[MUSIC] In this lecture, we will discuss a range of different ways that gender has been theorized. A theory typically refers to a conjecture, a supposition, or a hypothesis about how something functions or how something is produced, sustained, or reproduced. A theory provides us with the tools and the language to articulate complex processes. A theory is an essential component of social justice and inclusive practices. The ability to think thoughtfully and critically about gender differences was central to the advancement of women's rights globally. Theories of gender continue to be instrumental in the fight for trans rights. In the following comments, we will explore a range of key concepts and topics in gender theory. This brief introduction will provide a solid foundation for considering the relationship between theories of gender and gender equality more broadly. The first and perhaps, most notable divide in theories of gender is the nature versus nurture debates. Why are men and women different? Is it nature, our biology or is it nurture, how we are raised and socialized? Why are some of us feminine and some of us masculine? Why do some of us present aspects of both masculine and feminine qualities? And why do some seem to prefer neither? It's fairly common for people to think that gender exists in its current forms because it is natural. By this frame, gender merely reflects our bodily differences. This view or this theory of gender is an essentialist theory of gender. Essentialist theories, commonly referred to as essentialism or biological essentialism, rely on pretty simple data, your body determines your gender. Essentialists believe that nature is the greatest predictor of gender. This is easily the most common understanding of gender worldwide. And yet as my questions here indicate, biology is not destiny. People with similar bodies have radically different gender expressions. This is true across cultures and across time. Our ideas about men as, an example are really different city by city and culture by culture. Social constructionists or theorists that believe that nurture or socialization plays the largest role in gender identity take a very different approach. They argue that bodies are in fact different, but we ascribe meaning to these differences. And one way we do this is through our deeply socialized ideas about gender. Consider how quickly children are socialized into one gender category or another. In most parts of the world, boys and girls are treated as radically different kinds of people. Social constructionist theory, theory that attributes gender differences to social ideas and practices claims that communities produce and reproduce ideas about gender through daily interactions, through ideas about what we can do or what we are particularly good at. Including cultural beliefs that strongly influence the kinds of jobs and careers we pursue as men or women. In gender is even produce through ideas about how we relate to others emotionally? Take a really obvious example about emotions. In some cultures, including the US, people claim that men cry less the women. It's really an odd idea, people cry, people have tear ducts, people have emotions. Ideas about gender produce the cultural myth that boys and men do not cry. If this is true and it rarely is, because I suspect that all of or most of the men in your lives cry sometimes and the boys too, is it because of nature? No, I think the data would dispute that pretty quickly since men can cry, they have the physical capacity to do this. So if it is true, it is because of nurture, social constructs that urge men to cry less, ideas that make it acceptable for women to cry and not men. Ideally, crying wouldn't be gendered. We wouldn't make direct links between your gender identity and your capacity to cry. This would allow for the full expression of human emotions in all genders. Social constructionists theories of gender can help us to see this a bit more clearly. And it might even make us question why we continue to reproduce some of our shared myths about gender and gender difference. Early theories of gender focused on what is commonly called the woman question. When countries were deciding, whether or not women were able to vote, or whether women should be allowed to vote, this is known as women's suffrage. This really was a question about what we can do and cannot do based on our gender. Different questions have emerged in different countries at different times. Can women go to the university? Can women own property? Can they serve in the military? Can they coach men's sport teams? Can they wear pants? Can they ride horses? Do they have the right to birth control, etc? All of these questions, many of which seem really foreign to the present when women are doing all of these things quite well, hinge on the idea that biology is destiny. Social constructionist theory was central to rethinking our shared beliefs about gender. Significantly, feminist psychoanalysis helped to clarify the process of gender identity formation in ways that paved the way for more advanced thinking about how we experience the world. A psychoanalysis refers to a range of practices and techniques that are associated with the Austrian Dr. Sigmund Freud. Freud focused on some fairly abstract processes, our development within the family dynamic, our unconscious thought processes that largely drive much of our behavior. And perhaps, more essential to this conversation, our sexual cells, how we identify more broadly and how we come to that identity. By focusing on the inner processes of identity formation, the intricate details of how we come into being as men, as women, or as any gender. Freud developed theoretical language to capture what is largely an unseen process. Just like any theory, it helped us to make sense of and to capture in language the development of gender and, more importantly, the development of a gendered sense of self, what we call gender identity. Other fields like sociology, a discipline that focuses on human societies and social problems took up the question of gender by focusing on gender roles. Most cultures have gender roles, the expectation that we will do something simply because of our gender and our anatomy. This can be spiritual and it can also be practical or functional. As an example, gender can be a way to organize the work of the household, men provide women care. Are we naturally better at one role or the other? Perhaps, we are, but if this is the case, social constructionism and role theory would indicate that this natural propensity is actually learned. The education begins very early, gender socialization occurs so early, in fact, that it seems natural. To capture how gender is socially constructed, a theorist introduced the idea that gender is not what someone is, but what someone does. In 1987, Candace West and Don Zimmerman introduced the idea of doing gender, to use their words. West and Zimmerman argued that gender is a quote, routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interactions, end quote. By locating gender in every day interactions, in what we do, not what we are, West and Zimmerman invited us to think about gender as ritualized behaviors, rather than as internal essences or biological truths. In short, it loosens the grip of biological essentialism and it shifted the focus from biology to conduct behavior and routine. It's important to note that a lot of these early inquiries into gender focused on trans people's lives and experiences. In West and Zimmerman's piece, a woman named Agnes is featured as a key example of their doing gender theory. At the time of publication, Agnes identified as a trans woman. Trans people are routinely featured in gender theory as key examples of human variation. They're held up as evidence, as key proof that biology is not always destiny. This might be compelling or fascinating evidence and indeed it is fascinating in some sense. If you are routinely told that biology equals the truth of the body, you might be surprised by trans experience. However, if you are willing to accept that human variation is very common, if you accept that few of us follow all of the rules of gender in any given society, trans experience is not so surprising. In queer and trans communities, globally, we tend to accept that humans vary, gender varies. We recognize that their are a lots of different ways to be men, women, or any other gender. Difference is not surprising. If we know anything about nature, in fact, its that it's unpredictable, wild even. But the point here about Agnes and using Agnes or any trans person is the ultimate example of gender variation. Is that focusing exclusively on trans people can produce a minority view of gender. Such a view would assume that most of us are naturally gendered, but some of us fall off of this natural path. This is the opposite of a universalizing theory of gender, a theory that assumes that all of us are doing gender, in often unpredictable or unique ways. In fact, most of us are off the gender path in some way. You do not need to examine trans lives to see this. You can see this in most cases and in people who do not identify as transgender. In the 1990s, theories of gender performativity took shape in the academic communities, largely due to Judith Butler's seminal text gender trouble. Butler argues that gender is a performance or a set of acts that solidifies into a coherent identity. It's fairly common to think of gender as an interior essence that causes us to perform specific acts. Butler reverses this formula by claiming that our acts provide the illusion of a stable and knowable interior self. Butler also does this through trans performance by focusing on drag, a performance art in which people use clothing and performance to display a whole range of identities, most notably gender. The most iconic figure in drag is the drag queen typically recognized as a man who performs in women's clothing. Through this example, Butler invites us to think of all gender as drag, not just the drag queen's gender. In fact, some think this is exactly what drag is all about. They see drag as a subversive form that exposes the performance of gender more broadly. Ultimately Butler's theory seems to have produced a universalizing theory of gender performance by claiming that we're all performing gender. If we're all performing, then there is no sense of a real or fake gender. We're all copies of copies or copies of culturally produced ideas about bodies and gender. This is pretty key when you consider that trans folks are often not considered real men or women. If we're all copies, all bodies in the process of becoming and being, then none of us can be more real than the other. In any given place or time, people have really different ideas about gender. Many people believe that gender is both nature and nurture. Theories of gender allow us to think more critically and more thoughtfully about gender. And to think about how we might participate in ideas about gender that deeply impact people in our communities. [MUSIC]
