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A Dictionary of Sociolinguistic and Ethnolinguistic Terms

Olikova M.O., Semenyuk A.A., Tarnavska O.M.

Lutsk, 2010

Gender

Gender is a sociolinguistic construct while sex is a biological phenomenon. The terms male and female describe a person’s biological sex. Feminine and masculine are socially constructed genders. Once this distinction between biological and social―between sex and gender―is clear, we can refer to maleness and femaleness as ascribed traits, and to femininity and masculinity as achieved characteristics that are highly variable from one culture to another and in any society over time.

However, gender is more than a set of behavioral norms. People do not have “gender roles” any more than they have “race roles” (Lopata and Thorne 1978). We behave and think and have certain life chances because our language and social structures divide us, on the basis of sex, into distinct categories whose members are assumed to share particular abilities and personality traits. In other words, gender is a structural feature of society, in the same way as is social class.

As with other power relationships, gender is continually redefined and negotiated; men and women can and do rebel and resist (Gerson and Peiss, 1985). Precisely because gender is socially constructed, it can never be taken for granted, which is the reason why gender socialization is so intense and why gender deviance is so harshly sanctioned. (Think of what it meant to be called sissy or fag as a boy, or dog or dyke as a girl.) We become gendered persons living in a gendered world, thinking gendered thoughts. Depending on the culture, these gendered roles can overlap or be so different that women and men have difficulty understanding one another’s experiences.

If gender inequality is not the natural outcome of significant and innate sex differences, it becomes necessary for those who benefit from the system to discover or invent “natural” reasons for its persistence. Thus, the many theories of natural superiority and inferiority must be seen as rationalizations (justifications) rather than explanations for gender stratification systems (Deaux and Kite 1987, Sayers 1987).

Gender Stratification System

In all societies, the gender-stratification system tends to favor males, although this is a matter of degree. At one extreme are societies in which women’s power is minimal and confined to the household, as in many Muslim countries today. At the other end of the continuum are relatively egalitarian social systems in which power differences are narrowed and women have important roles in nonfamily institutional spheres, as in many modern industrial societies; but there is no strong evidence of any society in which women as a category have had greater social power than men.

Another cultural universal is that females are entrusted with childcare and other tasks centered on the household. As long as high birth rates are required for group survival, it is important for males to be socialized to risk taking, and females to nurturing. This original division of labour based on the only crucial biological distinction between women and men―the fact that only women bear children―may be a necessary cause of gender stratification, but it is not in itself sufficient to lead to inequality in power, prestige, and property.

The main competing theories of gender differences that have been used to justify inequality in gender stratification system are rooted in biological, functional or conflict perspectives.

Most of the biological arguments that were once put forward to explain gender stratification were criticized for being profoundly biased by patriarchal assumptions. As soon as one claim is disproven, another theory emerges to demonstrate the natural superiority of maleness, from Aristotle’s belief that men’s brains were simply larger than those of women and Darwin’s contention that women were lower on the evolutionary ladder than were men, to the idea that male dominance is related to some aspects of right/left brain differences (Reinharz 1986, Comini 1987).

The data on gender differences are not very convincing or consistent. Take, for example, the claim that greater body strength and aggressiveness due to male hormones accounts for male superiority. Gender stratification is not greater in societies with larger average size differences between men or women, or lesser in societies with minimal sex differences in height and weight.

Any system of inequality may be justified if it can be shown that those at the top of the hierarchy possess talents and skills that make their success not only possible but necessary to group survival. Those at the lower ranks of the hierarchy are presumed to be without the traits required for leadership. In this perspective, gender inequality is functional for the group because it rewards men for toughness and individualism, which, in the worlds of government and business, are considered superior to caring and connectedness. Conversely, women gain approval for motherhood, homemaking, and caring for husbands.

Because this clear division of labour is thought to reflect innate sex differences, both men and women can achieve personal satisfaction when they follow nature’s ground plan. In addition, when they must support a dependent wife and children, men are motivated to remain employed and to work hard (Gilder, 1973). According to this view, if women were to compete with men in the world outside the home, it might undermine his identity and commitment to work. When each sex has a separate sphere, jealousy is eliminated.

From the conflict perspective, gender stratification has the same basis as any other form of inequality: a differential in terms of access to the means of production (tools, land, knowledge) and to its products (goods and services).

In general, women’s social and personal freedom is related to their economic contribution to the well-being of the group and their ability to inherit property.

In addition to economic power, beliefs about what is feminine and masculine influence division of labour and relationships between the sexes. For example, gathering bands with a plentiful food supply tend to have creation myths that emphasize harmony with nature and one another, thus reducing the ideological basis for power differences. In contrast, where the food supply is uncertain and where there is a threat of outside competition, myths emphasize the struggle against nature and one another, in which case control over women is a symbolic means of controlling nature (Sanday 1981).

Unlike the functionalists, conflict theorists are less concerned with the origins of stratification systems than with the ways in which structures of inequality are maintained over time.