Gender Relations

You should read the post just before this one as a precursor to this posting.[ here ]

I thought I would “take the study” that I talked about in my last blog post.

APPENDIX A: SENTENCE COMPLETION ITEMS

(answers in bold)

1. The sex of the boy is ________. male masculine

2. The girl’s gender is ________. female feminine

3. “Feminine is an adjective that best describes a person’s ________. sex gender

4. The ________ of the cat is male. sex gender

5. The woman decided to change her _______ with surgery. sex gender

6. The man decided to wear makeup, an evening gown, and high heels to the dinner. In doing so, he was able to convince people that he was a woman and in effect changed his _______. sex gender

7. ________ differences in the blood pressure readings of heart disease patients. sex gender

8. Youth and aggression: A study of _______ differences. sex gender

9. The first few days after she gave birth, relatives and friends wanted to know the _______ of the baby. sex gender

10. ________ is biologically determined. sex gender

11. The boy’s gender is ________. male masculine

12. The sex of the girl is _______. female feminine

13. “Masculine” is an adjective that best describes a person’s ________. sex gender

APPENDIX B: GENDER BELIEF ITEMS

1. The word “gender” can be used as a synonym for the word “sex.”

No, This cannot be true because gender is a term used for the social construction of how men and women should act. There needs to be a seperate term than sex that implies the social norms and rules of the sexes, which subsequently becomes “gender”. Because someone is born with a penis or vagina does not dictate (inherently) that they will wear certain clothing, play with certain toys, act in a certain way, treat others a certain way, or any of topic that can be explained through “gender”.

2. It is always correct to use the word gender when describing a person as male or female.

Well, male or female (to me) dictates biology – the pronouns used for having a certain type of genitalia, whereas the terms masculine and feminine describe the connoted actions of males and females (sex) to a social standard (gender).

3. Each person has a sex and a gender.

Sex – Yes
Gender – let’s get into tricky territory here. Although I don’t agree that anyone has to IDENTIFY as a given gender, I do believe that one cannot escape gender since it is the construction of social behavior. Regardless of whether I choose to do something in a purposeful manor or not, those actions are determinately gendered. Although there are many facets in life that can remain gender neutral, so much of our world is already gendered, and the choices we make reflect a “choice” that we have taken to fall somewhere on a gender spectrum. Now, just like with sexuality, there is a fluid gauge on a number line where you can be (gay / straight) masculine or feminine (and there are many gender lines – how you act at work, school, home, etc. could all portray different gender points). Using this argument and metaphor though, I could say that someone could choose to live without a gender because if pomosexuality (not identifying a sexual orientation) exists, the same could for gender. In this arrangement, though, just because one does not choose to identify does not mean that they do not have a sexuality or a gender. There is always gravitation. Because we live in a culture with so much information, how we act in accordance fills up the capacities of our gender tanks. Personally, I am always trying to stay away from stereotyping and worrying about doing something because it is “gendered”, which could be called gender bending, but because those predetermined lines are there, and gender is involved in EVERYTHING in our society, I would find it hard to say that a person doesn’t have a gender (as most of the time gender is given TO US).

4. A person’s sex does not necessarily match stereotypical gender assignment.

True. I think between the last blog, and the study, it is apparent that because someone has a certain biology it does not dictate their social actions and reactions.

5. There is something wrong or unhealthy with a male who does not possess a masculine gender.

False. Those are social weights put on men to act a certain way, that is often times very scary to deal with since it is a dominating and often oppressive radical view. The system of masculinity and femininity are truly only useful to determine suitability for someone to find a mate. Past gender as a “useful” tool for seeking out a mate, it serves little purpose other than social control. I have had a lot of debates about the “USE” of gender, and the only valid point I can accept is that it allows people to visibly know a potential mate, but there are problems with this too : the judgment of first impressions, the assumption that people do not gender bend, the superficiality of dating based solely on your containment of the visual aspects of others, etc. It’s obvious that if I see someone who looks like a “feminine” human, I will be able to note that they are a candidate for myself, but then this assumes that the only reason we interact, look, or seek out people is to mate with them, or within masculinity – to find “bros”. This is all very assumptuous, but I find little use in the concept of gender (which is ironic that I am so interested in it), and if others think it is unhealthy to not adhere to strong tendencies of masculinity (or femininity) , then I feel really bad that they feel that gender is that important to care about.

That was fun, feel free to post a comment with your version of the survey!

I was at work the other day, and I was fixing up a form that our office uses. When looking it all over, I came across two key points that separate two points of interest about our language about gender.

The first point comes directly from the fact the form said “gender”, and having taken classes and done a lot of research, I said to myself, “do they really want to know how you identify, behave, think, and express yourself, or do they want to know what organs you have”. In this moment, there was some self-sarcasm, in that, any type of office doesn’t really care about your expression. So, I changed “gender” to “sex” after having a conversation with a co-worker about it, which led to my second point.

Everything on this form was a check for something else. Their birthday verified who they were, their student number verified their accounts, and all of the other information on this form was essential to the process of our office, minus gender. My co-worker said “well, why do we even need it?”. Great point. When I brought it up to my supervisor, the only legible answer that could be brainstormed is that it could be embarrassing to say “he” when it is a “she”. I rebutted that you could use the pronoun “them” or “they”. I felt good enough that I got the form changed to sex because the reality is that if they had “gender”, a number line (1-10) would better suit the term.

At first, I wasn’t sure which term should be used because subconsciously I guess I was thinking “why is it even there”. If it is a pronoun indicator, is that really grounds for inclusion, when sex and gender expression can be such complex identities. What they really want to know is ANATOMY (maybe I should make an argument for that), but even then, we assume that those born with male genitalia wish to be called “he”. Anyways, I was doing research about whether or not “sex” or “gender” should go on legal paperwork. I couldn’t come across anything definitive. I did, however, come across this study [visit]. The study circumvented how people view the definitions of sex and gender.

To people who study it, gender indicates something about socialized behavior patterns. So when we read about gender differences, we may assume that the authors are focusing on social behaviors and psychological aspects of their participants. But when people are grouped into gender categories based on their sex, the study is just as likely to be about sex differences–perhaps more likely. It is not that the researchers are deciding to measure biological aspects of behavior. Yet, when the measurement of gender is equated with sex, the sex of the participant is all that is known. Still, it is often called gender. “Gender” sounds better to people. Using “gender” allows researchers to believe that they have realized that not all differences between males and females are determined by biology. But the measurement of gender by way of sex doesn’t acknowledge the multitude of individual responses to being born a particular sex. In this situation, there is no thorough assessment of gender.

I find this paragraph to be very telling. There seems to be a fallacy inherent in using gender because it sounds better to people — “researchers to believe that they have realized that not all differences between males and females are determined by biology”. First of all that should sort of be a “duh” moment for everyone reading. It’s obvious that women do not wear make-up because they have female genitalia, and although I think the progress shaping this language in a way that people can understand is a positive endeavor, but it seems like changing terms to gender (when it is apparent people do not know the differences) is falsely boosting-egos. I think about when someone put gender on the forms here at work, what were they thinking : nothing (probably). They probably thought, “gender sounds better than sex” (if they even considered it that much). The big joke people use when you write down sex is “often”, but have we really shifted the language to move away from juvenile thoughts about sex? I don’t think so, I just can’t offer any other explanations.

It might even be argued that simply replacing the term “sex” with the term “gender” is misleading. By discussing all research in terms of gender, “gender” becomes just another way of saying “sex.” Even if “gender” is used to convey the idea that all of the differences between men and women are the product of social meanings (Kessler & McKenna, 1978), it is possible that the biological distinctions communicated by the word “sex” are still being communicated by the word “gender.” To the uncritical eye, “gender” may become simply an indication that male/female difference is being discussed. And if psychologists want “gender” to convey meaning different from or without “sex,” then it is important that “gender” is not forever paired with “sex” in people’s minds. The meanings people glean from words are bound to influence both their understanding and their subsequent communication. [2]

This is the very next paragraph in the article, which seemingly tries to back up and explain some of the things said in the previous. The last sentence is really what this topic comes down to “the meanings people glean from words are bound to influence both their understanding and their subsequent communication”. In some ways, that is what I try to alleviate. I suppose this is where the road splits and the difference between what psychologists or sociologists want to study versus what should be on occupational paperwork portray differences. When I was talking to my supervisor about changing the form to “sex” with my explanation, she thought “i never even thought about it before” because she viewed them as synonyms.

It does seem like a minute point, but I think the above paragraph really nods toward why it can be detrimental to make words synonymous that really should be separate conceptually. For me, that is a large part of what I hope to achieve in whatever I end up doing. Although sexuality, sex, and gender are all very closely tied, I think it is important to take them in their given categories : health, orientation, biology, and sociology/psychology, and I think it’s important because :

Research and theory on the influence of language and word use suggest that the way in which people listen to and speak about a particular topic can influence their thoughts and beliefs about that topic.

The article later goes on to talk about their study between sex and gender (their main goal : finding out whether or not people view them as the same concept or not), which was fueled by a curiosity that nonpsychologists and even biopsychologists use sex and gender interchangeably.

Their study hypothesized :

1. most participants would use the words “sex” and “gender” interchangeably in a structured sentence completion task;

2. when asked what they thought of when they saw the word “gender,” many participants would respond with “sex;

3. participants who had not had much exposure to gender theory (through college classes in women’s studies or psychology) would confuse the terms more often than people who had had some exposure to gender theory.

The only thing that worries be about this study is that the respondent rate is only 54.8% (250 recruits). The total amount of completed surveys tallied at 136, but considering this is just a small scale research to see how people define the terms, it gives some insight at the very least.

I won’t go on too long about the actual survey they gave, as you can read that yourself, but i thought their questions were done very well (even though I feel they were a little more guided than they should be).

(e.g., “The sex of the boy is_____. Male/Masculine”; “The girl’s gender is_____. Female/Feminine”; “The_____of the cat is male. Sex/gender”) (Appendix A provides a full listing of the 13 items).

The interesting part of this for me is “The ____ of the cat is male”. I think they were going for “male and sex” go together, but I have never thought about animals having “gender”, that is a side thought, but something interesting to think about (maybe another blog!). The funny thing is that at the end there is an appendix of all of the questions, and I viewed it more as a QUIZ than a SURVEY, but that is just because of my position on gender (i think i got 100). Right after this I will post another blog with my answers to the survey! (and if you want you can comment with yours!)

I will let all of you read the results, but the results are wired with connections. I found this piece of explanation especially interesting considering their fill in the blank portion of the survey where “The Sex of the Boy is MALE, would be the ‘correct gender/sex language choice”), but look at this :

Several correlations were found between participants’ Sexual Identity Scores (SIS) and their answers on items 4, 5, 6, 9, and 11. Table IV displays the correlations for these items. The SIS scale creates a masculine/feminine continuum, so scores on the low end (100) are considered very masculine and scores on the high end (500) are considered very feminine. The more feminine participants rated themselves on the scale, the more they agreed that sex is not required to match stereotypic gender

Notice, the two words I bolded? Their scoring system falls into the same trap. They are saying Sex = Masculine and Feminine. This should obviously be the “Gender Identity Score” (GIS). I guess this goes to show how ingrained the language of sex and gender actually go.

Aside from that, the results were that feminine females felt aspects of gender might change and masculine males found it appropriate to define gender in coordination with “male”. That kind of scares me, because it places a deep emphasis that those terms should not be separated, and really roots out a ostracizing attitude towards those who do not fall distinctly as 100% male or female.

The good thing is that they found that most people used gender in the appropriate places and sex in the appropriate (biologically cued) places.

I suppose my greatest critique with the study is that I think people deep down know there is a difference between gender and sex because sex does imply biology solely, and there are so many things in our societies that are based on paradigms not presented in reproduction, but to most these are nuances, minutia, centimeters between each other, but if you CUE THEM, then I would assume they would get a majority of those cues correct (even if they were based on forms they have filled out in their life). I do think they study was well put together and that there were interesting and unexpected results to a degree, but I guess my concern lies with not knowing when to use the correct terms (it seems base-level and everyone should know the differences — and I realize they do not, which is why this study was conducted), but really a comprehension of the differences. I do appreciate that this is the first step in that direction because if people know the difference between biological cues and sociological cues, then they will be able to discern that G.I. versus Barbie is a gender concern, not a sex concern — in which it does all come back to language.

Overall, I thought the study was great, I wish they had send it out to 10,000 people! (time and money, I know!) because I am sure a lot of those participants that did choose the right answers were using the terms interchangeably beforehand, and it may have probed them to use these terms in their ‘appropriate’ places.

Let me know what you think about the study or just about the terms in general. I know one pet peeve I have with MYSELF in gender language (and another key point to this study is that it was very basic between sex and gender, and not even specifically talking about ‘gendered terms’ per se). For example, I often say “hey guys”, regardless of the group – males and females, all males, or all females. Every single time, after, I think to myself “i wish I had said something else”. It’s something I work on, but I never say “opposite gender/sex” anymore because I really don’t see men and women as opposites (inspired by a sociology professor). I guess it all boils down to just understanding the language we use and when we use it!