Gender Paper
Gender
IDEAS, INTERACTIONS, INSTITUTIONS
Secon d edi t ion
Sociology TiTleS
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American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on
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Gender
LiSa Wa de
occidental college
M y r a M a r x Fer r ee
University of WisconsinMadison
n
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wade, Lisa (Professor), author. | Ferree, Myra Marx, author.
Title: Gender / Lisa Wade, Occidental College, Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin,
Madison.
Description: Second Edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2018] | Revised edition
of the authors Gender : ideas, interactions, institutions, [2015] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018039801 | ISBN 9780393667967 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex role. | Sex differences. | Feminist theory.
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aboUt the aUthorS
Lisa Wade is an associate professor of sociology at Occi-
dental College in Los Angeles, where she does research at
the intersection of gender, sexuality, culture, and the body.
She earned an MA in human sexuality from New York Uni-
versity and an MS and PhD in sociology from the University
of WisconsinMadison. She is the author of over three dozen
research papers, book chapters, and educational essays. Her
newest book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on
Campus, is the definitive account of contemporary collegiate
sexual culture. Aiming to reach audiences outside of aca-
demia, Dr. Wade appears frequently in print, radio, and tele-
vision news and opinion outlets. You can learn more about
her at lisa-wade.com or follow her on Twitter (@lisawade) or
Facebook (/lisawadephd).
Myra Marx Ferree is the Alice H. Cook Professor of
Sociology at the University of WisconsinMadison. She is
the author of Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics
in Global Perspective (2012), co-author of Shaping Abortion
Discourse (2002) and Controversy and Coalition (2000), and
co-editor of Gender, Violence and Human Security (2013),
Global Feminism (2006), and Revisioning Gender (1998) as
well as numerous articles and book chapters. Dr. Ferree is
the recipient of various prizes for contributions to gender
studies, including the Jessie Bernard Award and Victo-
ria Schuck Award. She continues to do research on global
gender politics.
http://www.lisa-wade.com
http://www.facebook.com/lisawadephd
pr eFace ix
1 INTRODUCTION 3
2 IDEAS 9
The Binary and Our Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Gender Ideologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Binary and Everything Else . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3 BODIES 39
Research on Sex Differences and Similarities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Defining Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Similarities Between the Sexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4 PERFORMANCES 67
How to Do Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Learning the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Why We Follow the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
How to Break the Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The No. 1 Gender Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5 INTERSECTIONS 93
Intersectionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Economic Class and Residence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Sexual Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Immigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Ability, Age, and Attractiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6 INEQUALITY: MEN AND MASCULINITIES 125
The Gender of Cheerleading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Gendered Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Gender for Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Can Masculinity Be Good? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
contentS
viii
7 INEQUALITY: WOMEN AND FEMININITIES 159
Cheerleading Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Gender for Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
The Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
8 INSTITUTIONS 191
The Organization of Daily Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Gendered Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
The Institutionalization of Gender Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
The Institutionalization of Gender Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Institutional Inertia and Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
9 CHANGE 219
The Evolution of Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
The Evolution of Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
The Funny 50s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Going to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Work and Family Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
10 SExUALITIES 251
Sex: The Near History of Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Sex and Liberation Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Gendered Sexualities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
College Hookup Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
11 FAMILIES 287
Gendered Housework and Parenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Barriers to Equal Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Going It Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
New, Emerging, and Erstwhile Family Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
12 WORK 321
The Changing Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Job Segregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Discrimination and Preferential Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Parenthood: The Facts and the Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
The Changing Workplace, Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
13 POLITICS 357
The State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Social Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
14 CONCLUSION 389
GLOssary 397
NOTes 405
crediTs 485
iNdex 487
c o n t e n t s
PreFace
Writing a textbook is a challenge even for folks with lots of teaching experience
in the subject matter. We would never have dared take on this project without
Karl Bakemans initial encouragement. His confidence in our vision was inspir-
ing and kept us going until the project could be placed into the very capable
hands of Sasha Levitt, who ushered the first edition to completion with her
meticulous reading, thoughtful suggestions, and words of encouragement. Sasha
has since become an invaluable part of the revision process, with a perfect mix
of stewardship, cheerleading, and collaborative fact-checking. She has kept us
on target conceptually as well as chronologically, challenged us to think hard
about the points that first-edition readers had raised, and yet kept the revision
process smoothly moving forward to meet our deadlines. Without her firm hand
on the tiller, our occasional excursions into the weeds might have swamped
the revision with unnecessary changes, but her attention to updating sources
kept us cheerful with the new evidence we landed. The revision might have bal-
looned with the new material we identified, but her editorial eye has kept us in
our word limits without sacrificing anything important. Sasha has become a
true partner in the difficult process of adding the new without losing the old,
and we could not have pulled it off without her.
Of course, Karl and Sasha are but the top of the mountain of support that
Norton has offered from beginning to end. The many hands behind the scenes
include project editor Diane Cipollone for keeping us on schedule and collating
our changes, production manager Ashley Horna for turning a manuscript into
the pages you hold now, assistant editors Erika Nakagawa and Thea Goodrich
for their logistical help in preparing that manuscript, designer Jillian Burr for
her keen graphic eye, and our copyeditor, Katharine Ings, for crossing our ts
and dotting our is. The many images that enrich this book are thanks to photo
editors Travis Carr and Stephanie Romeo and photo researchers Elyse Rieder
and Rona Tuccillo. We are also grateful to have discovered Leland Bobb, the artist
x
whose half-drag portraits fascinated us. Selecting just one for the first edition was a col-
laborative process aided by the further creative work of Jillian Burr and Debra Morton
Hoyt. Selecting a second was equally exciting and challenging. Were grateful for the
result: striking covers that we hope catch the eye and spark conversation.
We would also like to thank the reviewers who commented on drafts of the book and
its revision in various stages: Rachel Allison, Shayna Asher-Shapiro, Phyllis L. Baker,
Kristen Barber, Miriam Barcus, Shira Barlas, Sarah Becker, Dana Berkowitz, Emily Birn-
baum, Natalie Boero, Catherine Bolzendahl, Valerie Chepp, Nancy Dess, Lisa Dilks,
Mischa DiBattiste, Erica Dixon, Mary Donaghy, Julia Eriksen, Angela Frederick, Jessica
Greenebaum, Nona Gronert, Lee Harrington, Sarah Hayford, Penelope Herideen, Mel-
anie Hughes, Miho Iwata, Rachel Kaplan, Madeline Kiefer, Rachel Kraus, Carrie Lacy,
Thomas J. Linneman, Caitlin Maher, Gul Aldikacti Marshall, Janice McCabe, Karyn
McKinney, Carly Mee, Beth Mintz, Joya Misra, Beth Montemurro, Christine Mowery,
Stephanie Nawyn, Madeleine Pape, Lisa Pellerin, Megan Reid, Gwen Sharp, Mimi Schip-
pers, Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer, Kazuko Suzuki, Jaita Talukdar, Rachel Terman, Mieke
Beth Thomeer, Kristen Williams, and Kersti Alice Yllo, as well as the students at Babson
College, Occidental College, Nevada State College, and the University of Wisconsin
Madison who agreed to be test subjects. Our gratitude goes also to the users of the first
edition who offered us valuable feedback on what they enjoyed and what they found miss-
ing, either directly or through Norton. Weve tried to take up their suggestions by not
merely squeezing in occasional new material but by rethinking the perspectives and
priorities that might have left such concerns on the cutting room floor the first time
around. We hope the balance we have struck is satisfying but are always open to further
criticism and suggestions.
Most of all, we are happy to discover that we could collaborate in being creative over
the long term of this project, contributing different talents at different times, and jump-
ing the inevitable hurdles without tripping each other up. In fact, we were each others
toughest critic and warmest supporter. Once upon a time, Lisa was Myras student, but in
finding ways to communicate our interest and enthusiasm to students, we became a team.
In the course of the revision, we came to appreciate each others strengths more than ever
and rejoice in the collegial relationship we had in making the revision happen. We hope
you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed making it.
Lisa Wade
Myra Marx Ferree
p r e f a c e
Gender
IDEAS, INTERACTIONS, INSTITUTIONS
Secon d edi t ion
a man in heels is ridiculous.
ch r ist i a n lou bou t i n
3
introduction
Among the most vicious and effective killers who have ever lived were the men of the Persian army. In the late 1500s, under the reign of Abbas I, these soldiers defeated the
Uzbeks and the Ottomans and reconquered provinces lost to India
and Portugal, earning the admiration of all of Europe. Their most
lethal advantage was the high heel.1 Being on horseback, heels
kept their feet in the stirrups when they rose up to shoot their mus-
kets. It gave them deadly aim. The first high-heeled shoe, it turns
out, was a weapon of war.
Enthralled by the military mens prowess, European male aris-
tocrats began wearing high heels in their daily lives of leisure,
using the shoe to borrow some of the Persian armys masculine
mystique. In a way, they were like todays basketball fans wearing
Air Jordans. The aristocrats werent any better on the battlefield
than your average Bulls fan is on the court, but the shoes sym-
bolically linked them to the soldiers extraordinary achievements.
The shoes invoked a distinctly manly power related to victory in
battle, just as the basketball shoes link the contemporary wearer
to Michael Jordans amazing athleticism.
As with most fashions, there was trickle down. Soon men of all
classes were donning high heels, stumbling around the cobble stone
streets of Europe feeling pretty suave. And then women decided
1
Chapter 1 I n t r o d u c t I o n4
they wanted a piece of the action, too. In the 1630s,
masculine fashions were in for ladies. They
cut their hair, added military decorations to the
shoulders of their dresses, and smoked pipes. For
women, high heels were nothing short of mascu-
line mimicry.
These early fashionistas irked the aristocrats
who first borrowed the style. The whole point of
nobility, after all, was to be above everyone else.
In response, the elites started wearing higher and
higher heels. Frances King Louis XIV even decreed
that no one was allowed to wear heels higher than
his.2 In the New World, the Massachusetts colony
passed a law saying that any woman caught wear-
ing heels would incur the same penalty as a witch.3
But the masses persisted. And so the aristo-
crats shifted strategies: They dropped high heels
altogether. It was the Enlightenment now, and
there was an accompanying shift toward logic
and reason. Adopting the philosophy that it was
intelligencenot heel heightthat bestowed superiority, aristocrats donned
flats and began mocking people who wore high heels, suggesting that wear-
ing such impractical shoes was the height of stupidity.
Ever since, the shoe has remained mostly out of fashion for mencow-
boys excluded, of course, and disco notwithstandingbut its continued to
tweak the toes of women in every possible situation, from weddings to the
workplace. No longer at risk of being burned at the stake, women are allowed
to wear high heels, now fully associated with femaleness in the American
imagination. Some women even feel pressure to do so, particularly if they
are trying to look pretty or professional. And there remains the sense that
the right pair brings a touch of class.
The attempts by aristocrats to keep high heels to themselves are part of
a phenomenon that sociologists call distinction, a word used to describe
efforts to distinguish ones own group from others. In this historical exam-
ple, we see elite men working hard to make a simultaneously class- and
gender-based distinction. If the aristocrats had had their way, only rich men
would have ever worn high heels. Today high heels continue to serve as a
marker of gender distinction. With few exceptions, only women (and peo –
pleimpersonating women) wear high heels.
Distinction is a main theme of this book. The word gender only exists
because we distinguish between people in this particular way. If we didnt
shah abbas i, who ruled Persia between
1588 and 1629, shows off not only his
scimitar, but also his high heels.
I n t r o d u c t I o n 5
care about distinguishing men from women, the
whole concept would be utterly unnecessary.
We dont, after all, tend to have words for phys-
ical differences that dont have meaning to us.
For exam ple, we dont make a big deal out of the
fact that some people have the gene that allows
them to curl their tongue and some people dont.
Theres no concept of tongue aptitude that refers
to the separation of people into the curly tongued
and the flat tongued. Why would we need such
a thing? The vast majority of us just dont care.
Likewise, the ability to focus ones eyes on a close
or distant object isnt used to signify status and
being right-handed is no longer considered bet-
terthan being left-handed.
Gender, then, is about distinction. Like tongue
aptitude, vision, and handedness, it is a biological
reality. We are a species that reproduces sex ually.
We come, roughly, in two body types: a female
one built to gestate new life and a male one made
to mix up the genes of the species. The word sex
is used to refer to these physical differences in
pri mary sexual charac teristics (the presence of
organs directly involved in reproduction) and sec-
ondary sexual characteristics (such as patterns
of hair growth, the amount of breast tissue, and
distribution of body fat). We usually use the words
male and female to refer to sex, but we can also use male-bodied and
female-bodied to specify that sex refers to the body and may not extend to
how a person feels or acts. And, as well see, not every body fits neatly into
one category or the other.
Unlike tongue aptitude, vision, and handedness, we make the biology of
sex socially significant. When we differentiate between men and women,
for example, we also invoke blue and pink baby blankets, suits and dresses,
Maxim and Cosmopolitan magazines, and action movies and chick flicks.
These are all examples of the world divided up into the masculine and the
feminine, into things we associate with men and women. The word gender
refers to the symbolism of masculinity and femininity that we connect to
being male-bodied or female-bodied.
Symbols matter because they indicate what bodily differences mean in
prac tice. They force us to try to fit our bodies into constraints that pinch
both physically and symbolically, as high heels do. They prompt us to invent
louis XiV, king of France from 1643 to
1715, gives himself a boost with big
hair and high heels.
Chapter 1 I n t r o d u c t I o n6
ways around bodily limitations, as eyeglasses do. They are part of our collec-
tive imaginations and, accordingly, the stuff out of which we create human
reality. Gender symbolism shapes not just our identities and the ideas in our
heads, but workplaces, families, and schools, and our options for navigating
through them.
This is where distinction comes in. Much of what we believe about men
and womeneven much of what we imagine is strictly biologicalis not
naturally occurring difference that emerges from our male and female bod-
ies. Instead, its an outcome of active efforts to produce and maintain differ-
ence: a sea of peo ple working together every day to make men masculine
and women feminine, and signify the relative importance of masculinity
and femininity in every domain.
Commonly held ideas, and the behaviors that both uphold and challenge
them, are part of culture: a groups shared beliefs and the practices and
material things that reflect them. Human lives are wrapped in this cultural
meaning, like the powerful masculinity once ascribed to high heels. So gen der
isnt merely biological; its cultural. Its the result of a great deal of human
effort guided by shared cultural ideas.
one of these people is not like the others. We perform gendered distinctions like the one shown
here every day, often simply out of habit.
I n t r o d u c t I o n 7
Why would people put so much effort into maintaining this illusion of
distinction?
Imagine those aristocratic tantrums: pampered, wig-wearing, face-
powdered men stomping their high-heeled feet in frustration with the lowly
copycats. How dare the masses blur the line between us, they may have cried.
Today it might sound silly, ridiculous even, to care about who does and
doesnt wear high heels. But at the time it was a very serious matter. Success-
ful efforts at distinction ensured that these elite men really seemed different
and, more importantly, bet ter than women and other types of men. This was
at the very core of the aristocracy: the idea that some people truly are supe-
riorand, by virtue of their superi ority, entitled to hoard wealth and monop-
olize power. They had no superpowers with which to claim superiority, no
actual proof that God wanted things that way, no biological trait that gave
them an obvious advantage. What did they have to dis tinguish themselves?
They had high heels.
Without high heels, or other symbols of superiority, aristocrats couldnt
make a claim to the right to rule. Without difference, in other words, there
could be no hierarchy. This is still true today. If one wants to argue that
Group A is superior to Group B, there must be distinguishable groups. We
cant think more highly of one type of person than another unless we have
at least two types. Distinction, then, must be maintained if we are going to
value certain types of people more than others, allowing them to demand
more power, attract more prestige, and claim the right to extreme wealth.
Wealth and power continue to be hoarded and monopolized. These
ine qual ities continue to be justifiedmade to seem normal and naturalby
prod ucing differences that make group membership seem meaningful and
inequality inevi table or right. We all engage in actions designed to align
ourselves with some people and differentiate ourselves from others. Thus
we see the persistence of social classes, racial and ethnic categories, the
urban-rural divide, gay and straight iden tities, liberal and conservative par-
ties, and various Christian and Muslim sects, among other distinctions.
These categories arent all bad; they give us a sense of belonging and bring
joy and pleasure into our lives. But they also serve as clas sifications by
which societies unevenly distribute power and privilege.
Gender is no different in this regard. There is a story to tell about both dif-
ference and hierarchy and it involves both pleasure and pain. Well wait a bit
before we seriously tackle the problem of gender inequality, spending sev-
eral chapters learning just how enjoyable studying gender can be. Therell
be funny parts and fascinating parts. Youll meet figure skaters and football
players, fish and flight attendants and, yes, feminists, too. Eventually well get
to the part that makes you want to throw the book across the room. We wont
take it personally. For now, lets pick up right where we started, with distinction.
The ones wiTh eyelashes are girls;
boys donT have eyelashes.
Fou r-y e a r-ol d e r i n descr i bes h e r dr aw i ng 1
9
ideas
Most of us use the phrase opposite sexes when describing the categories of male and female. Its a telling phrase. There are other ways to express this relationship. It was
once common, for example, to use the phrase the fairer sex or
the second sex to describe women. We could simply say the
other sex, a more neutral phrase. Or, even, an other sex, which
leaves open the possibility of more than two. Today, though, peo-
ple usually describe men and women as opposites.
Seventeenth-century Europeansthe same ones fighting over
high heelsdidnt believe in opposite sexes; they didnt even
believe in two sexes.2 They believed men and women were better
and worse versions of the same sex, with identical reproductive
organs that were just arranged differently: Mens genitals were
pushed out of the body, while womens remained inside. As Fig-
ure 2.1 shows, they saw the vagina as simply a penis that hadnt
emerged from the body; the womb as a scrotum in the belly; the
ovaries just internal testes. As the lyrics to one early song put it:
Women are but men turned outside in.3
Seventeenth-century anatomists were wrong, of course. Were
not the same sex. The uterus and fallopian tubes of the female
body come from an embryonic structure that is dissolved during
male fetal development. Conversely, mens internal sexual and
2
Chapter 2 I D E A S10
reproductive plumbing has no corollary inside most women. The penis is
not a protruding vagina, nor the vagina a shy penis.
But the idea that we are opposite sexes is not completely right either. The
penis and scrotum do have something in common with female anatomy.
The same tissue that becomes the scrotum in males becomes the outer labia
in females; the penis and the clitoris are formed of the same erectile tissue
and clustered nerve endings; and testes and ovaries are both gonads that
make germ cells (sperm and eggs), one just a modified version of the other.
If youre curious what it feels like to have the genitals of the other sexand
who hasnt wondered?the truth is you probably already have a pretty good
idea just by having genitals yourself. Our bodies are all human, developing
from the same blob of tissue, modified to enable sexual reproduction. So
while its not perfectly correct to say theres only one sex, neither is it per-
fectly correct to say were opposites.
Nevertheless, opposite is the word we use, and it has strong implications:
that whatever one sex is, the other simply is not. Today most people in most
Western countries are familiar with this idea, referred to in sociology as the
f i g u r e 2 . 1 | 17th century illustration
of the vagina and uterus
This anatomical illustration from 1611 of the interior of a vagina (left)
and the exterior of a vagina and uterus (right) shows the renaissance
idea of female genitaliaan internal phallus.
11i d e a s
gender binary. The word binary refers to a system with two and only two
separate and distinct parts, like binary code (the 1s and 0s used in comput-
ing) or a binary star system (in which two stars orbit each other). So the term
gender binary refers to the idea that there are only two types of people
male-bodied people who are masculine and female-bodied people who are
feminineand those types are fundamentally different and contrasting.
Because we tend to think in terms of a gender binary, we routinely speak
about men as if theyre all the same and likewise for women. The nervous
parent might warn his thirteen-year-old daughter, for example, boys only
want one thing, while the Valentines Day commercial insists all women
love chocolate. In fact, most of us embrace gender categories in daily life
and talk about men and women as if membership in one of these catego-
ries says a great deal about a person. We might say Im such a girl! when
we confess were addicted to strawberry lip balm, or repeat the refrain boys
will be boys when observing the antics of a young male cousin. If were
feeling hurt, we mi
