The Prism of Gender Catherine G

1 THE PRISM OF GENDER CATHERINE G. VALENTINE distribute n the metaphorical kaleidoscope of this book, gender is the pivotal prism. It is central to the intricate patterning of social life and encompasses power relations, the division of labor, symbolic forms, and emotional relations I(Connell, 2000). The shape and texture of people’s lives are affected inor profound ways by the prism of gender as it operates in their social worlds. Indeed, our ways of thinking about and experiencing gender, and the related categories of sex and sexuality, originate in our society. As we noted in the introduction to this book, gender is very complex. In part, the complexity of the prism of gender in North American culture derives from the fact that it is characterized by a marked contradiction between people’s beliefs about gender and real behavior. Our real behavior is far more flexible, adaptable, and malleable than our beliefs would have it. To put it another way, contrary to the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, there are no gender certainties or absolutes. Real people behave in feminine, masculine, and nongendered ways as they respond to situational demands and contingencies (Glick & Fiske, 1999; Pfeffer, 2014; Tavris, 1992). post, To help us think more clearly about the complexity of gender, two questions are addressed in this chapter: (1) How does Western, i.e., Euro-American, culture condition us to think about gender, especially in relation to sex and sexuality? (2) How does social scientific research challenge Western beliefs about gender, sex, and sexuality? WESTERN BELIEFS ABOUT Gcopy,ENDER, SEX, AND SEXUALITY Most people in contemporary Western cultures, such as the United States, grow up learning that there are two and only two sexes, male and female; two and only two genders, feminine and masculine; and two and only two sexualities, heterosexual and homosexual (Bem, 1993; Budgeon, 2014; Lucal, 2008; Pfeffer, 2014; Wharton, 2005). We are taught that a real woman is female-bodied, feminine, and heterosexual; a real man is male-bodied, masculine, and heterosexual;not and any deviation or variation is strange, unnatural, and potentially dangerous. Most people also learn that femininity and masculinity flow from biological sex characteristics (e.g., hormones, secondary sex characteristics, external and internal genitalia). We are taught that testosterone, a beard, big muscles, and a penis make a man, while estrogen, breasts, hairless legs, and a vagina make a woman. Many of us never question what we haveDo learned about sex and gender, so we go through life assuming that gender is a relatively simple matter: A person who wears lipstick, high-heeled shoes, and a skirt is a feminine female, while a person who plays rugby, belches in public, and walks with a swagger is a masculine male (Lorber, 1994; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). The readings we have selected for this chapter reflect a growing body of social scientific research that chal- lenges and alters the Western view of sex, gender, and sexuality. Overall, the readings are critical of the American tendency to explain virtually every human behavior in individual and biological terms. Americans overemphasize 3 Copyright ©2020 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 4 • PART I: PRISMS biology and underestimate the power of social facts to • the assumption that the two-and-only-two system is explain sex, sexuality, and gender (Connell, n.d.; universal; and O’Brien, 1999). For instance, Americans tend to • the belief that nature, rather than nurture, causes the equate aggression with biological maleness and vul- “pink and blue syndrome.” nerability with femaleness; natural facility in physics with masculinity and natural facility in child care with femininity; lace and ribbons with girlness and rough- and-tumble play with boyness (Glick & Fiske, 1999; USING OUR SOCIOLOGICAL RADAR Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). These notions of natural sex, gender, and sexuality difference, opposition, and Before we look at how social scientists answer ques- inequality (i.e., a consistently higher valuation of mas- tions such as, “What is gender?” let’s do a little culinity than femininity) permeate our thinking, color research of our own. Try the following: Relax, turn on our labeling of people and things in our environment, your sociological radar, and examine yourself and the and affect our practical actions (Bem, 1993; Haines, people you know carefully. Do all the men you know Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016; Schilt & Westbrook, 2009; fit the ideal of masculinity all the time, in all relation- Wharton, 2005). ships, and in all situations? Do all the women in your We refer to the American two-and-only-two sex/ life consistently behave in stereotypical feminine fash- gender/sexuality system as the “pink and blue syn- ion? Do you always fit into one as opposed to the other drome” (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). This syndrome is culturally approved gender category? Or are most of deeply lodged in our minds and feelings and is rein- the people you know capabledistribute of “doing” both mascu- forced through everyday talk, performance, and expe- linity and femininity, depending on the interactional rience. It’s everywhere. Any place, object, discourse, context? If we allow ourselves to think and see outside or practice can be gendered. Children’s birthday cards the contemporary American cultural framework, we come in pink and blue. Authors of popular books will observe thator none of the people we know are assert that men and women are from different planets. aggressive all the time, nurturing all the time, sweet People love PMS and alpha-male jokes. In “The Pink and submissive all the time, or strong and silent all the Dragon Is Female” (see Chapter 5), Adie Nelson’s time. Thankfully, we are complex and creative. We research reveals that even children’s fantasy costumes stretch and grow and develop as we meet the chal- are predictably gendered as masculine or feminine. lenges, constraints, and opportunities of different and The “pink and blue syndrome” is so embedded within new situations and life circumstances. Men can do our culture and, consequently, within individual patpost,- mothering; women can “take care of business.” Real terns of thinking and feeling that most of us cannot people are not stereotypes. remember when we learned gender stereotypes and Yet even in the face of real gender fluidity, varia- expectations or came to think about sex, gender, and tion, and complexity, the belief in sex/gender/sexuality sexuality as natural, immutable, and fixed. It all seems dichotomy, opposition, and inequality continues to so simple and natural. But is it? dominate almost every aspect of the social worlds we What is gender? What is sex? What is sexuality? inhabit. For example, recent research shows that even How are gender, sex, and sexualitycopy, related? Why do though men’s and women’s roles have changed and most people in our society believe in the “pink and blended, the tendency of Americans to categorize and blue syndrome”? Why do so many of us attribute one stereotype people based on the simple male/female set of talents, temperaments, skills, and behaviors to dichotomy persists (Glick & Fiske, 1999; Haines, women and another, opposing set to men? These are Deaux, & Lofaro, 2016; Miller, Eagly, & Linn, 2014; the kinds of questionsnot social scientists have been ask- Shields, Garner, Di Leone, & Hadley, 2006; Snyder, ing and researching for well over 50 years. Thanks to 2014). As Peter Glick and Susan Tufts Fiske (1999) the good work of an array of scientists, we now under- put it, “We typically categorize people by sex stand that gender, sex, and sexuality are not so simple. effortlessly, even nonconsciously, with diverse and Social scientists have discovered that the gender land- profound effects on social interactions” (p. 368). scapeDo is complicated, shifting, and contradictory. To reiterate, many Americans perceive humankind as Among the beliefs called into question by research are divided into mutually exclusive, nonoverlapping groups: males/masculine/men and females/feminine/ • the notion that there are two and only two sexes, two women (Bem, 1993; Lucal, 2008; Wharton, 2005). and only two genders, and two and only two sexualities; This perception is shored up by the belief that Copyright ©2020 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 1: The Prism of Gender • 5 heterosexuality or sexual attraction between the two, In addition, the complex nature of sex/gender/sexu- and only two, sexes/genders is natural. Heteronorma- ality is underscored by scholarship on multiple tivity (see Chapter 6 for detailed discussion) is now the masculinities and femininities, as discussed in the term commonly used by sociologists to refer to introduction to this book. There is no single pattern of the “ cultural, legal, and institutional practices” that masculinity or femininity. Masculinities and feminini- maintain a binary and unequal system (Schilt & ties are constantly in flux (Coles, 2009). Recall that Westbrook, 2009, p. 441). The culturally created Raewyn Connell (2000), in her analysis of masculini- model of gender, as well as sex and sexuality, then, is ties, argued that hegemonic masculinity produces nonkaleidoscopic: no spontaneity, no ambiguity, no complicit, marginalized, and subordinated masculini- complexity, no diversity, no surprises, no elasticity, ties. Similarly, there is no femininity, singular. Instead, and no unfolding growth. the ideal and practice of femininity vary by class, race, sexuality, historical period, nation, and other social factors. In her reading in this chapter, Connell extends analysis of masculinities by critiquing Eurocentric SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDINGS OF SEX, assumptions about gender relations with a focus on the GENDER, AND SEXUALITY relation between hegemony and masculinity through eras of decolonization, postcolonial development, and Modern social science offers a rich and complex neoliberal globalization.

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