1. Gender

2. Sex vs Gender

3. Do you think differences between masculine and feminine behavior are culturally or biologically defined? Why do many people resist the idea that it is cultural?

4. Analyze how your own gender role has been shaped by your family, peers, school, and the mass media. Which seems to have had the most impact on you?

5. Working moms: The great balancing act. Should mothers with children stay home? Should fathers with children stay home? Businesses claim that helping working women would “hurt the bottom line”. Is that accurate or not? Why is the U.S. one of only a handful of countries in the world that do not offer paid family leave?

6. Why do you think it has been especially difficult to convince men to share the housework? How did your parents divide up housework? How do you plan to do this in your own marriage (or relationship)?

7. Is structural-functional or social-conflict analysis of gender-role inequality more convincing? Why?

8. Sexual harassment Why could it be difficult to eliminate sexual harassment from our culture? What is the effect on the job? What is the effect on the victim? How would you suggest reducing this?

9. Female genital mutilation Is FGM a medical procedure or a means of social control? What could, or should, be done about this practice? Should the U.S. accept another country’s culture?

10. Teen Clothes video Do you personally feel there is anything wrong with preteen girls wearing highly sexualized clothing? Why? Is there anything we could, or should do about this trend?

11. Stoning a woman to death – video Are we in fact being ethnocentric when we condemn Sha’ria justice? Should we practice cultural relativity in this case? Why is punishment under Islamic law carried out in public? Do you believe that Islam discriminates against women? How is this similar or different to burning women at the stake in early America?

12. Tropical Paradise – Video Should increased acceptability and availability of pornography concern us? Why or why not? How might sociologists investigate the consequences of the pornography industry? Does pornography degrade women? Why or why not? Does pornography degrade our morality as a society?