MARKET 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Heterosexuality, Grater, Signify
Gender Relations and Society
Key terms: Gender, Sex and Sexuality
Defining gender
Bradley (1996) definition: “the varied and complex arrangements between men and women,
encompassing the organization of labor and cultural definitions of femininity and masculinity.”
- Gender embedded in key societal concepts which impact fundamental elements of lives and
experiences
Gender is more than a fixed category or label for individuals but is a social phenomenon which
possesses no meaning until considered alongside broader relations
Our identifications as a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ determines aspects of all human activity, in doing so
producing highly gendered lives and experiences
- experiences vary in relation to historical developments – illustrated through the changing aims
of feminism through the centuries e.g. first wave feminism aimed to reform women’s social legal
and social position vs. new femininities focus on individualism, choice, and empowerment as
well as emphasizing consumerism and the commodification of difference
Defining Sexualities
Sullivan (2003)
- Sexuality is constructed, experienced, and understood culturally and historically specific ways =
no true account of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality etc. (post structuralist theorists)
- Term homosexuality and by extension heterosexuality relatively new – former term coined in
1869 by Swiss doctor Karoly Maria Benkert but only a century later the term grew in popularity
according to John Marshall.
Same-sex relations vary in acceptance e.g.
- Britain and Northern Europe 1880s = sin against nature (oral sex and contraception)
- Prior to late 1880s the penalty for “the abominable vice of buggery” was deaths
- However, laws against acts and not certain categories of people (homosexuals)
-
Most historic account of men accused or convicted of sodomy – few rare cases of women e.g. Katherina
Hetzeldorfer 1477.
- German woman drowned for having a long-term sexual relationship with her female housemate
- Acted like her husband, made sexually aggressive advances towards other women, sometimes
dressed in men’s clothing, have made, worn and used a dildo
- Trial notes; Hetzeldorfer’s crime no name in proceedings. Instead, implied hanged for ‘acting like
a man’ and thus transgressing gender norms rather than being called what is now known as a
lesbian
Dominant discourses in sexology
- Biological or reproductive model of sexuality
- Heterosexuality as biologically based and natural
- Men=active, with strong sex drive
- Women=passive, weaker sex drive
Gender Relations and Society
- Orgasms: 18th century unnecessary for women, 19th century interventions to control
women, late 19th century reassertion of pleasure for women
The Coital Imperative
- Heterosexual coitus (penile-vaginal intercourse) is privileged as the most natural form of sexual
activity (associated with the biological imperative)
- In a heterosexual context, all other types of sexual expression are constructed and understood
as preliminaries – as foreplay - or optional extras to the 'real thing'.
- Language - Terms such as 'intercourse' and 'having sex' have become synonymous with
heterosexual coitus in western culture, when they could, in fact, signify any kind of sexual
behaviour
-
Sexuality Studies (Alfred Kinskey)
- Large scale study (n=12000)
- Initially saw sexuality as a natural instinct
- ‘Kinsey scale’ put homosexuality and heterosexuality
on a continuum
- What is seen as abnormal in human sexuality is
actually quite common and therefore cannot, in
scientific terms, reasonably be seen as deviant (37%
of men)
- Later work critical of the innateness of gender
differences in sexuality
- Sexual behaviour and sexual convention are treated
as malleable, as the products of culture and history
and circumstance
- At root natural – BUT not simply the outcomes of
biology
Social Constructivist Sexuality: Simon & Gagnon
- Challenged essentialist biological and psychological understandings of sexual experience
- Argued that the social produces sexuality (rather than modifying innate drives)
- Sexual life is subject to ‘socio-cultural’ moulding
- Developed notion of ‘sexual scripts’*
- Standard script for sex:
- Assumed heterosexual
- Traditionally ‘real’ sex often defined as happening between and active
male and a passive female, involving penetration, and as ending in male
orgasm
- Active versus passive also linked to more general gender scripts
- Critique of sexual Scripts
X Theory fails to explain where sexual scripts come from
X Deterministic - assumes individuals are simply responding to a world out there
X BUT - Simon and Gagnon did suggest that sexual scripts are not fixed
X There is potential to experiment even if it risks punishment
X And sexual scripts – being socially constructed – can also change and evolve
* Sexual Scripts
- Social meanings and
conventions that individuals
learn within social settings and
in interaction with others.
- Vary across cultures and time
- Theory links social processes to
individual experiences
- We only begin to construct
sexual selves once we have
access to sexual scripts – this is
an ongoing reflexive process
- Shared cultural knowledge
- Crucial in defining what counts
as ‘sex’
Document Summary
Bradley (1996) definition: the varied and complex arrangements between men and women, encompassing the organization of labor and cultural definitions of femininity and masculinity. Gender embedded in key societal concepts which impact fundamental elements of lives and experiences. Gender is more than a fixed category or label for individuals but is a social phenomenon which possesses no meaning until considered alongside broader relations. Our identifications as a man" or woman" determines aspects of all human activity, in doing so producing highly gendered lives and experiences. Sexuality is constructed, experienced, and understood culturally and historically specific ways = no true account of heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality etc. (post structuralist theorists) Term homosexuality and by extension heterosexuality relatively new former term coined in. 1869 by swiss doctor karoly maria benkert but only a century later the term grew in popularity according to john marshall.
