SOCB22H3 Lecture Notes - Margaret Wente, Margaret Mead, Plastic Surgery
Document Summary
Sex and gender differences are due to biology. Example: boys will be boys , or that women are naturally better at parenting and keeping the home. Socially constructed difference: based on social and culture values/meanings, social constructionist view. Gender differences due to social and cultural meanings that are mapped onto bodies. The way we understand physiological differences is also socially constructed. One is not born, but becomes a woman (the. Basically that you can only be a man or woman, not both. Gender puts people in a hierarchy, and overlaps with other categories. Woman seen as slaves to their bodies as a result from cycles, and pregnancies. Woman naturally linked to nature, which itself is hierarchical. Nature is something that is wild, and needs to be tamed. Not as intelligent, etc: mind/body, rationality/emotion, civilization/nature, public sphere/private sphere. Some societies were patriarchal, but in other societies it was matriarchal or there was no gender roles.
