream media depiction of women and
demonstrate that race, class, and gender argued that narrowly reducing women to the status of homemakers
oppression are all related/ They initiated a limited their potential and wasted their talent. The idealized
concentrated effort to rid society top-to- nuclear family that was prominently marketed at the time, she
bottom of sexism, from children’s cartoons wrote, did not reflect authentic happiness and was in fact often
to the highest levels of government unsatisfying and degrading for women. Friedan’s book is
(Rampton 2015) considered on of the most important founding texts of second wave
feminism
 Third Wave Feminism
(1990s-2008)
It refers to the several diverse strains of

feminist activity and study, whose exact This wave broadened the
boundaries in the history of feminism are parameters of feminism to
a subject of debate. The movement arose include a more diverse group
partially as a response to the perceived of women and a more fluid
failures of and backlash against initiatives range of gender identities.
and movements created by second-wave
feminism. The “grrls” of the third wave stepped onto the
stage as strong and empowered, eschewing
Popular television shows like Sex in the victimization and defining feminine beauty for
City (1998-2004) elevated a type of third themselves as subjects, not as objects of a sexiest
wave feminism that merged feminine patriarchy; they developed a rhetoric of mimicry
imagery (i.e., lipstick, high heels, cleavage), which appropriated derogatory terms like “slut”
which were previously associated with and “bitch” in order to subvert sexist culture and
male oppression, with high powered deprive it of verbal weapons (Rampton 2015)
careers and robust sex lives.
 Fourth Wave Feminism
(2008-present)

It is shaped by technology and characterized by the

#metoo and the #timesup movements. Considering that
these hashtags were first introduced on Twitter in 2007,
this movement has grown rapidly, as a social media
activism has spread interest in and awareness of feminism.
As Rampton, (2015) states, “The emerging Successes of fourth wave feminists
fourth wavers are not just reincarnations of include the proliferation of social
their second wave grandmothers; they bring to
media tags that promote inclusion and
the discussion important perspective taught by
third wave feminism; they speak in terms of more effectively dismantle the gender
intersectionality whereby women’s and sexual binaries that have
suppression can only fully be understood in a fragmented the movement. Female
context of a marginalization of other groups farm workers are demanding to have
and genders-feminism is part of a larger sexual harassment in the fields
consciousness of oppression along with addressed alongside Hollywood actors.
racism, ageism, classism, ableism, and sexual

orientation”
 Feminist Theory
- Is a type of conflict theory that examines
inequalities in gender-related issues. It uses the
conflict approach to examine the maintenance of
gender rules and equalities.
- Radical Feminism, considers role of the family in
perpetuating male dominance. In patriarchal
societies, men’s contributions are seen as more Patriarchy – refers to a set of institutional
valuable than those of women. Patriarchal structures (like property rights, access to
Perspectives and arrangements are widespread position of power, relationship to sources
and taken for granted. As a result, women’s of income) that are based on the belief
viewpoints of being discredited or considered that men and women are dichotomous
invalid. and unequal categories.
The Key to Patriarchy - Dominant gender
ideology toward sexual differences;
Assumption - Physiological sex
differences between males and female are
related to differences in their character,
behavior and ability.
 Standpoint Theory Intersectional Theory
Many of the most immediate and fundamental Recall that intersectional theory examines
experiences of social life- from childbirth to who multiple, overlapping identities (black,
washes the dishes to the experience of sexual Latina, Asian, gay, trans, working class,
violence – had simply been invisible or regarded as poor, single parent, working, stay-at-
unimportant politically or socially. home, immigrant, undocumented, etc.)
Dorothy Smith – development of standpoint theory and the various lived experiences within
was a key innovation in sociology that enables the spaces of overlap and how each of
these issues to be seen and addressed in a these identifies make an individual’s
systematic way by examining one’s position in life experience unique.
(Smith 1977). She recognized from the Intersectional Theory combines critical
consciousness raising exercises and encounter race theory, gender conflict theory, and
groups initiated by feminists in the 1960s and 1970s critical components of Marx’s class
that many of the immediate concerns expressed by theory.
women about their personal lives had a Kimberle Crenshaw – describes it as a
commonality of themes. “prism for understanding certain kinds of

problems”

 Theoretical
Structural functionalists might
look at how values and norms
1 shape societal notions of success

Perspective on in the workforce, and how these

established values and norms

Gender
reinforce the division of labor as
well as gender inequality.

​ onflict theorists influenced by the

C
theories of Karl Marx might analyze
2 how the bourgeoisie use the wage gap
to perpetuate an unequal system, and
how the wage gap is successful in
keeping the working classes both
divided and subject to a politically
neutralizing false consciousness.

I​nteractionists would likely

3 examine how meaning is produced
and negotiated in social
interactions and how that meaning
is then translated into wage
inequality.
 Structional
Functionalism

Functionalists argue that
Structural functionalism has provided one
of the most important perspectives of gender roles were established
sociological research in the twentieth well before the pre-industrial
century and has been a major influence on era when men typically took
research in the social sciences, including care of responsibilities outside
gender studies. Viewing the family as the of the home, such as hunting,
most integral component of society, and women typically took care
assumptions about gender roles within of the domestic
marriage assume a prominent place in this responsibilities in or around
perspective. the home.
Conflict Theory

It is difficult for women to
rise above men, as dominant
According to conflict theory, society is a group members create the
struggle for dominance among social groups rules for success and
(like women versus men) that compete for opportunity in society
scarce resources. (Farrington and Chertok
​Sociologists examine gender from this 1993).
perspective, they typically classify men as
the dominant group and women as the Friedrich Engels A German
subordinate group. sociologist, suggested that the
​According to conflict theory, social same owner-worker relationship
problems are created when dominant groups seen in the labor force is also
exploit or oppress subordinate groups seen in the household, with
women assuming the role of
the proletariat.
 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).

Symbolic Interactionism
aims to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of
symbols and meaning-making in human interaction.
social construction of sexuality refers to the way in which socially
created definitions about the cultural appropriateness of sex-linked
behavior shape the way people see and experience sexuality.
doing gender: the performance of tasks based upon the gender
assigned to us by society and, in turn, ourselves. West and
Zimmerman(1987)
biological determinism: the belief that men and women behave
differently due to inherent sex differences related to their biology.
 Queer Theory
Queer theory is a way of thinking that dismantles
traditional assumptions about gender and sexual
identities. The field emerged from sexuality studies
and women's studies. Queer theorists analyze gender
and sexuality as socially and culturally constructed
concepts. The goal of queer theory is to challenge
traditional academic approaches and fight against
social inequality
. ​It questions socially established norms and
dualistic categories with a special focus on
challenging sexual. (White-Black, Male-Female)

Gender Theory
Gender theory is the study of what is understood as masculine and/or feminine
and/or queer behavior in any given context, community, society, or field of study
(including, but not limited to, literature, history, sociology, education, applied
linguistics, religion, health sciences, philosophy, cultural studies).