Gender and Masculinities: Patriarchal Society and Women's Role - Prof. Santaemilia Ruiz, Exámenes de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga Gender and Masculinities: Patriarchal Society and Women's Role - Prof. Santaemilia Ruiz y más Exámenes en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! GENDER, SEX & LANGUAGE TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE 1. ‘Heterosexuality’ works through the concurrent institutions of homophobia and homosexuality. 2. The main objective of an important organization is to “take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsabilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men. “Give the name of the organization”: National Organization for Women, N.O.W. 3. Liberal feminists believe that inequality can be overcome by enforcement of individual rights and equal opportunities for both sexes. TRUE 4. According to Ann Oakley (1972), when is gender identity established? While sex is a biological term, related to the genitalia we have been given by born, gender is a psychological and cultural concept. For this reason, gender (masculine, feminine, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, etc.) is not given by born but acquired while growing up and developing the capacity of reasoning and interact with the society. 5. What does the ‘patriarchal dividend’ (Conell 1995) associated to hegemonic masculinity consist of ? Raewyn Connell’s defines the patriarchal dividend as the various benefits that men gain by being men in a patriarchal society. These benefits typically include higher incomes, easier access to positions of personal and institutional power, authority, greater social status and personal security, and so on. However, we may talk of two big groups of masculinities: hegemonic masculinity and subordinate masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity constitutes the dominant form, the one of the church and state, and that is sanctioned by tradition, common sense and common consent. It is caracterised by physical strength; sexual prowess; a display of power over women, homosexual men and other heterosexual men who are not so strong or successful. For this reason only that individuals which pertain to hegemonic 1 group will completely enjoy the patriarchal dividend, the benefits for being a man. This is because subordinate men will suffer hegemonic group abuse and power, they will always be under the hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity. Some examples of subordinate masculinities are ‘homosexuality’, ‘oppositional protest masculinity,’ also called ‘simplified masculinity’ (a marginal form of masculinity adopted by young men with very poor job prospects and who basically rework hegemonic masculinity in a context of poverty). 6. Does biology - according to Ann Oakley (1972)- play any role at all in determining the development of gender identity in normal individuals? 'Sex' is a word that refers to the biological differences between male and female: the visible difference in genitalia, the related difference in procreative function. 'Gender' however us a matter of culture: it refers to the social classification into 'masculine' and 'feminine' (Oakley, 1972, p. 16). Oakley's definition was important because it argued that social inequalities between man and women are not the result of the biological differences between man and women, but that the social inequalities were the result of different variables across time, space and location (Schech & Harris, 2007, p. 86). 7. “The entire education of women must be relative to men” Who wrote these words? Explain. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the autor of these words (Émile, ou l’éducation, 1762). Rousseau’s message is a clear expression of women’s subordinated position. Their place is in the home, and domestic life is their destiny. Because of this reason, the only desirable education for women is the one that is useful to them for learning domestic, private life behaviour and the pleasing of their husbands. 8. In Britain, woman suffrage was firts advocated by Wollstonecraft. 9. Mary Astell believed that the only way to achieve equality between the sexes is for women to live separately from men. TRUE 2 21. What does ‘feminine mystique’ mean? (Betty Friedan, 1963) In her major book Feminine mystique (1963), Betty Friedan defines ‘feminine mystique’ as central feature of American women in the 20th century by which “since the Second World War, American women had been manipulated to believe that their own fulfilment lay in domesticity”. This meant that the whole of a woman’s life was based on attracting and keeping a husband and serving the needs of him and his children. This idea was reinforced by magazines, the advertising industry and so on. 22. What does Jacques Lacan’s concept of the ‘phallus’ stand for? Lacan talks of the ‘phallus’ as the cultural sign of masculinity. For him, the law of culture forces every subject to take up a position having or not having the phallus. 23. Why do some historians or feminist researchers use the term herstory? Some feminists reject the term history and defences the use of herstory, an agammatical sublety. This is because they fight for recovering the importance of women in history and condemn women’s traditional alienation from the public and official world. 24. What is the main contribution of Émile Benveniste to today’s idea of discourse? Saussure did not eschew a linguistics of parole (performative linguistics), it was Émile Benveniste (1902-1976) who put forward a theory of discourse and subjectivity which is a step forward on the way towards a general theory of discourse. Saussure left a gap between langue and parole, Benveniste bridged it with his theory of discourse and subjectivity, whose objective is to make the language system work through individual language acts, the result of which is parole. 25. According to Mary Talbot (2003), what does ‘stereotyping’ involve? Gender stereotyping: within the field of language and gender, the term ‘stereotype’ is often used to refer to prescriptions of behaviour or unstated spectations of behaviour, rather than specifically to representational practices. Gender stereotypes are closely linked with and support gender ideologies. 5 26. Is/Are there any clear, biologically-based phonological difference(s) between men and women? Which one(s)? Is is true that male and female voices are physiologically different. Men’s pitch is lower and louder (the basic rate of vibration of the vocal folds) while women show a wider range of pitch. The strongest linguistic cues in pronunciation are “pitch, tract resonance, intonational dynamism and vocal intensity”. 27. What seem to be the social meanings of higher-pitched voices? Higher pitched voices are heard as less competent, submissive, more tender or less ‘poweful’. If men show high pitched voices, they are likely to be made fun or severely demeaned in terms of their inadequate ‘masculinity’. In cinema, femininity is expressed in high, oral giggling sounds. 28. Saussure’s langue vs. parole dichotomy was echoed several decades later by Chomsky’s dichotomy competence vs. performance. 29. Can you mention 2-3 gender related stereotypes which can be recognised today? Many people believes that “blondes are dumb”, or that women’s speech is more polite than men’s, or that men are more violent. 30. Jespersen claims that men, more often than women, “break off without finishing their sentences, because they start talking without having thoyght what they are going to say. TRUE. 31.“It is in and through language than man constitutes himself as a subject, because language alone establishes the concept of “ego”, in its reality which is that of the being” Who wrote these words? Comment. These words were written by Émile Benveniste (1971). For Benveniste there cannot be subjectivity outside language. Subjectivity is basically an act of linguistic affirmation, of asserting the presence of an ‘I’ within discourse. 6 32. Mention two drawbacks of the dominance approach. A major drawback with the dominance approach is that male dominance is seen as something universal, absolute, unavoidable; however, not all men are in a position to dominate all women as there are today mixed scenarios of power and dominance. A monolithic conception of patriarchy is useless today. There is also an ethical problem researchers may face. In researching into private or family conversations, researchers depend on the individuals’ willingness to collaborate. The fact of recording private conversations may affect the nature of the results and, what is more, ‘dominant’ men are not likely to be pleased with research depicting them as such. Both researcher and people under study may feel uncomfortable and embarassed, and it can modify the linguistic reality under study. 33. What are the main drawbaks of Jespersen’s ideas on ‘woman’s language’? Jespersen’s ideas about gendered conversational styles are highly simplistic and intuitive, he echoes old myths about women’s and men’s vocabulaires: stereotypical feminine traits are “an attention to the immediate surroundings, to the finished product, to the ornamental, the individua, and the concrete”; while the masculine preference is “for the more remote, the constructive, the useful, the general and the abstract”. (Ellis 1904) 34.What is discourse for Michel Foucault (1926-1984)? Discourses are for him historically constituted social constructions in the organisation and distribution of knowledge. Discourses constitute bodies of knowledge, practices and social identities. They are constituted in history and society and, consequently, they are historically and socially specific ways of organizing knowledge. Dominant members of the different institutions maintain control through discourses by creating order, that is, by defining categories and establishing boundaries. 35. What is gender stereotype? Briefly define. Gender stereotyping: within the field of language and gender, the term ‘stereotype’ is often used to refer to prescriptions of behaviour or unstated spectations of behaviour, rather than specifically to representational practices. Gender stereotypes are closely linked with and support gender ideologies. 7