Gender and Sexuality Studies

Sociology offers a unique perspective on gender and sexuality and their importance in our social world. A sociological perspective transcends biological notions of sex and emphasizes the social and cultural bases of gender. Sociological research points to the ubiquity of gender’s influence in both private and public spheres, and it identifies differences and similarities in how genders are treated socially and factors that change this treatment. The sociological study of gender is often combined with the study of sexuality. Like gender, sexuality is not just biologically constructed, but is shaped by social and cultural factors. Empirical research on sexual identity and behaviour reveals such great variation that sociologists refer to multiple sexualities rather than a single sexuality. In sociology, we make a distinction between sex and gender. Sex are the biological traits that societies use to assign people into the category of either male or female, whether it be through a focus on chromosomes, genitalia or some other physical ascription. When people talk about the differences between men and women, they are often drawing on sex on rigid ideas of biology rather than gender, which is an understanding of how society shapes our understanding of those biological categories.

The sociology of gender examines how society influences our understandings and perception of differences between masculinity and. We examine how this, in turn, influences identity and social practices. We pay special focus on the power relationships that follow from the established gender order in a given society, as well as how these changes over time. Gender, like all social identities, is socially constructed. Social constructionism is one of the key theories sociologists use to put gender into historical and cultural focus. Social constructionism is a social theory about how meaning is created through social interaction through the things we do and say with other people. This theory shows that gender it is not a fixed or innate fact, but instead it varies across time and place. Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes. To put it informally, gender concerns the way human society deals with human bodies, and the many consequences of that “deal” in our personal lives and our collective fate.

This new introduction to the sociology of gender and sexuality offers a fresh take on the importance of these concepts in modern society. It provides an insight into our rapidly changing attitudes towards sex and our understanding of masculine and feminine identities, relating the study of gender and sexuality to wider social concerns throughout the world and presenting a comprehensive yet readable summary of recent research and theory. In an accessible and engaging style, the book demonstrates how thinking about gender and sexuality can illuminate and enliven other contemporary sociological debates about social structure, social change, and culture and identity politics. Emphasis is placed on the diversity of gendered and sexual lives in different parts of the world.