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Cultural Factor: Desired Behaviors-Culture and Issues of Sex and Gender (Gardiner, 1998)

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Cultural Factor: Desired Behaviors-Culture and Issues of Sex and Gender (Gardiner, 1998)

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Gendered behaviour is a social requirement that “provides us with the most basic social clues on how a person is likely to behave towards us and how we are expected to behave towards them” (Gardiner, 1998, p. 153).
The cultural norms will decide appropriate gender behaviours once children are assigned male or female at birth. The culture intends to ensure individuals' behaviours meet cultural expectations.
Children also learned the desired behaviours by observing same-sex adults in social and cultural contexts.
The culturally acceptable behaviours also lead to gender stereotypes, and children could establish and apply these stereotypes to themselves from eight to nine years old (Williams & Best, 1990, as cited in Gardiner, 1998). The process of children learning gender behaviours in social and cultural contexts is called gender socialization.

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“Put simply, on one hand, is the right of every athlete to compete in sport, to have their legal sex and gender identity respected, and to be free from any form of discrimination.

On the other hand, is the right of female athletes, who are relevantly biologically disadvantaged vis-à-vis male athletes, to be able to compete against other female athletes and to achieve the benefits of athletic success” (Resser, 2005).

How do social/cultural constructions of femininity and masculinity affect athletes with DSD (Differences in Sex Development or intersex)?

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Judith Butler: Imitation and Gender Insubordination (1993).

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Judith Butler: Imitation and Gender Insubordination (1993).

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Butler (1993) conceptualizes gender as performative in nature and challenges identity categories, arguing they are socially constructed assumptions of identity imposed by heteronormative viewpoints. In doing so, Butler (1993) suggests that there is no proper or ‘original’ gender, but rather gender composed of reoccurring imitation behaviours that derive from the inner self.

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Social Factor: Context Impacts-Gender Similarities Hypothesis (Hyde, 2005) 

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Social Factor: Context Impacts-Gender Similarities Hypothesis (Hyde, 2005) 

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Gender-Similarities hypothesis posits that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables and these differences are relatively insignificant and fluctuate over the lifespan when compared to within-gender differences (Hyde, 2005).

Additionally, social context can modify, remove, and reverse the gender difference in individuals' behaviors (Hyde, 2005). The differences can be diminished when individuals are in an environment that doesn't emphasize gendered social roles. "The magnitude and even the direction of gender differences depend on the context" (Hyde, 2005, p. 589).

This calls into question the role of stereotyped and socially rewarded behaviours. To what degree are observable gender differences inherent or socially constructed?

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Insubordination - The act of refusal (Oxford Dictionary).

Heteronormativity - "A system of behaviors and social expectations that are built around the belief that everyone is or should be heterosexual and that all relationships and families follow this model (Warner, 1991).” (Meyer, 2010, p. 143)

Mimesis - Imitative behaviour in humans, which reproduces (consciously or not) the characteristics of another person or group. (Oxford Dictionary)

Identity categories - Groups or subgroups in which individuals might resonate with their most innate sense of self.

Drag performance - Gender is viewed as a performance (Butler, 1993).

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Historically, medical officials have struggled to adopt a binary that can neatly categorize athletes on the basis of sex (nudity parades, chromosomal testing and testosterone levels). Many athletes have differentiated bodies that allow them to excel in their sport, however, the sex of the athlete maintains its controversy. Caster Semenya is one of many female athletes who have higher than average testosterone levels. The controversy lies in how we perceive gender and sex, what exactly makes a person male or female. The fact that this is continuously debated highlights that the binary is much too restrictive to encompass all of humanity.

It is interesting to note that female sport seems to be under constant scrutiny whereas male athletes whose bodies have advantageous elements (Micheal Phelps) are celebrated.

Additionally, athletes may be tested if they are "suspected" to have DSD by the IAAF. What does this mean for athletes from the global south?

Thinking from an intersectional framework how does this debate comment on maleness versus femaleness?

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Considering Hyde's (2005) Gender Similarities Hypothesis that there are more differences within a gender than between the genders how can we maintain a strict biological binary rather than a spectrum?
What social forces enact and are protective of this binary? What purpose does this serve?

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Alok discusses the intersex justice movement

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Alok discusses the intersex justice movement

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Biological Perspective - The problem with binary sex categories (Greenberg, 2006)

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Biological Perspective - The problem with binary sex categories (Greenberg, 2006)

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An individual’s sex can be determined by many factors, including physical structures and the environment. The table above reflects factors that medically and legally determine sex assignment, and can also become components of nonbinary or intersex persons.

However, at birth, if a child is deemed to have inadequate or ambiguous genitalia the sexual organs will often be surgically altered. Adequacy is defined as the penis's ability to penetrate a vagina and female adequacy is defined as the ability to procreate "Sex, therefore, can also be considered a social construct rather than a biological fact" (Greenberg, 2006).

For those people who may be classified as intersex, what medical, legal and social ramifications might occur due to the restrictive binary system?

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Biological Perspective - The egg and the sperm (Martin, 1991) 

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Biological Perspective - The egg and the sperm (Martin, 1991) 

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The role of culture has a profound effect on the scientific language used to describe biological processes in "objective" information-based texts. Sperm are described to be active, powerful, efficient while the egg is described to be passive, patient and docile or as a dangerous femme fatale (Martin, 1991)..

"Waking up such metaphors, by becoming aware of their implications, will rob them of their power to naturalize our social conventions about gender" (Martin, 1991, p. 501).

The union of the egg and the sperm is characterized by stereotypical roles often seen in courtship behaviour where the woman is dominated by the man and her role as nurturer of children is of paramount importance.

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Biological Perspective - Sexing baby (Fausto-Sterling, 2012)

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Biological Perspective - Sexing baby (Fausto-Sterling, 2012)

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The sex differences in infants are mainly affected by their neutral development, caregiver-infant interaction, and parenting methods.
There are some sex differences for infants in the early development stage, such as slightly higher activity levels in boys and higher language production in girls but these differences are small and temporary (Fausto-Sterling, 2012). However, these differences can lead parents to interact in various ways with their children but "whether such sex-stereotyping results in differences in actual behaviour is unclear" (Fausto-Sterling, 2012, p. 1689).
Each child has unique genetic differences and different developmental environments, so there are many differences between individuals.

Although there are some gender differences, we should focus on individual differences rather than group differences.

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Social factor: Gender-inclusive language -Gender defined and undefined (Marinucci, 2010) 

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Social factor: Gender-inclusive language -Gender defined and undefined (Marinucci, 2010) 

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"The distinction between sex and gender does not in itself determine which of the characteristics commonly associated with women belong to the female sex and which belong instead to the feminine gender" (Marinucci, 2010, p. 69).

Gender-neutral language: Refers interchangeably to all members of sex and gender categories, thereby suggesting that men, women and everyone else are semantically equivalent (Marinucci, 2010). This has been successful in the employment sphere, replacing fireman/firewoman with firefighter and policeman/woman with police officer.

Gender-inclusive language: specifies all categories intended for recognition but inevitably excludes those not mentioned. For example, using "men and women" excludes trans and intersex people (Marinucci, 2010).
The hegemonic binary also applies to sex, gender and sexuality as they are divided into two distinct sets; men and women, with systems in place the maintain the dominance of one group over another (Marinucci, 2010).

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Evolutionary Theory - Attraction (Gardiner, 1998)

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Evolutionary Theory - Attraction (Gardiner, 1998)

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What contributes to the survival of offspring?

Healthy genes -> mate selection

Ideal Man: strength, wealth, power, status.

Ideal Woman: youth, health, smooth skin, healthy teeth, long hair, wide hips.

Is this still relevant in today's society? Why or why not?

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Phenotype - an individual's observable traits, such as height, eye color, and blood type.
Genotype - the genetic constitution of an individual organism.
Gonadectomy - the surgical removal of either the testes or the ovaries, which results in a loss of gonadal production of sex steroids.

Chromosomal ambiguity - Certain individuals have chromosomes that differ from the typical pattern of either XY or XX.

Gonadal ambiguity -  Some intersex persons do not have typical ovaries or testes. (Greenberg, 2006, p. 56)

External morphologic sex - Some individuals’ external genitalia are neither clearly male nor clearly female.

Internal morphologic - Some individuals have incomplete or absent internal sex organs.

Deindividuation-  a state in which the person has lost his or her individual identity; that is, the person has become anonymous. Under such conditions, people should feel no obligation to conform to social norms such as gender roles.
Assigned sex/gender of rearing - Some parents have raised their child as a gender other than the sex assigned by the medical attendant at birth.

Self-identified sex - How individuals identify themselves. Some individuals do not consider themselves to be either male or female; they identify themselves as a third sex. (Greenberg, 2006, p. 57)

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Evolutionary Theory - The Drive To Reproduce (Gardiner, 1998) 

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Evolutionary Theory - The Drive To Reproduce (Gardiner, 1998) 

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Women produce a limited number of offspring must put their energy into creating an environment that will foster optimal survival and development of their offspring, including food, water, shelter, and protection. To achieve this, women must engage in activities that are focused on the family’s welfare, such as food preparation, and home maintenance. Likewise, women benefit from creating a tight-knit social network for protection and engaging in community collaboration to complete larger projects and tasks. Women must also let potential mates know they are interested and ready to have children. (Gardiner, 1998).
Men can produce very high amounts of offspring, depending on the availability of women. Evolutionary perspective posits that men aim to produce as many children as they can, ensuring the greatest chance that their offspring will survive. However, they are in competition with other men to find a woman, causing physical strength and aggression to key in their efforts to reproduce (Gardiner, 1998).
This contributes to gender stereotypes that are prevalent across some cultures.
Why do we still have gender stereotypes? What purpose do they serve?

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The sperm and the egg, a modern-day fairytale (Martin, 1991)

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The sperm and the egg, a modern-day fairytale (Martin, 1991)

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"The degree of metaphorical content in scientific descriptions, the extent to which differences between egg and sperm are emphasized, and the parallels between cultural stereotypes of male and female behaviour and the character of egg and sperm all point to this conclusion" (Martin, 1991).

The importation of cultural stereotypes onto a minuscule cell serves to justify the social order of the dominant culture and underscore that these stereotypes are inherently biological and therefore irreversible.

Have you noticed examples of this type of stereotypical language used in school texts? Now that you are aware, how do you view these texts as an authority of information?

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The feminine ideal is defined by men to benefit men. Women gain recognition of powerful men for adhering to this feminine ideal and are rewarded by access to the man’s status, resources, and power, where ALL who refuse to conform will be denied access to these resources, upholding the system. Young men are rewarded for upholding behaviour that later enables them to achieve positions of power in society. (Gardiner, 1998)

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Psychological makeup may predispose women and men towards different behaviours.
Environmental expectations and restrictions govern how these behaviours are expressed based on culture. (Gardiner, 1998)