Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-43
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Biological Determinism ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Correct Definition ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter discusses feminist perspectives on sex and gender. The chapter starts by discussing feminist arguments against biological determinism and the claim that gender is socially constructed. Next, the chapter examines feminist critiques of prevalent understandings of gender and sex, and the distinction thereof. In response to these concerns, the final section of the chapter discusses how a unified women's category could be articulated for feminist political purposes illustrating at least two things: first, that gender is still very much a live issue and second, that feminists have not entirely given up the view that gender is about social factors and that it is in some sense distinct from biological sex. The jury is still out on what the best, the most useful, or the correct definition of gender is.

scholarly journals Breaking the Binary

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Mercer-Mapstone ◽  
Sarah Bajan ◽  
Kasia Banas ◽  
Arthur Morphett ◽  
Kristine McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Minority Group ◽  
First Year ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Student Cohorts ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Students Attitudes ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Partnership Approach

The need to make higher education curricula gender-inclusive is increasingly pressing as student cohorts diversify. We adopted a student-staff partnership approach to design, integrate, and evaluate a module that taught first-year science students the difference between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation in the context of genetics concepts at an Australian university. This module aimed to break the binary in misconceptions of both sex and gender, emphasising that both exist on separate spectra. Data triangulation was used to evaluate students’ attitudes towards the module and their learning of module concepts. Students’ attitudes were positive overall, and evaluation of students’ learning indicated that the majority of students understood and retained key concepts, while also identifying common misconceptions. Perhaps the most important finding was that students who identified as belonging to a minority group had significantly more positive attitudes towards the module than non-minority students. This finding supports previous research that has found inclusive curricula have greater benefit for students from minority backgrounds, indicating the importance of making such curriculum enhancements. Our results speak to both the co-creation process and students’ learning outcomes, providing valuable insights for practitioners both within science and beyond.

scholarly journals What Does it Mean to be a Woman in Sports? An Analysis of the Jurisprudence of the Court of Arbitration for Sport

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-411
Author(s):  
Lena Holzer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
Sports Law ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Caster Semenya ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Dispute ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of

ABSTRACT This article explores the definition of ‘sportswoman’ as put forward in the Caster Semenya case (2019) and the Dutee Chand case (2015) before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It analyses the structural and discursive factors that made it possible for the CAS to endorse a definition that reduces sex and gender to a matter concerning testosterone. By relying on the concept of intersectionality and analytical sensibilities from Critical Legal Studies, the article shows that framing the cases as a matter of scientific dispute, instead of as concerning human rights, significantly influenced the CAS decisions. Moreover, structural elements of international sports law, such as the lack of knowledge of human rights among CAS arbitrators and a history of institutionalising gendered and racialised body norms through sporting regulations, further aided the affirmation of the ‘testosterone rules’.

scholarly journals Feminist theory in Feminism & Psychology [Part I]: Dealing with differences and negotiating the biological

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Lorraine Radtke
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Psychology ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Introductory Article ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Theory is an important preoccupation of articles published in Feminism & Psychology. This Virtual Special Issue includes 10 of those published since the journal’s inception that have a primary focus on theoretical issues related to two related topics – differences and the biological. The concern with differences includes the socially constructed categories sex and gender, as well as sexuality and social class. Those articles addressing the biological represent critical scholarship that is working to negotiate a place for the biology within feminist psychology and entails moving away from the view that the biological is natural and innate. This introductory article addresses how theory fits within feminist psychology and offers a brief history of debates concerning differences and the biological before offering summaries and observations related to each selected article. The featured articles can be located on the Feminism & Psychology website and are listed in Appendix 1 at the end of this article.

In Favor of the 2019 Equality Act: A Comment on Burt

2021 ◽  
pp. 155708512199133
Author(s):  
Susan Gluck Mezey
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
And Gender

There are three reason why I disagree with the author’s premise that 2019 Equality Act disadvantages women by blurring the distinction between sex and gender identity. First, it ignores current legal theory and practice that sex discrimination encompasses gender identity discrimination in federal law; second, it has not made a sufficient case that the Act’s interpretation of sex would harm women; third, it incorrectly assumes gender equality in the workplace can be achieved while sex-segregated spaces remain segregated by biological sex. In sum, revising the Equality Act to exempt women’s spaces would sacrifice the principle of gender equality upon which the Act is based.

Feasting and Fasting

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasia R. Diner ◽  
Jonathan Safran Foer
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Food Studies ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
History Of Religions ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

This book explores how the making of Judaism and the making of Jewish meals have been intertwined throughout history and in contemporary Jewish practices. It is an invitation not only to delve into the topic but to join in the growing number of conversations and events that consider the intersections between Judaism and food. Seventeen original chapters advance the state of both Jewish studies and religious studies scholarship on food in accessible prose. Insights from recent work in growing subfields such as food studies, sex and gender studies, and animal studies permeate the volume. Encompassing historical, ethnographic, critical theoretical, and history of religions methodologies, the volume introduces readers to historic and ongoing Jewish food practices and helps them engage the charged ethical debates about how our food choices reflect competing Jewish values. The book’s three sections respectively include chronologically arranged historical overviews (first section), essays built around particular foods and theoretical questions (second section), and essays addressing ethical issues (third and final section). The first section provides the historical and textual overview that is necessary to ground any discussion of food and Jewish traditions. The second section provides studies of food and culture from a range of time periods, and each chapter addresses not only a particular food but also a theoretical issue of broader interest in the study of religion. The final section focuses on moral and ethical questions generated by and answered through Jewish engagements with food.

Subjectivity and Subjectivation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Sex And Gender ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Angela Davis ◽  
Socialist Feminism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Foucauldian Theory ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms

A chapter addressing the formation of the subject, and the rejection of the assumption that gender and sex are simply given, in various feminist theory paradigms. The project of advancing gender justice requires close attention to the ways in which categories of biological sex and gender, in intersectional relations with race, ethnicity, nationality, class and so on, are historically constructed and deployed to bring subjects into being, even as these same categories are resisted and re-negotiated at the same time in an always agonistic field of social relations. Special reference is made to three pairs of theoretical paradigms and practitioners: liberal feminism and Nancy J. Hirschmann; antiracist socialist feminism and Angela Davis; Derridean-Foucauldian theory and Judith Butler.

scholarly journals Public Policy Frames and Gender mainstreaming: an analysis of childcare policy in Brazil during the left turn (2003-2016)

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (98) ◽  
pp. 652-676
Author(s):  
Mariana Mazzini Marcondes ◽  
Marta Ferreira Santos Farah ◽  
Mário Aquino Alves
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Policy Framing ◽  
Left Turn ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sexual Division Of Labor ◽  
Feminist Perspectives ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Childcare Policy

Abstract Brazil was one of the countries that integrated Latin America’s left turn, a period in which social policies have become central. During the Labor Party’s Government (Partido dos Trabalhadores) (2013-2016), were developed institutional conditions to mainstream gender in public policies, which embraced the issue of the sexual division of labor. However, did it mean an effective reorientation of the childcare policy towards gender equality perspectives? This article aims to reflect upon this question, drawing on the gender mainstreaming concept. It is understood as a process of incorporation of feminist perspectives into the public policy framing, regarding the (re)definition of both the public problem and the course of state action. To do so, we carried out a qualitative study of gender mainstreaming on childcare policy (daycare centers and leaves), focusing on official discourses, mainly through documentary analysis. Based on the results analyzed, we identified the coexistence of two frames: “education and childcare rights” and “promotion of women's economic autonomy”. Since the first one has prevailed, we conclude that gender mainstreaming was marginal in the childcare policy, during the analyzed period.

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