Gender sex and sexuality social geography

Ways of thnking about gender & sexuality as SEPARATE & INTERCONNECTED categories of identity

Why geographies of gender, sex and sexuality matter- diff forms discrimination

emphasis PERFORMAITITY & Judith Butler- eg of identity politics through SUBVERSION 

social construction- our identity not essentialist socially constructed - changing according how society interprets it

Relationality- relational change in relationship/contact with - other people

Performativity 

www.everydayfeminism.com check it out- case studies - terminology and cultural propitation 

'Boys dont cry'

hidden everyday examples- gender & sexuality 

casual sexism- little girl needed to be rescued knights- 

populat chat shows & magazines man asked about suit, intellectual things, women, weight how they dress

world's women 2010 UN

women account for 2/3 of the world's adult illiterates- proportion unchanged past 2 decades

despite changes women labour markets- women continue bear most responisibiliies at home

women underepresented national parliaments avg only 17% seats occupied women

of 500 largest world corporations only 13 have female CEO

Gender discrimination 

still 20% wage gap between men andw omen workng same field (rambo.org) 

Landscape representations rura france- farming landscape seen as male dominated - women absent

Irir Young (1990) boys see themselves as creating space not being positioned in it (Women)

Matthews 1987 Middle class parents allow boys explore further from home

Is Geography as a discipline 'Msculinist?

At the roots of all this- concerns power & inequality, similarity and difference

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN SEX & GENDER

Simone de Beauvoir - the second sex theory 1970s feminist concerns

man seen as the norm against which everything else measured including women

all born with reproductive organs but not all born with gender- this is socially constructed born biologically man or women but our ideas on who we are--- taught , girl boy toys

DISTINGUISHING INEQUALITY 
distinguishing between sex and gender fundamental move- feminist thought
prise apart biological notions of sexual reproduction & culturally constructed notions identity 

Gender as relational  NOT JUST ABOUT WOMEN:
Feminity & masculinity are perceived and experienced through relationships of self & other

gender- social construction assumptions about being male and female: dress, culture, etc

Biological woman- but identiy more with other gender- traits.. many men and women didnt want to continue with traditioonal mode- opened up ideas of what is acceptable 

heteronormativiy - criminalised and pathologised -

-more fundamentally, marked a shift from religious and moralising discourses on sexual behaviour to legal, bureaucratic and medicalised discourses of sexual identity that could be and were located in particular bodiest-hrough various institutions became reason for medical discrimination

Prevailing & dominant assumption people have natural roles in life

this view is a political view and aligns biological sex, sexuality, gender identity & gender roles

Rural area- man ostracised because homosexual and two single women looked down on not fulfullining family role - out of place- suspicion - not living up to natural role in life which is essential

Passing is generally defined as seeking/allowing oneself - identified with a race, class, or other social group - dont genuinely belong.

The reasons for passing complex:  most often occurred - economic security, such as increased access to employment or housing; or physical safety, when exposing one's true identity might attract violence;

or for the avoidance of stigma. - controversial because can be discriminated against because of religion - okay to pass what is considered normal 

Our assumptions about people around us – their GENDER & their SEXUALITY……

Adrian Piper invented calling card- people assumed she was white person

what is role of human geography in all of this? 

Can question the whole idea that particular things are normal- all fluid- socially constructued

by questioning NATURAL and NORMAL offer way out- TRANSFORMATION

can argue against dominant stereotypes and social forms 

Judith Butler- gender based on routinised practices - what you do- how you speak

gender sex, sexuality- all socially constructed- rather normal/ natural linked politics - discrimination 

violence and discrimination - rooted essentialism (sexism)

claiming a fixed identity can be important as way against discrimination - Muslims- essentialised strong identity celebration

Four  arguments about identity

1) way we present ourselves (how we dress, our manners & habits) is a key part in how we conduct our identity in relation to others & common social norms.

2)  the social constructsion of identity is achieve precisely through these kinds of performative act. 

3)  Acting and experimenting may be important ways in which marginalised groups can make spaces for their identities in relation to those more accepted by dominant groups.

4)  That assumptions about spaces- and how we act in them- help us to 'code' what is generally deemed acceptable or not. 

Erving Goffman -  in different places people act differently in order to create different impressions upon others. social construction of identity is achieved through the kinds of performance and gesture hinted at above. 

dominant understandings of sex and gender assume there are two bodies & two genders

the way we act mattes to our identities 
- in different places people act differently in order to create different impressions on others 
Judith Butler's understanding is that gender identities are fabrications which are only kept alive through discourse. 
- project of many cultural geographers show how often marginalised groups may cultivate particular performances to subvert or challenge dominant ideas.
- most cultural geographers keen interest in critising the kinds of marginalisation and exclusion that dominant identity discourses (like gender) can produce

-the concept of performativity highlights how identity e.g. gender and sexuality is created through practices. 
diverse subcultural groups try to carve out spaces in which they can more comfortably express their identities
- temporary activisit events provide one way to temporarily rupture broad societa expectations and dominant disourses - by occupying them or marching through them. 

key point- even if we feel like we are going with the flow, that our identity mirrors the majority- our idetity is never fixed and requires various forms of performance to keep it and us alive. 

identity performances always take place in spaces and very often help to make places.

Laurirer and Philo (2006a) show even the smallest expressions of identity are  due to social and spatial relationships.

these expressions od identity can be the very things that keep spaces like cafes, commuter routes, and public spaces ticking over or indeed disrupt them. 

- the assumptions we make about who or what is 'in' or 'out' of place tend to rely on what seems natural but are usually socially constructed, relational, complex, dynamic and performed expressions of identity. 

in contemporary societies increasing wealth is attended by increasing mobility, and increasing mobility increases priviledge. 
mobility distinctions are also deeply gendered- men and women have diff experiences of rootlessness & fixity including the hardships or forced movement & the privileges of free movement

the conceptualisation and material construction of bodies makes a difference to our experiences of places 

men & women literally embody norms of masculinity and feminity- expected to embody them

'wrong' bodies walk into 'wrong' places- women walk into male places and vice versa

bodies are 'marked' by racial and ethnic identities.

 many African American men complain they are ptu under heightened surveillence in all sorts of places- white suburbs and shopping malls. 

The control on women's movement has often been of great imporrtance, to governments, families and households. hard to maintain patriarchal control over women if they have total freedom

sometimes this control exercised forcibly and brutally e.g. foot binding of young women widely practiced in some regions of China 10-early 20thC to prevent them from moving more than a few paces at a time- one of more horrifying examples of gendered mobility restriction. 

contemporary prescriptions that impose restrictions on women's mobility- high heels, hobble skirts, restrictions on women driving.

epidemic rates of sexual violence keep women in a state of spatial uncertainty and geographic disadvantage- many wmen feel as though they live under a virtual time & space curfew

women's anti-violence campaigns focus on 'taking back the streets' 

street harassments that women encounter daily remind them that their are considered to be 'out of place' in public space. violence against women in the household is one of the common methods used to keep women confined to a house or marriage 

violence is one of the most common tools to sustain particular sexual, family & household structures to keep women spatially restricted to them. 

many countries womens restrictions spatially & behaviourally are written into the law. 

marital domicile laws still in effect - give men sole right to determine where their familty lives- such assumptions men will lead geographically still the norm - Morocco, India, Zimbabwe 

restrictions on womens presence in public - Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia 

even in the absence of legally enccoded restrictions in virtually every country in the world women face de facto restrictions on their movements & public presence. 

the daily lives of women almost everywhere tend to be more homebound than their male counterparts.
women value jobs based on 'closeness to home' tthis geographical anchoring causes occupational segregation. 

for many poor women in the US spatial boundedness can provide security

women seen as the anchors which hold communities together 

BREAKING THE BONDS OF SPACE AND SEX- wilderness long been defined as men's territory- now women are movin into these terrains as forest mountaineers, wildlife biologists or adventurers 

AUTO-MASCULINITY - car been powerful vehicle of women's liberation 
car advertisements were originally masculinised. cars were viewed as dangerous for women invoking images of sexual liberation. 

in the US jokes about women still resonate- women drivers  & women treated as secondary car consumers
women still 'outsiders' at garages, cartracks and show rooms - men spaces

Transportation government expenditures favour the car- the automobile-centred skew to public policy creates a concrete structure of male priviledge and female disadvantage

in India it is unheard of for a women to be a truck driver, chauffeur, taxi driver 

bicycles can also be 'gendered' - the design of bicycle seats and the physical pumping required to move the bicycle deemed as sexually inappropriate for women 

some contemporary global labour flows are so consistently feminised they've become a widely recognised phenomena - the 'maid trade.' e.g. one of the largest labour flows in the world. 

an estimated 1.1.7million women are working as domestic servants outside their own country

single largest number of global maids-for-hire come from the Phillipines

to some the term Filipino has become synonymous with domestic worker 

remittances are a manor proportion of the Phillipine economy- and the largest source of foreign capital.

most vulnerable of migrants are refugees 

many of the receiving countries unabe to prepare adequate care & shelter for refugees 

the majority of the world's refugees are women

women find themelves fleeting from a country where their status is low to one where it is even lower- no say in refugee camps. 

with no protection from family or state- women refugees chronically vulnerable to abuse- ****
still expected to peform tasks of childcare, cooking & cleaning without resources

THE SEX TRADE- one of most distinctive women-specific migrations

sex tourism men flock for sex holidays 
these circumstances are by-products of other social relations but they are more often than not fashioned as itentionally gendered 

end of notes on book - putting women in place