Social Construction (of Gender) Diversity Literacy Week 2 / Lecture 1 Prepared by Claire Kelly

1. Gender is “doing”  Girls ( Insert: stereotypical girl picture)  Pink  Flower patterns  Barbie Dolls  Toy houses and household goods  Boys ( Insert: stereotypical boy picture)  Blue  Camouflage patterns  Military toys and cars  Playing tough and rough Prepared by Claire Kelly

1. Gender is “doing”  We are born sexed, not gendered  “Doing” gender can shape biology  “Doing” gender is inscribed on our bodies  Gender is “doing” difference  Gender is ascribed and achieved  Gender has a material base, rendered in social and cultural practice Prepared by Claire Kelly

2. Gender is normalised  Gender is so obvious, we don't notice it until it is “disrupted”:  Third gender (Blackwood) – Institutionalised  Transgendered/transsexual people – not institutionalised  Implications for sexuality Prepared by Claire Kelly

“Third” Gender  Insert articles/headline on the “third” gender recognized by the census of Nepal & India  31/world/nepal.census.gender_1_gender-identity- citizenship-first-openly-gay-lawmaker?_s=PM:WORLD 31/world/nepal.census.gender_1_gender-identity- citizenship-first-openly-gay-lawmaker?_s=PM:WORLD  census-includes-category-for-third-gender/ census-includes-category-for-third-gender/  Prepared by Claire Kelly

3. Gender is positioning  Gender is about more than the individual, it is about the social institution  “Cult of the individual” – difficult to think of ourselves as positioned  Subjectivity  Individuals are not passive in these social structures, we challenge them or we rearticulate them (remember the moving train?) Prepared by Claire Kelly

4. Gender can be bent  What does “ gender bending ” tell us about gender?  Shows us that boundaries :  exist  contain gender  are breachable  are social  Insert: Picture of someone “bending gender” like a drag queen or king or cross dresser Prepared by Claire Kelly

5. Gender as process, stratification and structure  Process – doing, creates difference  Stratification – e.g. gendering of jobs nurse vs. doctor  Structure – division of labour, devaluing of “feminine” labour Prepared by Claire Kelly

Social Construction of Difference  “… is produced and maintained by identifiable social processes and built into the general social structure and individual identities deliberately and purposefully” (Lorber, p. 35)  “The paradox of human nature is that it is always a manifestation of cultural meanings, social relationships and power politics” (Lorber, p. 35)  “For humans, the social is natural ” (Lorber, p. 36) Prepared by Claire Kelly