Psych 319- Gender PDF

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Psych 319 | Psych and GenderLecture Monday 10-11am and Wednesday 2-4pm Clock Tower 105- Tutorial Thursday 10am-11am Maths Physics 303-BLecturers Nicola Gavey [email protected] (course coordinator) Office Hours: Monday 11-Ginny Braun, Cinnamon Lindsay Latimer, Gareth TerryTutors Brandee Thorburn Kris Tay...

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Psych 319 | Psych and Gender Lecture Tutorial

Monday 10-11am and Wednesday 2-4pm Clock Tower 105-029 Thursday 10am-11am Maths Physics 303-B07

Lecturers Nicola Gavey [email protected] (course coordinator) Office Hours: Monday 11-12 Ginny Braun, Cinnamon Lindsay Latimer, Gareth Terry Tutors Brandee Thorburn Kris Taylor

Assessment Structure 1. Test o o o o  o

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15% Done via Canvas Quizzes 55 minutes long Test is open book Monday 13 August (9am to be completed between 9am-12pm) Essay 25% Making a difference using gender and psychology scholarship for change In-depth independent research towards praxis. Focus on one of the following:  LGBTQ+ issues  Gendered violence  Gendered bodies  2,500 words max (incl. Appendix; excluding references)  Due Tuesday 11 September 12pm Group Seminar Presentation 10%  To be scheduled during weeks 10-11 Exam 50%

Monday 16 July

Intro

News headlines and photographs  What do we see; what patterns don’t we notice; norms, values, interests  Headlines often do not identify “male” but when women are the subject, their gender is brought to attention “women”. Men are generally seen as the norm  Women were often shown alongside a man, baby whereas men were more often shown on their own  ‘Woman wants husband back after stabbing him’  Men typically shown doing a sort of activity whereas women shown in a way as a display almost  Women - a lot of focus on their face and features

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Patterned - lots of stories about sports. In the lifestyle section more stories about women but again focuses on weight loss transformation, appearances etc. Lots of focus around female power and female dominance when Helen Clarke was in power but what would happen if it was reversed.. What’s viewed as mundane vs. cool What is taken for granted 1970/80s huge amount of social change

Personal/cultural, historical, social bearings A critical orientation to gender Rosalind Gill (1993) the ‘everything has changed’ and the ‘nothing has changed’ stories (still relevant?)  Two varying perspectives, in an in between area where we have made a lot of progress but still a long way to go. Jacinda Ardern, pregnant and unmarried as head of government. Vs. “she’s a pretty communist”  Gender politics Thinking about ourselves as gendered subjects - Michael Kimmel (1991)  Generalisable person - without race, class or gender  Reflecting on your privilege - no need to think about how these categories of you shape your experience ‘Personal is political’ Recap  Course outline (important info)  Readings must do for the test- online quiz on canvas?  Communication - discussion board Wednesday 18 July

Intro [cont.]

Awareness of the distortion we are viewing the world will impact how we view things. Speeches by PM of Australia and Barack Obama showed the unwillingness society had to openly discuss misogyny and sexism. Public space has been opened up. Andy Murray corrects journalist for overlooking female players Intersectionality Thinking of ourselves as gendered subjects, other forms of social advantages/disadvantages, inclusion and exclusion. Contested notion in what intersectionality means and should mean. Patricia Hill Collins, 2015 definition of intersectionality. Taking a feminist lens and gendered patterns of analysis Intersectionality lens helps us see the nuisance and the way it affects other people is impacted by other complex social inequalities such as race, class, etc.

Gender pay gap equal pay graphic by the tertiary education union of NZ and statistics NZ. “Ain’t I a woman” Sojourner Truth 1851. In a time when the dominant political rhetoric was that women were the weaker sex that needed to be protected and helped to counter women’s suffrage. She powerful challenges the essentialism of the notion of what a woman was. Deconstructs every major claim about the patriarch, bringing to attention that woman is not just one thing. Intro to ‘Gender and Psychology’   

A critical psychology of gender Theory, research, praxis Fragments of gender in psychology’s past

Scientific conceptions of women/gender in the era of the birth of modern western psychology. Women were predominantly considered inferior to men in the recent past, 19th century and even in the 20th century. Psychologists; Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Erik Erikson. Women’s movement in the late 1960s Naomi Weisstein’s classic 1968 article. Classic text that foreshadows the development of a feminist psychology. Called out the arrogant and ignorance of the form of the discipline. Weisstein was mainly talking about clinical, psychiatry, and a few other disciplines. Her argument:  “Theory without evidence” (i.e., bad science). Freud etc. would theorise without having any evidence. Looking at the world from their own privileged point of view and treating their own ideas as though they were truth and not subjecting them to any evidence. Would approach evidence in a very selective way.  Neglect of social context - a lot of early social psychology research, the importance of social context in the ways people behave and are perceived. If you only look at the world through one lens you generally only see things that fit with and confirm your world view Paradoxically - from contemporary perspective - Weisstein was committed to positivist science. (don’t need to focus on this too much) Different types of feminist psychology Epistemology and methodology  Gender science - research focussed on quantitative. Positivist; quantitative, statistical methods, traditionally focussed on ‘sex differences’  Critical feminist psychology - focus on where we stand when we ask questions. Usually qualitative, social constructionist or critical realist, focus on sociocultural context, discursive, narrative, material conditions of possibility and so on (our primary focus) o What’s there is always shaped by social contexts and avoiding too much universalisation and reduction of truths

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Other more descriptive ‘realist’ approaches to women’s (usually) lives and experiences

Refer to underlying questions [universalism and essentialism]

Sexual Difference and Intersex Underlying questions and issues on pdf. Joan Withers - a Woman’s Place.

Intersex, transgender, language

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Intersex cf transgender Transgender is associated with identity, inherently attached to your sense of yourself Intersex, it’s possible to be technically intersex but not know it or identify as intersex. Cleave between physicality and your identity Cisgender, people whose gender matches the gender they are ascribed at birth Non-binary gender, actively identifying as not fitting to either of the categories Intersex & Ambiguous Genitalia

Email melissa from 322 Monday 23 July

Intersex & ambiguous genitalia

Awareness of the language we use Intersex definition, don’t want to use terms such as ‘condition’ or pathologize Fausto-Sterling’s (1993) typology: Five Sexes  Initially three; herm, merm, ferm  Revised her five sexes model - too much emphasis on genitals  “Since 1993, modern society has moved beyond five sexes to a recognition that gender variation is normal and, for some people, an arena for playful exploration”  How good intent does not always result in good effect  During the 19th century those who had both male and female forms could only be determined after death  But in 20th century, technology allowed biopsies that enabled living people to be identified, disturbed physicians noted no one knew what to do with such people. No place for true hermaphrodites in law or society for these people.  Ambiguous genitalia  Women who appear very much like a typical women but many with androgen sensitivity syndrome, look like a typical female child, are ascribed female gender at birth, grow up completely identified as female. To give these women the ‘male’ sex because they had the testes inside (gonadal tissue model) towards a pragmatic

concept of gender, doctors focused on gendered sex (to fit ASS or fit a gender assigned at birth under more pragmatic terms). Pragmatic response Medical management of intersexuality  Ethics and notions of informed consent  All children must have their gender identity fixed very early in life for a consistent “successful” gender identity to form  According to the American Medical Association, etc. ‘having ambiguous genitalia’ were considered to be a ‘social emergency’ that necessitates an immediate medical response Practical guidelines  Small penis? How small is too small? o Genetic males (children with Y chromosome) must have “adequate” penises if they are to be assigned the male gender o E.g. a full term baby whose penis was not 2.5cm fully stretched, it meant the penis tissue would be amputated and the genitals would be surgically altered to be as feminine as possible. The child would then be raised as a girl. Although “micropenises”  Big clitoris? How big is too big? o Genetic females (children without a Y chromosome) are assigned to be girls, no matter how masculine-appearing their genitalia are o Larger than 1cm Part of the critique is that they are very sexist and heterosexist. Considered more important to retain reproductive potential of someone who’s female but not male. This was written about 10-15 years ago but it is a period of flux so some have had pushback but some of this is still going on today… The darlington statement - statement that came out of a meeting of intersex people from NZ and Australia.  https://ihra.org.au/darlington-statement/  Opposes “pathologizing terminology such as ‘disorders of sex development’ Asymmetry in protocols for treating masculinity and femininity  Treatment protocols are arguably sexist in its asymmetrical treatment of reproductive potential and definitions of anatomical “adequacy” (full quote from Dreger, 1998, p.29) The problem with “normality”  Assumption of heterosexuality (...”medical interventions address cultural risks including ‘reduced opportunities for marriage’ [2013]”) (Carpenter, 2016)  Underlying assumption that transgender or non-binary gender is unacceptable  Practical issues about how much variation is acceptable  Cultural variability - culturally and historically situated, in some south east asian countries and pacific islands, there is more tolerance for these non dimorphism etc  Lens of pathology vs. lens of diversity Cheryl Chase - Intersex Society of North America Agenda of the Intersex Patient Advocacy movement (ISNA)  Intersex is primarily a problem of stigma and trauma, not gender  The child is the patient, not the parents  Professional mental health care is essential

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Honest, complete disclosure is good medicine All children should be assigned as male or female, without surgery

ISNA closed 2008  Strategic compromise between activists and medical professions, conceded to shift in medical terminology “disorders of sex development” (DSD).  An important strategic alliance to get doctors onboard and move to a patientcentred model, more likely to adhere to models of informed consent etc.  Seemed like a progressive alliance but some intersex activists have said it’s had the opposite effect  Refer to slides for full quotes by Carpenter Dreger & Herndon (2009) Ethical issues  Benevolent sex reassignment surgery or genital mutilation?  Mani’s story - knew something was going on and was different but didn’t know what. Growing up as a child with shame etc.  Cross-cultural hypocrisy  Contrast to medical and legal response to transgender  The effect of ‘treatment’ practices practices on people without their or their parents’ fully informed consent - e.g., reports of parallels with the experience of childhood sexual abuse (eg, Kerry, 2017)  Hypocrisy: more prohibitive surgical treatment of genitals of people themselves saying they want this surgery than has been conducted on people who are not being told what is being done to them  Parallels of this with experience of sexual abuse  What does this kind of societal discomfort and policing of gender borders mean? o Earlier, thought of as progress? o Nowadays, form of disciplining bodies and societal norms around these two strict categorisations of gender  Progress vs discipline Fausto-Sterling, 1993, p.6 How to approach these situations  Changing society’s beliefs particularly about differences, being more accepting of them Wednesday 25 July

Social Construction of Gender Very different ways of depicting the two prominent sporting teams - Blues vs Silver Ferns Aim: introduce one way of understanding the social construction of gender Sandra Lee Bartky & quoting Judith Butler - regardless of how we come into this world, i.e. the body, the idea and concept of gender such as masculinity and femininity, it is developed through our engagement with the world

Foucault’s model of disciplinary power - Jeremy Benthma’s Panoptican as a model. Way in which we are disciplined and encouraged, invited, coerced to shape our behaviour according to social norms without an explicit punishment for not confirming in a way. A subtle coercive power, and because of this is more successful. Breaking down the division between the social, society and individual. As people we are shaped or ‘disciplined’ according to social and cultural norms. Jeremy Benthma’s Panoptican as a model. Prisoners in the cell is always visible to the guards in the central watchtower, prisoners know the are being watched, and they aren’t necessarily know whether or not the guard is seeing them which creates a continuous process of self-governance of our behaviour. Induces a state of permanent visibility. Used to illustrate how we as subjects are regulated and normalised through the operation of disciplinary power. Typically not a conscious decision. What do we get from Foucault’s writing on power…    

Power is inherently neither positive or negative Power as productive and constitutive (rather than just repressive) Produces desires (which may be pleasurable) Power operates on bodies; produces ‘docile’ bodies

Other key concepts from Foucault (Gavey, 2005, ch 3)  Discourse - pattern of meaning, a regulated system of statements. In a Foucaultian meaning, brings together languages and normative practices. Two really key things about this notion is that it is very similar to a set of assumptions but things not captured is that 1) it is a culturally shared thing, we all relate and understand it, not properties of individual’s cognitive processes or our mind or internal but shared cultural social patterns of meaning. 2) idea that it does things → operates in the world and creates the objects about which it speaks  Power/knowledge (pouvoir/savoir) - the power/knowledge nexis. Notion of “cando-ness”, knowledge is not just what we know about the world but also broader in the way. Savoir creates the conditions of possibilities of being and doing in the world.  The power of the Norm - very powerful. Generally how we identify ourselves - in relation to the norm. Power of norm is still operating even if you reject it, people may treat you differently or you may live your life differently if you reject it overtly or even invisibly. A way of understanding how it is possible that we become apparently complicit in oppression/or circumstances that could be seen to be against our interests. This model allows us to explain why we may seem to do this. Bartky’s analysis of the disciplinary production of the female body (‘Technologies of Femininity’) Three elements Bartky has identified as elements of the social notion of femininity. ... ‘disciplinary practices’ that ‘produce a body which in gesture and appearance is recognizably feminine’... 1. ‘Those that aim to produce a body of a certain size and general configuration’ o Hourglass shape, toned, height shorter than men but not too short, long legs o De-naturalising notions of gender, femininity, masculinity etc. o Diet, exercise, plastic surgery, culture, liposuction, photoshop, clothing

Historical and cultural contexts, ideals of the female body has shifted a lot from the Reuben-esque ideal of what we would consider today as quite plump, Marilyn Monroe and Twiggy. o Asian culture - a lot of conformity in terms of how they should look, skin whitening o Vogue cover earlier this year with more diverse representation in terms of ethnicity and a little bit in terms of body shape o Google search of models - consistently women. ‘World leaders’ almost exclusively men. 2. ‘Those that bring forth from this body a specific repertoire of gestures, postures, and movements’ o Graceful, elegant, not taking up too much physical space, quite passive actions, sexualised. Modesty juxtaposed with the sexualisation of women in the media. Posture should be very close and tight. o Rion Sabean, ‘Men-Ups!’ same poses that women are often made to do, when done by men looks quite ridiculous o According to Bartky “Women are more restricted than men in their manner of movement and in their spatiality” (p. 66). o “All the movements we have described so far are self- movements; they arise from within the woman’s own body. But in a way that normally goes unnoticed, males in couples may literally steer a woman everywhere she goes” (Bartky, p. 68). o Touch is associated with power. More powerful men being more comfortable slouching their legs around, touching people in general but mostly women and subordinate employees. o Smiling, women are often told they should look happier whereas men o Men - display of dominance but also sometimes just habituated to. Sometimes social pressure for dominance for males. o Manspreading etc. 3. ‘Those that are directed toward the display of this body as an ornamental surface’ o A lot goes into creating a feminine look o Self discipline, whereas some is explicitly done, disciplining from other people o Argument for the room for movement for women vs. men o

‘Discipline’ without force… ‘Who are the disciplinarians?’ (Bartky) Mundane norms, resistance & the limits of choice  Carey et al. (2011) australian school girls, strong appearance culture. Choosing to conform. Gavey et al. (2010, unpub study)  Gendered norms of beautification - Auckland school balls  At the afterball at a prominent boys school in Auckland had cage dancing and Las Vegas styled show girls for entertainment. How did those at the afterball think about gender norms and sexuality?  Interviewed approximately 20 people.  Less prone to critically looking at things like the beautification process, whereas people did look critically at the cage dancers etc Fahs & Delgado (2011)  Gender, race, and class norms for body hair and the consequences of breaking these

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Exercise for women to stop removing body hair & men to start removing body hair Wrote experiences of this in their journal How much negative response women received when they stopped removing body hair from their partners as well as family members The removal of body hair was associated with cleanliness and hygiene Femininity and respectability and cleanliness and decency as a person were under question through the simple act of not removing body hair

Marianne Wex’s photographic study (1979) Let’s take back our space: “Female” and “Male” body language as a result of Patriarchal Structures  Detailed analysis of series of photographs of women and men in public places highlighting the subtle different gender norms/differences in how they hold their bodies  At a young age in even more stylised photos, girls and boys were posed differently: men with their legs apart, arms apart, taking up space, women typically have knees close together  Expansiveness of male posture; compactness of woman  Women often have bags on their laps Sporting images  Women; neat and tidy, hands in (compared to 2018 though, the Silver Ferns are depicted as far more active)  Men; active, aggressive, taking up space  Watch http://exposure.org/commercial/sweet-little-girls/ Bartky  “Women’s body language speaks eloquen...