SA 335 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, Social Construction Of Gender

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SA 335
• Professor: Amie Mc Lean

Document Summary

What is gender: gender is a social construction that one identifies with and is not determined by birth. Gender is fluid and can be affected by external and internal influences: gender is often assigned to you, opposed upon us vs. self- perceived, power of social norms and institutions to form ideas of gender. What does it mean to have an intersectional approach to gender: gender cannot exist solely on its own. Intersectionality exists with class, status, race, age, religion and sexuality that weave together to impact issues of gender. What is the relationship to gender and the body: association of a common, distinctive biological body image is misconceived as defining and understanding gender. Gender is more than a biological construction, it"s more complicated than that: expression of gender occurs through the body. Sterling (geneticist) argued that there may be as many as 5 physically distinct sexes.