• Biological factors that determine whether you are male/female (genitalia, chomosomes)
• Sex is binary - Male or Female

• Gender is neither innate nor stable
• Gender is defined by society 

• Gender is expressed by individuals as they interact with others and media in their society

• What gender means and how we express it depend on a society's values/beliefs 

• There are no true definitions of gender: society decides what is masculine/feminine 

Gender as: Not only individual, but institutional

• Variable throughout the day
• Variable within the course of a life
• Varies widely in terms of culture
• Varies historically 

• Every factor of life plays into how we enact gender 
• EX: religion, social class, leisure involvement, race/ethnicity 

• A concept that acknowledges that we all come to internalize and participate in a system that damages us

• One's regular/consistent preference for romantic relationships with a particular sex

• When someone thinks they should be the other sex

• Someone taking active steps towards becoming the other sex

• Enjoys wearing the clothing of the other sex
• Cross-dressers/Drag-queens

• Promotes gender confusion
• Refusing to accept gender stability (as a binary)

• Associated with gender-free, gender-neutral, or genderless 
• Makes gender recede as major factor

• Theories that explain gender difference through biological features 

• XX or XY combinations
• Primary influence in the development of sex organs 

• Estrogen and testosterone explain physical manifestations
• Ex: facial hair, distribution of weight, musculature

• Men and women specialize in different parts of the brain
• Men = left
• Women = right

• Posit that gender is formed by your interpersonal relationship 

• Relationship w/mother creates fundamental orientation to idenity - differentiation or affiliation 
• Whether you are encouraged to identify with the mother (female) or encouraged to detatch from the mother (male) 

• Cycle of imitation and feedback creates behavior that feels "natural"
• We mimic what we see in the real world - we go for behaviors of which we get positive feedback 

• We recognize gender behaviors and actively take them on 
• EX: Boy Shaving next to dad
• Realize gender = permanent 

• Argue that culture explains gender differences 

• Cultures profoundly shape gender - there are different gender roles in different countries

• Claims that through communication w/others we learn who we are and how our culture views our identity 
• Culture is made/re-made in communication

• Claims that gender difference is produced from social location
• Also claims: The more marginalized people are, the more they have potential for insight to how power works 

• Gender difference is an illusion created by binaries of: sex, gender, and sexuality
• Want to confuse people to eliminate the idea that there is a binary

• Focuses on men/women being close to the same
• "We are all part of the same human kind, that sameness should make us equal"

• Claims men and women are SO different that we must recognize these differences 

• Mainly focused on voting rights for women
• Cady Stanton: "We hold these truths to be self evident: That all men and women are created equal..."

• Focused on women bing a moral/ethical home base for men 
• Thought women's moral virtue would reform the political world that had been ruined by men

• Advocates women's equality in all shperes of life 
• Men and women are alike in most respects and are entitiled to equal rights/opportunities 
• "The problem with no name" 

• A problem of boredom associated w/housewives surrounded by nice things 
• Massive media campaign selling women products/image that ideal womanhood is "prisonlike"
• Cure = Change - women's opinions of themselves, men's opinions on women, re-thinking housewife role

• Claim that the oppression of women is the fundamental form of oppression on which all others are modeled 

• Believe women are fundamentally different from men
• Build communities in which women live independently in mutual respect/harmony

• Focus: appreciating women's traditional activities/contributions and increasing society's appreciation of women and their contributions to society
• Claim: women's traditional involvement in homemaking and caregiving makes most women more nurturing, supportive, coopertative than most men

• Claim that only women who do not orient their lives around men can be truly free
• Embrace lesbianism as positive and liberated identity

• Emphasizes multiple systems of domination that affect the lives of women/men
• Gender does not have universal meaning
• Definitions of gender vary as a result of - race, economic class, sexual orientation, etc. 

• All women come from different social locations, and these social locations will determine thier standpoint on gender 

• Claims Friedan only talks about rich white women - their problem is a "luxury problem" 
• Argues black women are the bottom of the bottom - they have nobody to opress
• Black women bear the brunt of sexist, racist, and classist oppression

• *Hybridity = Moraga thinks we all live at complex intersections of different categories 
• We have the tendency to opress others/ourselves
• Everyone must start with own experience of opression - build alliances 
• Can be opressors/opressed at same time

• Opression of women paralells opression of nature
• The problem begins w/ notion of ownership as domination
• As long as oppression is culturally valued, it will be imposed on anyone/anything that cannot/does not resist

• Major problem w/ gender/power is that women internalize a view of themselves as victims 
• Discrimination will continue as long as women's mindset is the same
• Women should stand up for themselves and stop having an internalized view of oppression

• Recognizes differences among women (race class, sexual orientation, body type, ability)
• Focused on building alliances w/ men/other groups that work against oppression
• Engage in every-day "micro-resistance"
• Some embrace "girl culture" (sexy)
• Focus on individualism 
• Tend to be Media savvy

• Antisuffrage Movement - against women voting
• Others advocate women's return to traditional attituedes, values, roles 
• Total Women Movement - women should devote energies to making themselves sexually irresistable to men 

• Large organization - tries to address all male issues 
• Expand men's awaremess of ways in which their emotional development has been hindered by views of masulinity
• "Pro feminist, gay affermative, anti-racist, dedicated to enhancing men's lives"
• Fight against "unaccountable language"-ex: "A woman was raped" --> "A woman was raped by a MAN"

• Response to murder of 13 female engineering students - University of Montreal
• Support of antiviolence against women 
• Argue that all men are raised in the spectrum of violence - violence is overwhelmingly committed by men

• Men need to stand together against violence, then the majority of men would be less violent
• Teaches men that aggression/violence are closely linked to cultural views of masculinity
• Claim: all men are raised in the specter of violence - this comes from toys, sports, media

• Want to restore "head of household" but not as a "meal ticket"
• Claim: we have reduced men to the bread-winner role
• Note the stress of the provider role and health issues that go along with it 
• Idolize characters like John Wayne - embrace traditional macho image

• Goal: Stop legal discrimination against Dads 
• Challenge the assumption that women are the narual/primary parent 
• Also believe that men aren't given the chance to be the primary caretaker - generally reduced to the bread winner (free men)

• Claim: medieval masculinity is the greatest
• Think men lost masculinity when shifted to the corporate role 
• Want to get men back in touch with nature and do things that are more connected with medieval times - want men to connect with the mythical warrior
• "Braveheart Masculinity" - reclaim courage, aggression, and virtility as masculine birthrights

• A boy never sees his father until he returns from work, and when he gets home he needs rest and is inaccesable

• Believe in "God given" division of labor in household - focus on men being head of household 
• Want to become better, more involved fathers while still holding role as head of household 
• Men should lean on each other, not women, in their quest to be good men
• The warrior is at home - to serve the protecting, providing, loving role

• Focus: On social issues faving black men in the USA - being an involved citizen (voting)
• Also fighting drug/alcohol problems
• Men supporting men - need to band together to face particular issues in society 
• Millions More - now inclusive of all sexes, races, and sexualities... but still focuses on blacks

1. Says we have no historical evidence of how MANHOOD has changed over time 
2. Reclaim by looking at evolution of masculinity in USA over time
3. Wants to find out how pressures on men emanate from a social system 

• Whatever form of masculinity is dominating at the time 
• Tension: very few men can measure up to what they really want to be

• We learn from society and define ourselves based off of what we learn
• There is nothing about our sexuality, other than generic appetite, that is biological - we are not born with sexuality
• Homosexual/Heterosexual are a product of culture

1. We tell kids that sex is ONLY to procreate, but when they become adults we tell people to use birth control and wait until you have money/responsibility to have children
2. We cling to notion that children must be asexual, but children really are sexual
3. We use science to try to figure out what the source of a bizzare taste is only when it is with the wrong sex - nobody tried to find a heterosexual gene

• She proposes that we encourage children to express themselves sexually 

• We make sex a much bigger deal than it needs to be
• Sexual persecution = situations in which sexuality can only be expressed in a narrow window 
• We oppress people by not allowing more sexual expression

• We talk about sexuality as natrual - we don't act as if it is socially constructed
• This is a problem because it creates a standard for what is "natural" and doesn't allow sexual freedom

• Sex is one of life's pleasure areas that we express in negative terms
• Culture treats sex with suspicion - this makes sex less openly talked about

• We take sex all too seriously
• We act as if a sexual moment is a HUGE deal with disastrous consequences

• Certain sex acts are more acceptable than others - we have divided sexual activities into better or worse
• This gives sex acts a hierarchy - sexuality is it's own vector of oppression

• The idea that US society is always clinging to a boundary that it must hold - if we allow one thing, then the flood gates will open 
• Ex: gay marriage - if we allow it, we are worried what will happen next

• We have arranged some sexualities as good, bad, wrong, okay
• We have created a situation where variation in sexuality is always coded as scary/dangerous 

• Thinks sexual pluralism needs its own movement - it can't be applied to a specific gender
• Feminist movements make sex bad - start seeing sex as a dangerous arena for women

1. Many men have been committed/effective allies, while many women have made crude uninformed judgements about feminism 
2. Younger feminists don't have the same need for seperation
3. Male gender identity can be as painful, ambiguous, and confusing as female identity
4. Many men have integrated feminist values and have a strong commitment to feminism 
5. She doubts that women can overthrow patriarchy alone - need "gender traitors" 
6. Believes there are many men who don't want to be considered oppressors any more

• There is bad stuff and attractive stuff in gender that makes us invest in it
• We all consent to relations of power when they aren't great for us

• 1880's - crack down on "vices" - Prostitution and Masturbation
• 1950's - "Homosexual Menace" and "Sex Offender" 
• 1980's - Political sexual repression - Especially against homosexuality, porn, prostitution, s&m, and cross-generational sex

• Current views of masculinity are toxic for all of us, men and women alike
• Commitment to challenge and change how the culture defines/enacts masculinity