Stereotypes about men and women are especially dangerous because they affect every one of us. To expect all men to be successful, strong, athletic, brave leaders places an impractical burden on them. To expect all women to be sweet, submissive, pretty, and born with a natural love of housekeeping places tremendous pressure on them to conform.

A Perspective

Sexism is “the belief that innate psychological, behavioral, and/or intellectual differences exist between women and men and that these differences connote the superiority of one group and the inferiority of the other” (Mooney, Knox, & Schacht, 2017, p. 321).

Prejudice involves negative attitudes and prejudgments about a group.  Discrimination is the actual treatment of that group’s members in a negative or unfair manner. Aspects of diversity directly affect how individuals function and interact with other systems in the social environment. The aspect of diversity addressed here is gender. First, the concepts of gender, gender identity, and gender expression will be addressed. Then, because men in our society have traditionally held the majority of positions of power, a large portion of this chapter will focus on the state and status of women as victims of sexism.

9-1 Define Gender, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Gender Roles

LO 1

This chapter will explore various aspects of what it’s like to be male or female. It will also address differential and sometimes discriminatory treatment based on gender. In an overly simplistic view of the world, one might think that a person is either a male or a female—period. As you will see, the concept of gender is much more complex than you might initially think. First, let’s define our basic terms.

According to the American Psychological Association (2011),  gender is defined as “the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as gender-normative; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations constitute gender nonconformity.”

Gender is becoming a complicated concept. Researchers and educators are challenging the binary view of gender (being categorically defined as only male or female), recognizing instead that other genders have been recognized, such as genderqueer or intergender (Mooney, Knox, & Schacht, 2017: Hyde & DeLamater, 2017).

The title of this chapter includes gender identity and gender expression.  Gender identity is a person’s internal psychological self-concept of being either male or female, or possibly some combination of both (Gilbert, 2008).  Gender expression concerns how we express ourselves to others in ways related to gender that include both behavior and personality.

Gender roles are “the attitudes, behaviors, rights, and responsibilities that particular cultural groups associate with our assumed or assigned sex” (Yaber & Sayad, 2016, p. 124).

Gender-role socialization is the process of conveying what is considered appropriate behavior and perspectives for males and females in a particular culture.

We will differentiate the concepts of gender and sex.  Sex “refers to the biological distinction between being female and being male, usually categorized on the basis of the reproductive organs and genetic makeup” (McCammon & Knox, 2007, p. 606). Sex, then, focuses on the biological qualities of being male or female; gender emphasizes social and psychological aspects of femaleness or maleness. The following section will explore how we can think theoretically about gender and its implications.

9-2 Discuss the Social Construction of Gender

LO 2

We can look at the concept of gender in many ways. One conceptual framework that fits well with a social work perspective is the  social constructionist approach (Bay-Cheng, 2008; Kondrat, 2008). Social construction is “the process by which people’s perception of reality is shaped largely by the subjective meaning that they give to an experience … From this perspective, little shared reality exists beyond that which people socially create. It is, however, this social construction of reality that influences people’s beliefs and actions” (Kendall, 2013, p. 14). In other words, how people think about situations as they interact with others becomes what is real to them. It’s easy to view the world around us as a physical fact. However, social construction reveals that “we also apply subjective meanings to our existence and experience. In other words, our experiences don’t just happen to us. Good, bad, positive, or negative—we attach meanings to our reality” (Leon-Guerrero, 2011, p. 9).

A positive aspect of the social constructionist approach is that it incorporates the concept of human diversity, a major focus in social work. People learn how they’re expected to behave through their interactions with others around them. People’s behavior will differ depending on the vast range of circumstances in which they find themselves. Therefore, human diversity should be accepted and appreciated.

Lorber and Moore (2011) note that gender is one’s “legal status as a woman or man, usually based on sex assigned at birth, but may be legally changed. Gender status produces patterns of social expectations for bodies, behavior, emotions, family and work roles. Gendered expectations can change over time both on individual and social levels” (p. 5). At least three major points are stressed in these comments. First, gender is a legal status, usually determined at birth, that can be changed. Second, gender status results from social expectations. Therefore, the makeup of gender is determined by the social context in which a person lives. Third, expectations for how people of each gender are supposed to act can change over time, depending on the expectations of people around them.

the differences between females and males are not based in some biologically determined truth. For example, in the nineteenth century, affluent white women in the United States were expected to stay at home once their pregnancies were apparent (a period called “confinement”) and to be treated as infirm for weeks after delivery. Enslaved women, in contrast, worked until going into labor and resumed work shortly afterward. The impact of pregnancy and childbirth on a woman’s physical capacities was constructed differently depending on social categories other than her sex …

But social construction … refers to the social practice of perceiving and defining aspects of people and situations inconsistently, to force our observations to fit our social beliefs. Thus, before the women’s movement (which started in the late 1960s), the scoring of vocational tests, taken by people to determine what careers they might best follow, was done with two answer keys—one for females and one for males. Even if your answers were identical to those of someone of the other sex, the vocational advice was different.

For a more dramatic example, the very notion that all humans can be clearly and without argument categorized as female or male is a social construction. Some people have chromosomal patterns associated with one sex, and they have primary (genital) sex characteristics or secondary (e.g., facial hair) sex characteristics, or both, associated with the other [as a later section addresses]. Some people have genitalia that are not clearly what our culture labels either “male” or “female.” These variations in people’s biological characteristics are more common than our cultural beliefs suggest …

Because so many social statuses have gendered expectations attached to them, people may often find themselves, one way or another, feeling marginal to some sphere of their social lives. This affects the way that they perform their roles and the ways that others interact with them, affecting how they are able to perform their roles. They will have to put more energy into establishing their credentials in each position to be treated as a legitimate occupant of it by others. If the veteran is a woman returning to military service, in some ways she will be marginalized; both male veterans and nonveteran females feel that she is somehow not a “regular” member of their own category. If you have read the last sentence believing that times have changed, go to your local post office and look at the forms for registering for the Selective Service. Men must register, and women cannot. (pp. 3–5)

9-3 Examine the Complexities of Gender, Gender Identify, and Gender Expression

LO 3

As stated previously, gender is not a simple concept. Consider the following story (Colapinto, 2007).

Frank and Linda, both raised in religious families on farms, met in their mid-teens and married when they were ages 20 and 18, respectively. Making a move to an urban area, Frank got what he regarded as a great job. The couple soon joyfully discovered they were expecting twins. Much to their delight, identical twins John and Kevin were born to them on August 22, 1965.

But when the twins were 7 months old, Linda noticed that their foreskins were closing, making it hard for them to urinate. Then pediatrician explained that the condition, called phimosis, was not rare and was easily remedied by circumcision. Linda and Frank then sought to remedy the condition through surgery.

But early the next morning [after surgery], they were jarred from sleep by a ringing phone. It was the hospital. “There’s been a slight accident,” a nurse told Linda. “The doctor needs to see you right away.”

Appalled and frantically worried, Frank and Linda visited a range of specialists. They were told that it might be possible to construct a structure from skin grafts, but that this penis would neither look like nor function like a normal penis. Its only useful purpose would be urination. Frank and Linda foresaw a bleak and dismal future for John who would always be very different and would never really experience a normal life.

Finally, Frank and Linda came into contact with a charismatic famous physician who was just beginning to conduct transsexual surgery. Remember that the state of practice was unfamiliar and primitive compared to what can be accomplished medically and surgically today. This physician urged the couple to undertake corrective surgery to change John’s gender to female as soon as possible. He stressed that gender identity becomes firmly established by age 30 months. Frank and Linda, who only had sixth-grade educations, reflect later on their lack of understanding. They didn’t comprehend that this procedure had never really been performed on an otherwise normal baby before and that such surgery was indeed experimental. Friends and family raised serious questions. But, constantly faced with the poor baby’s deformity, they hoped for the best and decided to proceed.

In 1967 at age 22 months, John “underwent surgical castration” (p. 10). Medical records indicate that the operating physician “slit open the baby’s scrotum along the midline and removed the testes, then enclosed the scrotal tissue so that it resembled labia. The urethra was lowered to approximate the position of the female genitalia, and a cosmetic vaginal cleft was made by forming the skin around a rolled rub of gauze during healing” (p. 10).

Over the next years, Frank and Linda desperately tried to make John, now called Joan, act like a female and develop a female gender identity. The famous physician who persuaded them to have the surgery done in the first place advised them neither to talk about it nor to inform Joan about her real biological gender. Joan’s parents tried to make her wear feminine clothing and play with girls’ toys. However, Joan persistently remained a tomboy, clearly preferring the masculine dress and behavior demonstrated by her brother Kevin. By kindergarten Joan, her peers, and her teacher know that she was “different.” Joan couldn’t identify exactly what this difference was, but she knew she didn’t feel like a girl. She continued to experience interpersonal difficulties throughout grade school.

Joan was given female hormones beginning at age 12. By age 14, “the drugs were in competition with her male endocrine system, which, despite the absence of testicles, was now in the full flood of puberty—a fact readily apparent not only in her loping walk and the angular manliness of her gestures, but also in the dramatic deepening of her voice, which, after a period of breaking and cracking, had dropped into its current rambling register. Physically, her condition was such that strangers turned to stare at her” (p. 18).

At this point, Joan decided that she would henceforth live life the way she chose. She wore masculine clothing, refused to fuss with her hair, and urinated standing up. She “transferred to a technical high school, where she enrolled in an appliance-repair course. There she was quickly dubbed Cave-woman and Sasquatch and was openly told, ‘You’re a boy’ ” (p. 18).

Frank finally explained to Joan/John, at age 14, what had happened and about really being a biological male. After the initial shock, Joan/John’s reaction was pure relief. Suddenly, his life, feelings, and behavior all began to make sense to him.

Joan’s decision to undergo a sex change was immediate. She changed her name to John and demanded male-hormone treatments and surgery to complete her metamorphosis back from girl to boy. That fall, he had his breasts surgically excised; the following summer, a rudimentary penis was constructed. The operation was completed one month prior to his 16th birthday. (p. 19)

When John was 21, he had another operation that provided him with a penis that appeared much more realistic. Nerve transplants provided some sensation.

At 23, John met a woman three years older than himself who already had three children. They married when John was 25, and he adopted her children.

Eventually, John came forward and spoke out against sex reassignment surgery on young children. He shared how devastatingly difficult it had made many years of his life. His hope was to prevent the procedure from being performed on other unknowing innocents.

Very unfortunately, John killed himself in 2004 when he was 38.

Money (1987) proposed that gender is a complex concept involving six physical and two psychological variables:

1. Gender designated by chromosomes, XX for females and XY for males

2. Presence of testes or ovaries

3. Prenatal response in gender and brain development to the presence of testosterone for males and to the lack of it for females

4. Presence of internal organs related to reproduction, including the uterus, fallopian tubes, and vagina in females, and the seminal vesicles and prostate in males

5. Appearance of the external genitals

6. Hormones evident during puberty (estrogen and progesterone in the female, testosterone in the male)

7. Gender assigned at birth (“It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!”)

8. Gender identity, a person’s internal psychological self-concept of being either a male or a female

It is estimated that 1 out of every 1,500 to 2,000 babies born has some combination of physical characteristics demonstrated by both sexes (Crooks & Baur, 2014; Intersex Society of North America [ISNA], 2008a; National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2013a). Reasons include having “an atypical combination of sex chromosomes or as a result of prenatal hormonal irregularities” (Crooks & Baur, 2014, p. 120). For example, Klinefelter’s syndrome is a sex chromosome disorder in which males are born with an extra X chromosome, resulting in an XXY designation; “the Y chromosome triggers the development of male genitalia, but the extra X prevents them from developing fully” (Carroll, 2013b, p. 86). Results include a feminized body appearance, low testosterone levels, small testicles, and, possibly, infertility (Lee, Cheng, Ahmed, Shaw, & Hughes, 2007). Treatment may involve testosterone therapy.

Another example of contradiction in physical gender is a genetic female who as a fetus is exposed to excessive androgens (a class of male hormones); as a result she develops external genitals that resemble a male’s (Crooks & Baur, 2014). Her clitoris is enlarged enough to resemble a penis and the labia (folds of tissue around the vaginal entrance) may converge and resemble a scrotum (the pouch that holds the male testes) (Carroll, 2013b; Crooks & Baur, 2014). When diagnosed at birth, cosmetic surgery can often be performed to “feminize” the person’s genitalia.

There are many other examples of people who have some mixture of male and female predisposition and configuration of reproductive structures. Such a person is referred to as  pseudohermaphrodite or  intersex (Carroll, 2013b, p. 86).