1. Gender & Sexuality as History

2. Three important “positions’ in the academy on gender/sexuality as history Origins of patriarchy Historical materialism and social organization The social production & social psychology of “subject positions” – Post-structuralism – practice theory Centrality of language – Psychological – early childhood experiences (Freud & Lacan) Early stages of child development & formation of gender identity – Both structure & agency approaches

3. universals versus particulars universal subordination of women is often cited as one of the true cross-cultural universals, a pan-cultural fact – Engels called it the “world historical defeat of women” even so the particulars of women’s roles, statuses, power, and value differ tremendously by culture

4. F. Engels theory of the origin of female subordination tied to the male control of wealth built on 19th cent. assumption of communal societies as matrilineal men overthrew matrilineality & formed patriarchal family leading to monogamous family differential ownership of wealth led to inequality within the family & thus between the sexes gender differences arose from technological developments that led to changes in relations of production

5. Friedl and Leacock argument variation among foragers male dominance is based on exchange, public exchange versus that exchanged privately by women Exchange of scarce resources in egalitarian societies, gender stratification, and universal subordination of women

6. E. Leacock - (expands on Engels) subjugation of women due to breakdown of communal ownership of property & isolation of individual family as economic unit transformation of relations of production – Association of female labor with domestic unit or private sphere male production directed towards distribution outside the domestic group (public sphere) occurs with development of private property & class society

7. K. Sacks political power that results from the ability to give & receive goods in exchange (redistribution) allows for sexual stratification in non-class societies

8. Friedl and Leacock not rights & control over production but rights of distribution & control over channels of distribution critical for gender stratification

9. Sanday Reeves female status dependent on degree to which men & women participate in activities of reproduction, warfare, subsistence

10. Production, Reproduction and Social Roles roles - those minimal institutions and modes of activity that are organized immediately around one or more mothers and their children women everywhere lactate & give birth to children likely to be associated with child rearing & responsibilities of the home

11. a long running controversy in anthropology Sherry Ortner’s famous article “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture” argument is that across cultures, women are more often associated with nature and the natural and are therefore denigrated Ortner - in reality women are no further nor closer to nature than men - cultural valuations make women appear closer to nature than men

12. DOMESTIC - PUBLIC DICHOTOMY (M. Rosaldo) opposition between domestic (reproduction) & public (production) provides the basis of a framework necessary to identify and explore the place of male & female in psycho, cultural, social and economic aspects of life degree to which the contrast between public domestic (private) sphere is drawn promotes gender stratification-rewards, prestige, power

13. persistence of dualisms in ideologies of gender a particular view of men and women as opposite kinds of creatures both biologically and culturally nature/culture domestic/public reproduction/production

14. The “Third Gender” essentialism of western ideas of sexual dimorphism - dichotomized into natural & then moral entities of male & female that are given to all persons, one or the other committed western view of sex and gender as dichotomous, ascribed, unchanging other categories - every society including our own is at some time or other faced with people who do not fit into its sex & gender categories

15. The “Third Gender” a significant number of people are born with genitalia that is neither clearly male or female – Hermaphrodites persons who change their biological sex persons who exhibit behavior deemed appropriate for the opposite sex persons who take on other gender roles other than those indicated by their genitals

16.  transsexual – gender/ sex incongruent, “trapped in wrong body” but with the gender identity of their organs/sex change operation  transvestite – dressing as other gender, biological sex (cross-dresser)  homosexual  bisexual  eunuch – castrated male  hermaphrodite – both sets of biological organs  Virgin?  Boy/Girl? Third Genders

17. Third Gender: Western Bias multiple cultural & historical worlds in which people of divergent gender & sexual desire exist – margins or borders of society may pass as normal to remain hidden in the official ideology & everyday commerce of social life when discovered - iconic matter out of place - "monsters of the cultural imagination“ third gender as sexual deviance a common theme in US – evolution & religious doctrine – heterosexuality the highest form, the most moral way of life, its natural

18. Third Gender Cross-Culturally provokes us to reexamine our own assumptions regarding our gender system emphasizes gender role alternatives as adaptations to economic and political conditions rather than as "deviant" and idiosyncratic behavior rigid dichotomozation of genders is a means of perpetuating the domination of females by males and patriarchal institutions.

19. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION Ardener - muted models that underlie male discourse diversity of one life or many lives gender roles, stereotypes, stratification – changes over time – changes with position in lifecycle – status of men & women i.e. in male dominant societies decision making roles belong to men but as women reach menopause; change with marriage status, virgins, wives, widows (and men)

20. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION women, like men, are social actors who work in structured ways to achieve desired ends formal authority structure of a society may declare that women are impotent & irrelevant but attention to women's strategies & motives, sorts of choices, relationships established, ends achieved indicates women have good deal of power strategies appear deviant & disruptive – actual components of how social life proceeds

21. LANGUAGE-DISCOURSE-SUBJECT POSITIONS (subjectivity) Language is intro of child to symbolic order Through language gendered identity is constructed/learned/disciplined Words (rules) of social interaction are gendered Conflict exists – from repression to oppression

22. Discourse, Subjectivity, Power Discourses – Ways of talking about the world – a system of representation – Codes and conventions – rules and practices that produced meaningful statements and regulated discourse in different historical periods about language and practice Discourse is "a group of statements which provide a language for talking about...a particular topic at a particular historical moment." "Discourse, Foucault argues, “constructs the topic. It defines and produces the objects of our knowledge. It governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully talked about and reasoned about.”

23. Discourse, Subjectivity, Power Discourse -- the bearer of various subject positions Subject positions -- specific positions of agency and identity in relation to particular forms of knowledge and practice Subjectivity --produced within discourse, subjected to discourse. subject position--[for us to become the subject of a particular discourse, and thus the bearers of its power/knowledge] we must locate ourselves in the position from which the discourse makes most sense, and thus become its 'subjects' by subjecting' ourselves to its meanings, power and regulation.

24. Discourse, Subjectivity, Power power follows from our casual acceptance of the "reality with which we are presented" Power: a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments may be realized the totality of practices, by which one can constitute, define, organize, instrumentalize the strategies which individuals in their liberty can have in regard to each other

25. Discourse, Gender, Power sexuality and the body -- sites of power and politics socially imposed structures that objectified sexual identity and gender differences socially imposed structures that shape gender relations and behavior

26. The “Four Bodies” Individual body The social body The body politic The mindful body

27. The Individual Body lived experience of the body-self, body, mind, matter, psyche, soul

28. The Social Body representational uses of the body as a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society, culture

29. The Body Politic regulation, surveillance, & control of bodies (individual & collective) in reproduction & sexuality, in work & leisure, in sickness & other forms of deviance

30. The Mindful Body the most immediate, the proximate terrain where social truths and social contradictions are played out a locus of personal and social resistance, creativity, and struggle emotions form the mediatrix between the individual, social and political body, unified through the concept of the 'mindful body.'

31. Michelle Rosaldo “It now appears to me that women’s (and men’s, and any other gender identity that exists; my addition) place in social life is not in any direct sense the product of the things she does, but the meaning (culture) her activities acquire through social interaction (society).” A structure-agency issue – deal with the individual subject in the context of social organization

32. Joan Scott’s approach Gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes Gender is a primary way of signifying relations of power – The patriarchy question answered in part “It is not sexuality which haunts society, but society which haunts the body’s sexuality” (M. Godelier)