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Notes on video lecture:
Culturally Defined Gender
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on October 21, 2013 (go to class or lectures)


Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
biological, children, patriarchal, biology, race, elections, 53, caste, Muslim, subjective, forbids, imagination, punished, vicious, Germany, tolerate, rape, property, sex, unnatural, true, wife, distinctions, norms, fins, evolutionary, enables, homosexual, sexuality
each society adopts specific social and imagined hierarchies
became very important in American society, but was relatively insignificant to medieval society
was a matter of life and death in medieval India but in modern Europe it is practically non-existent
one hierarchy, however, which has been of supreme importance in almost all human societies is the hierarchy of gender
gender
in most human societies throughout history, men have been seen as the superior gender
in many societies, women were seen to simply be the of men, most often the property of their fathers, their husbands, their brothers or the male community in general
the most extreme example of this although very common in human societies, the of a woman was seen as a crime, but as a violation of property and the victim of the rape according to the legal system, was not the woman, but the man who owned her and now owned defective property
in the Bible in Deuteronomy, Chapter 22, verses 28 to 29: "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found. Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his ."
in most legal systems in history, if a husband rapes his own wife, this is not considered a crime at all
this was even a legal contradiction in most societies since a husband owning a wife meant he had full control of her , it would be like saying a man stole his own wallet
in 2006, there are still countries around the world where a husband cannot be persecuted in court for the rape of his wife
in , marital rape was amended to laws in 1997
is this division between gender a product of the human imagination like the caste system in India or the racial issues in America?
or is it a division with roots in reality?
if there is a natural, biological division between men and women, is there a natural hierarchy with men over women?
there are, of course, biological differences between women and men
are their biological justifications for the preference of men as the superior gender within historical societies?
there are obvious differences which are not attributed to the imagination
child-bearing has always been considered the job of women in all societies for the biological fact that men do not have wombs
but around biological facts, every society has accumulated social regarding the sexes which have very little to do with biology
e.g. 5th century B.C. Athens, the cradle of democracy, women could not vote for any of the offices, nor could they be elected
Athenians would reply that it is for women to take part in politics since they do not have the moral standards and intelligence to do such things
today, most people in Western cultures, of course, think there is nothing in the female body or of the female brain that should prevent women from participating in either as voters or candidates
in many cultures today, it is argued that men should not have sex with other men
the response is often the same, because it is unnatural
but in fact there is nothing about the male body or the male brain which prevents men from enjoying with one another
in Ancient Greece, homosexuality was not only fairly common, but also normative and legal
all societies have notion about what is natural and unnatural for men and women to do
some of these are grounded in biology and some are not
throughout history, however, most of the differences that societies have attributed to men and women are not rooted in
how can we determine what is really determined by biology and what people merely try to justify through imagined stories and myth
a good rule of thumb is: biology , culture
biology is willing to a very wide spectrum of possibilities of behavior and human relationships
it's culture that obliges people to realize some of the possibilities that biology open up and forbidden others
biology enables women to have , it doesn't force them to, they don't have to use their womb for that purpose, but it gives them the possibility
some cultures suggest that women who do not have children are not women and are doing something that is unnatural
however, this is not unnatural from a biological sense (biology gives women the option but doesn't care if they exercise it), it is only unnatural from a cultural point of view
biology enables men to have sex with one another, but whether it is considered natural or not is determined by culture
when cultures forbid something they tend to argue that they forbid only what is biologically unnatural
from a biological perspective, everything that is possible is natural, an example of something unnatural according to biology would be something that is not possible, for instance, that men can have babies, this is not possible so it would be unnecessary to prohibit it since it isn't possible anyway.
when people talk about actions being natural, they do not mean unnatural in terms of biology but in terms of their theology, i.e. something is "natural" if it is in accordance with the God happen to believe in, i.e. that God created the limbs of the human body and mean them to serve a particular purpose, so if humans use their organs for the purpose that God intended them, then this is natural in a theological sense.
from the biological point of view, the human body was shaped the processes, and evolution doesn't prescribe purposes
none of the organs in our body evolved to fulfill just one one particular purpose
e.g. hands and feet, they initially evolved from the fins of fish so seen in this way it would be unnatural to use them other than
the same is with sexual organs and behavior
it's true that sex evolved for procreation
courtship ritual evolved to examine the fitness of a potential mate
mammals use sex and courtship rituals for many purposes other than having babies
chimpanzees use sex in order to cement political alliances, establish intimacy, and to diffuse tension between individuals in the band
but these activities are not unnatural, these are simply one of many uses chimpanzees have for their sexual organs and bodies
therefore it makes little sense to say that it is unnatural if a woman doesn't give birth or that love is unnatural
through biology we have these abilities, whether to use it or not and for what purposes is up to our cultures and religions to decide
most of the laws in societies which concern the genders reflect human and not biology
sex is a biological category
objective
have remained fairly constant throughout history
being a female in ancient Greece and modern Greece is the same thing, it simply means that you have the XX chromosome
does not change from culture to culture
gender is a cultural category
gender defines men and women
being a woman in ancient Greece and in modern Greece are two very different things
defined by masculinity and femininity
most of what King Louis XIV wore would today be considered feminine, e.g. the wig, the tights, the high heels, furs
the way powerful men look in modern Western society is historically very strange: men never looked so gray and dull and dreary, throughout history powerful men (King Louis XIV, American Indian Chiefs, Hindu Priests) wore very colorful and elegant clothing, wigs, headdresses, tights, high heels
changes a lot from culture to culture
in each culture there is a sense of being a "real man" and a "real woman" and this varies from culture to culture
women spend a significant amount of time each day working to convince others that they are up to the present day ideal of femininity, as well do men for masculinity
success is not guaranteed, people may not see them as real women or real men
men particularly have a fear that they will lose their claim to masculinity
they even sacrifice their lives (bull fighters) just so people will say about them: he's a real man
in most cultures since the agricultural revolution, men have had to fight for privileges that were withheld from other males
most give men economic, political and
patriarchy: a society which values masculine qualities more than it
in almost all societies in history, to be a man was better valued what it sees to be feminine qualities
they educate men to think and act in a masculine way of acting
women are supposed to act in a feminine way and in many cultures often if they do not
often men in patriarchal societies are rewarded with much more power and many more privileges for living out the ideal of a man, than it rewards women for living out the ideal for a woman
with very few exceptions, all known human societies in history were patriarchal and almost all gave men economic, political and legal privileges and discriminated against women, how can we explain this?
it can't be the product of some chance circle like the caste division in India, or like the racial division in America, since all cultures in all parts of the world developed to be patriarchal
even before 1492 when the Europeans began melding the two continents into a similar political unit, even the native societies in North and South America were
anthropologists and historians have many theories why most cultures valued manhood more than they valued womanhood (topic of next lecture)