Chapter 12. Gender, Sex, and Sexuality
Chapter 12 Resources and Activities
Key Terms
bifurcated consciousness: The experience of a division between the directly lived, bodily world of women’s lives and the dominant, masculine, abstract, institutional world to which they must adapt.
binary opposition: Deep and structures of language that take the form of paired terms and carry opposed or opposite meanings.
cisgender: A term that refers to individuals whose gender identity matches the gender and sex they were assigned at birth.
compulsory heterosexuality: A social condition in which heteronormativity is enforced by formal and informal measures that encourage heterosexuality and penalize sexual variation.
doing gender: The way people perform tasks based on assigned gender scripts and gendered feedback from significant others.
dominant gender schema: An ideological framework that states that there are only two possible sexes, male and female, and two possible genders, masculine and feminine.
double exploitation of women: Women are doubly exploited in capitalist society when they work outside the home for wages and within the home as unpaid domestic labour.
double standard: A concept that prohibits premarital sexual intercourse for women, but allows it for men.
emphasized femininity: The dominant styles of femininity, which express women’s subordination to men within a particular culture at a particular time.
gender: A term that refers to social or cultural distinctions of behaviours that are considered male or female.
gender-based violence: Harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender.
gender dysphoria: A psychiatric classification describing persons experiencing a strong and persistent incongruity between their anatomy (their sex) and the gender with which they identify.
gender identity: An individual’s sense of being either masculine or feminine.
gender role: Society’s concept of how men and women should behave.
gendered sexuality: Sexual orientation which takes into account both sexes and genders of people.
glass ceiling: An invisible barrier that prevents women from achieving positions of leadership.
hegemonic masculinity: The dominant male ideal within a particular culture at a particular time.
heteronormativity: The belief and practice that heterosexuality is the only normal sexual orientation.
homophobia: An extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuals.
intersex: Individuals with a mixture of male and female sexual organs or physical characteristics.
intimate partner violence: Emotional, sexual and physical violence by one intimate partner against another.
Section Summary
12.1 The Difference between Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
The terms “sex” and “gender” refer to two different identifiers. Sex denotes biological characteristics differentiating males and females, while gender denotes social and cultural characteristics of masculine and feminine behaviour. Sex and gender are not always synchronous. Individuals who strongly iden