15 April 2010
rev 3/23/11 

Sex and Gender: Analytical Foundations

G93.2227

Spring 2010

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jackson/analysis.of.sex.and.gender


Robert Max Jackson

- a working reading list and syllabus -

Description:

This "page" serves to provide both an extended reading list on gender inequality and the syllabus for a graduate course based on the core of this extended reading list.  The readings are almost all articles (with important books represented by the related scholarly articles) and the list includes direct links to online versions of most of those articles.  These links are aimed at NYU's access and will not be successful for anyone not affiliated with NYU--however, most of the links have the generic, non-NYU link embedded in them which can be extracted for use elsewhere.


     This course will allow the student to understand theoretical developments in the area of gender studies, and it will promote the development of general skills in theoretical criticism and social analysis. In general, this course will concentrate on explaining inequality between women and men: how does it arise, why does it take different forms, why does it vary in degree across societies, what are the components that add up to gender inequality, how do various institutions and practices contribute to it, and how does it change?  The course will emphasize the history of gender inequality in the United States.


Readings & Books for the Class:

    Most of our readings will be articles available for download.  The links will appear in the  on-line version of the course syllabus.  Excerpts from Down So Long ...: The Puzzling Persistence of Gender Inequality (book manuscript by RMJ not yet published) will similarly be available by download from the class web site.  We will read selections from Jackson's book Destined for Equality (Harvard U Press) throughout the course, so it would be wise to buy it or borrow it.  Any student who does not have any background in gender studies, particularly sociological, is likely to benefit from reading through a standard textbook in the area--I recommend Michael Kimmel's Gendered Society (which I use in undergraduate classes).
    Most sections of the syllabus include--beside the common readings--subsections for an analytical task, recommended readings, and related readings.  To simplify navigating through the syllabus, the items in these subsections are hidden until the viewer clicks on the subsection heading, then they will appear.

Course Outline and Readings 

I. Introduction.  What do we mean by gender inequality?

    How can we conceive of and talk about gender inequality in ways that are general enough to apply across the range of relevant phenomena, consistent enough to minimize conceptual ambiguities, and precise enough to be analytically effective?  Gender inequality has been extraordinarily diverse and wide spread.  Women and men are unequal in every conceivable way in endless circumstances, both immediate and enduring, by both objective criteria and subjective experience.  So, what counts as gender inequality? Can we characterize it in ways that let us confidently and impartially assess when there is more or less of it?

II. How is gender inequality symbolized and reproduced in everyday life?

III. Why have women apparently occupied a subordinate position in all societies?

IV.   What determines men's and women's roles and positions within families?

    Family and kinship are potentially relevant to gender inequality in varied ways and a lot of work had pursued such issues.  Probably the two most important general issues involve the ways that women and men are unequal within families and the ways that family organization both contributes to and is influenced by gender inequality beyond the family institution.  We will just touch the surface of these issues this week.

V.  What is the role of sexuality?

    Sexuality has been evoked in multiple ways in the study of gender inequality.  It may be considered as a possible motivating cause for inequality, examined for the ways it reflects or is effected by gender inequality, or incorporated as a peculiar tension between women and men that mediates both the causes and effects of gender inequality.  Essentially everyone recognizes sexuality as critically important to gender inequality, but it eludes comprehensive analysis.

VI. What is the role of sex differences in the functioning and perpetuation of gender inequality?

    Attempts to explain gender inequality at all levels are haunted by essentialism.  Even as they expressly reject the possibility of consequential inherent differences between women and men, theoretical analyses of gender inequality habitually build on gender differences.  For some, essentialism always means a difference based in biology or genetics; for others it includes cultural differences that are embodied in women and men.

VII. What is the role of violence and intimidation in the relationships between men and women? 

    Most theoretical approaches to gender inequality suggest that violence between women and men plays a role in sustaining inequality; some also point toward violence as an initial cause.  A recurring issue concerns the degree to which violence is an expression or result of gender inequality or, alternatively, is a cause of inequality.  The separate roles of rape, harassment, and domestic violence, and their relationships to each other are another critical question.  Much research and argument has also been focused on the question of women's aggressive impulses and actions. 

VIII. What role does ideology play in determining the relations between men and women?

     Ideology is near the center of almost all efforts to explain gender inequalities.  People's conceptions of masculinity and femininity, ideas concerning the fairness of differential treatment  or expectations of women and men, internalized schema that evoke different judgments of women's and men's actions, rules about proper male and female behavior applied to children--all these and more concern the influence of ideology on gender identities, differential treatment of women and men, and the organization and persistence of gender inequality.  Conversely, each ideological belief that symbolizes, legitimates, invokes, guides, induces, or helps sustain gender inequality is itself a product of gender inequality.  To untangle these complex causal interdependencies, we must always attend carefully to two kinds of distinctions.  First, we must consistently recognize differences in levels of social organization, including, among others, societal structures and culture, organizations, social networks, social processes, and individual actors.  While it is tempting to treat ideological beliefs as diffuse entities unconnected to identifiable people, organizations, or structures, the analytical results are poor.  Second, we must consistently distinguish between contemporaneous causes (e.g., the ways that internalized schema can influence interactions) and asynchronous or historical causes (e.g., the ways that changes in domestic production  induce different ideas about women's place). 

IX. How has the economy influenced men and women's positions in society?

    Essentially all analyses of gender inequality give great importance to the economy.  Gender inequality appears everywhere embedded in economic inequality, in the sense that a critical aspect of gender inequality involves unequal access to economic resources and positions.  Sometimes this is understood as an expression of gender inequality, sometimes a cause of gender inequality, sometimes a result. Many analyses consider it all three.

X.  How have men resisted and furthered change?  How have women furthered and resisted change?

    Both women and men have acted in every possible way towards gender inequality.  What we want to understand are the circumstances in which they predictably act in ways that either reinforce or erode inequality.  People's actions complex results of interests, ideology, circumstance, opportunity, and constraint. 

XI.  How have political processes and structures sustained men's and women's relative status?


XII.  What does the future hold?