SA 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: American Dialect Society, Bodymind, Binary Classification
8 Jun 2018
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Department
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Professor
Chapter 9: Gender
Sex and Gender
Sex: biological designation
Gender: state of mind and embodied attitude
Gender is often used to discipline our thoughts and bodily affects
It is a site of power, pleasure, and subtle coercion
Cisgender: denoting to or relating to a person whose self-identity conforms with the
gender that correspond in their biological sex.
Transgender: An umbrella term, includes
Self-identity that doesn’t correspond with biological sex
People who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (i.e. genderqueer,
bigender, pan gender, gender fluid)
People who have no gender/ reject their gender
•There’s no necessity dictating that the body/mind sexed female at birth will present
itself to the world as a feminine in adulthood. Not necessary sexuality to either sex or
gender
i.e. Janet Mock— writer and transactivist
Sexuality
•Feelings of sexual desire and attraction
•Can be fluid and change over time
•Not determine by gender or biology
Queer Theory
•Rejects the idea that male and female genders are natural binary opposites
•Rejects the idea that gender identity is connected to biology
Sex and Gender
-Gender is fluid
-Conceptions of gender are influenced by culture, politics, and history
-Neither sex nor gender determines sexuality
Judith Butler, American Philosopher
•Book: Gender Trouble
Published in 1990
Selling over 100,000 copies
• “Gender is performative”— people who do not conform to expected gendered norms often
face consequences
Micro-aggressions
•Butler wants to challenges what has been the unthinkable
•She asks: “Is the breakdown of gender binaries…so monstrous, so frightening, that it must be
held to be definitionally impossible and precluded from any effort to think gender?”
•Butler continues: “Gender intersects with racial class, ethnic, sexual, and regional practices”
•“It becomes impossible to separate from gender from political and cultural intersections”
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Document Summary
Gender is often used to discipline our thoughts and bodily affects. It is a site of power, pleasure, and subtle coercion. Cisgender: denoting to or relating to a person whose self-identity conforms with the gender that correspond in their biological sex. People who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (i. e. genderqueer, bigender, pan gender, gender fluid) People who have no gender/ reject their gender: there"s no necessity dictating that the body/mind sexed female at birth will present itself to the world as a feminine in adulthood. Not necessary sexuality to either sex or gender i. e. janet mock writer and transactivist. Sexuality: feelings of sexual desire and attraction, can be fluid and change over time, not determine by gender or biology. Queer theory: rejects the idea that male and female genders are natural binary opposites, rejects the idea that gender identity is connected to biology. Conceptions of gender are influenced by culture, politics, and history.
