Sexual Studies Class and Women Genders

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Difference between:

• public vs. private space

Public space is commonly shared and created for open usage throughout the community, whereas private space is individually or corporately owned. The public setting is socially constructed which creates a behavior influence and is privately ruled because of limitations imposed and supported by the law. Generally, everyone has a right to access and use public space, as opposed to private space which has restrictions.

Ex: Lawrence vs. Texas

In Lawrence vs. Texas, two gay men say the state of Texas deprived them of privacy rights and equal protection under the law when they were arrested in 1998. A neighbor had reported a "weapons disturbance" at the home of John G. Lawrence, and when police arrived they only found two men having sex, also called sodomy. Lawrence and the other man were held overnight in jail and later fined $200 each for violating the state’s Homosexual Conduct law. The neighbor was only convicted of filing a false police report.

Since public space is socially constructed, there are still certain behaviors that aren’t accepted in society with open arms such as men dress dressing in skirts which is considered a feminine article of clothing. It isn’t illegal, but it would make you a target of discrimination in a public setting as opposed to a private setting such as your apartment room where you could where whatever you wish without being judged.  In lecture, we were shown a picture of marc Jacobs, the designer, wearing a skirt but because he’s famous and well protected no one can touch him The average male would have no such protection.

• 
  gender and sex

"Sex" refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.

"Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

To put it another way:

"Male" and "female" are sex categories, while "masculine" and "feminine" are gender categories.

Ex: Throwing like a Girl by Iris Marion Young 

Girls are suppose to emanate femininity, which includes not being too active and refraining from everything that may be "too dangerous" for her. They are taught to grow into their feminine gender roles which correspond to their sex. The gender roles they are assigned are the reason women don’t throw as efficiently as males, not their sex. They are biologically as capable as males. 

Example of difference between sex and gender characteristics:

Sex-Women menstruate while men do not. (Biological)

Gender- In most of the world, women do more housework than men. (Societal)

LGB identities and queer politics

Queer politics is meant to go against the general notion of one's sexual orientation being their sole identity ( LGB IDENTITIES). Queer politics is a response by being anti-identity, anti-assimilationist, and against normalcy. It is a critique of identity. Essentially, Queer politics states that, "This is not what I am, but what I do."

Marxist feminism:

Feminist theory, which focuses on the dismantling of capitalism as a way of liberating women. Marxist feminism states that private property, which gives rise to economic inequality, dependence, and ultimately unhealthy social relations between men and women, is the root of women's oppression in the current social context.

Women's subordination is seen as a form of class oppression, which is maintained (like racism) because it serves the interests of capital and the ruling class.

Ex: in “The Master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house, Audrey Lorde complains about the problem of capitalism between not only women and men but between classes of women themselves. “If white American feminist theory need not deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of color? What is the theory behind racist feminism?”

A modern example of this is still capitalism, which keeps growing and different classes of women and men are becoming more distinguishable from each other.

Radical feminists assert that their society is a patriarchy in which men are the primary oppressors of women. Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy. Radical feminism posits the theory that, due to patriarchy, women have come to be viewed as the "other" to the male norm and as such have been systematically oppressed and marginalized. They also believe that the way to deal with patriarchy and oppression of all kinds is to address the underlying causes of these problems through revolution. 

An example of radical feminism is the Redstockings manifesto created by the Redstockings, a radical feminists group founded in N.Y. in 1969, and it called for women to unite to achieve liberation from men as the agents of oppression. The Redstockings and their manifesto rejected economic, racial, and class privileges and demanded an end to the exploitative structure of male-dominated society.

Liberal feminism asserts the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. It is an individualistic form of feminist theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices. Liberal feminism looks at the personal interactions of men and women as the starting ground from which to transform society into a more gender-equitable place. It corresponds to choice feminism and third wave feminists.

Examples of liberal feminism are all four essays on choice feminism, which show the positive and mostly negatives of such a movement. Choice feminism’s positive aspect is that it brings many different races, class, and gender together because it appeals to everyone. It calls for an end to judgment on the choices women make and that they

should be free to make their own decisions as long as they keep in mind the political implications of them. However, movements like this often cause feminism to remain stagnant or even move toward more oppression, and possible reason behind this movement is fear of politics and rejection.

Socialist feminism

Socialist feminism is a marriage between Marxism and radical feminism, with Marxism the dominant partner. Marxists and socialists often call themselves "radical," but they use the term to refer to a completely different "root" of society: the economic system.

Ex: This type of feminist theory is supported by Hirshmann. She argues that “It is when men exclusively make the money, and women are exclusively in charge of affective production, that power distortions occur within families and in relationships to feed and reinforce systematic gender oppression. Realigning those power imbalances is necessary to effect change that will establish freedom for women.”

Modern ex: Marxist feminists today are still looking at domestic labour as well as wage work, and fighting for equality and against capitalism that always put men on top and women inferior.

Prejudice and Institutionalized discrimination

Prejudice is unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group. An example of prejudice from the readings is Borderlands/La Frontera in which Angela Anzaldua describes the prejudice against her people of Mexican and native American decent, or Chicanos. They are treated very inferiorly, shaming them, and making them lose sense of who they are.

Institutionalized discrimination refers to the unfair, indirect treatment of an individual embedded in the operating procedures, policies, laws, or objectives of large organizations such as the governments and Corporations, financial institutions (banks, investment firms, money markets), public institutions (schools, police forces, healthcare centers), and other larger entities. An example of this is Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed for separate facilities for whites and colored under the doctrine of “separate but equal”. This is stating that as a race, blacks were somehow below their white counterparts.

relationship between:

race and gender

A form of intersectionality that interacts with each other on multiple and often simultaneous levels, contributing to systematic social inequality and discrimination. Race and gender do not act independent of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating strong oppression of an individual.

An example of this from the readings is black women as domestic labor workers mentioned in the book Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis. Race and gender intersected to produce a particular kind of segregation. After slavery was made unconstitutional and slaves everywhere were freed, they rejoiced but many realized they did not know where to go. Female former slaves often returned to work for households not by force of former white owners but by a need to survive. They demanded pay but for the most part, they never were. White people thought blacks were not only inferior to them but that they were dirty and promiscuous. Being “a promiscuous, inferior race” and female on top of it caused black women to be sexually violated and raped by the male household owners. Black men were also sexualized. Being a male and black back then also made you a target of lynching. 

Class and gender

Class relations are organized through gender relations. Depending on one’s occupation, either the male or the female can hold a higher position in society. Generally in this patriarchal society, however, females occupy a lower status due to social inequalities. Females are located in a lower level of the stratification system as males occupy a higher position. Females are usually reduced to a dependent position (e.g. housewife) or a subservient position (e.g. as a lesser wage earner). 

According to the book Women, Race and Class, in pre-industrial society, as women participated more in earning wages and providing for the household, they had more power because their labor or goods they produced were highly depended on. As technology and modes of production increased, they became more domesticated towards the home, a result of capitalist patriarchal exploitation. This means they became a form of free labor around the home out of loyalty, fear, obligation or simply having no choice.

A modern example, mentioned in Hirshmann’s essay Choice Feminism, of class and gender intersecting to make women inferior to men economically and socially is the burden resulting from dual income taxes, also known as the “marriage penalty”. The current tax code is a holdover from policies established in the 1930s and 1940s when the majority of married women were stay-at-home mothers. The code was altered to favor that arrangement, and taxed dual income couples more heavily than single-income couples. Given that the former also needs to buy services like childcare and housework, and probably faces higher food costs due to time constraints, the marginal utility of the wife’s additional income often made the family worse off economically. The clear message to her was: stay home and take care of your family. Even more ironic is the fact that the more equal the

spouses are in their earnings, the harsher the tax penalty.

Essentialism

Essentialism is defined as the practice of regarding something as a presumed human trait,

or as having innate existence or universal validity rather than as being a social, ideological, or intellectual construct. Also, essentialism is a philosophical term which holds that there are necessary properties of things and that these are logically prior to the existence of the individuals which instantiate them.

Example: Fausto Sterling’s Sexing the Body

The book talks about essentialism within the aspects of nature vs nurture, sex vs gender, and homosexual vs. heterosexual. Nature holds the essentialist argument for example that homosexuality is a human trait a person is born with and therefore inevitably grow up to be. Nurture is the opposite, arguing that homosexuality occurs through environmental conditions, social relations, and life experiences that nurture a person to that sexual preference. 

Transgender

Transgender was intended as an umbrella term. It originated to classify a group of people who occasionally cross-dressed to the opposite sex, and who didn't want to undergo surgery, but who wanted to change their gender. Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles. Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's "assigned sex". "Transgender" does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation. Some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. 

In “A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and Truth about Bodies”, transgender people and the issues they are faced with come to light in these four essays. They have it even tougher than gays and feminists because they refuse to hide their gender queerness in society like the gay movement does. 

“Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. Intersex anatomy doesn’t always show up at birth. Some people live and die with intersex anatomy without anyone (including themselves) ever knowing. Nature doesn’t decide where the category of “male” ends and the category of “intersex” begins, or where the category of “intersex” ends and the category of “female” begins. Humans decide. 

Ex: Maria Patiño was Spain’s best female hurdler. In 1985, at the Kobe World University Games, she had forgotten her Certificate of Femininity and was retested. The karotype analysis showed that she was a woman with Androgen-Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). She had no uterus or testes and her test result was revealed to the press. She was barred from competition, she lost her medals, the running times were erased, she lost her scholarship, here fiancé and was ejected from the national team.  

Modern ex: Today the ISNA (Intersex society of North America) works to build a world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for anyone born with what someone believes to be non-standard sexual anatomy.

Suffrage

Women’s suffrage was the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression was also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women, and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status. Woman suffrage in the U.S. was achieved gradually, at state and local levels, during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Ex: A great deal of history on this movement was expressed through the realistic fictional point of view of Elizabeth Cady Stanton whom was a strong leader of the women’s suffrage movement.  In the book, her character expresses the oppression she felt as a women that drove her to start the movement, the criticisms of her husband, the love for her closest friend Susan b Anthony, and the obstacles that came along the way. 

Abolition

Abolitionism was the movement to end slavery. Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. Britain abolished slavery throughout the British Empire with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The French colonies abolished it 15 years later and the United States abolished it in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Ex: Frederick Douglas, mentioned in both Women, Race, and Class and Sex Wars, played a crucial role in the fight for an end to slavery. After escaping from slavery himself, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his impressive oratory and insightful antislavery writing. He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.

Temperance Movement 

Temperance was an organized American movement that began in the mid-1800s to urge prohibition of the manufacture and consumption of all alcoholic beverages. By 1855 support for prohibition resulted in thirty-one states making alcohol illegal to some degree. By the 1870s, the temperance movement had strong ties to the growing women's movement, members of which believed alcohol to be directly responsible for much of the nation's moral decline, as well as related to issues of ill health, poverty, and the spread of crime.

Ex: Anthony Comstock for example seemed to be a supporter of the temperance movement because he was appalled by the moral decay he perceived around him, evidenced by the rampant drinking, gambling, solicitation of prostitution, and consumption of "dirty books" by his fellow boarders. He considered consumption of alcohol a sin. 

Equal Rights Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment was one of the defining struggles of the century. It was an attempt to ensure that the rights of the U.S. Constitution would be applied equally to females as well as males. It was first presented in 1923 in Congress but it failed to pass. The fundamental principle of the ERA is the law must focus on individuals and particular attributes and not on classification of sex. The ERA did not seek to give women newer rights, its purpose was to have women and men stand equal before the law and eliminate special treatment based on sex. Women who supported it at that time wanted to be identified as individuals, not a group. The Equal Rights Amendment, despite having achieved ratification in 35 of the 38 states needed, was narrowly defeated mainly because of opposition from religious groups, housewives, and evangelicals.

A strong reason behind its defeat was discussed in one of our lectures. A female conservative republican by the name of Phyllis Schlafly became the most outspoken opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment during the 1970s as the organizer of the "Stop the ERA". It was because it was led by a women herself that made the opposition so untouchable. Some of her arguments included that “the ERA would lead to women being drafted by the military and to public unisex bathrooms”.

CEDAW

The Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women was ratified in 1979 and went into effect in 1981. This UN initiative is often described as an international Bill of Rights for women. The convention defines what constitutes discrimination against women and outlines an agenda for action to end discrimination. The US did NOT ratify CEDAW, some countries that have include : UK, DRC, Cuba, France Zimbabwe.  One of the reasons given by opponents of Cedaw, which was discussed in lecture, is that the international community would supercede federal law in power and result in unwise laws and “frivolous” lawsuits. But in fact, the treaty would not authorize any lawsuit not already allowed under U.S. law because it is not self-executing. 

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