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Lesson 3 - Gender and Sexuality As A Subject of Inquiry

This document provides an introduction to gender and sexuality studies. It discusses how gender studies emerged from the need to analyze how gender, sex, and sexuality impact lives and create inequalities. Gender studies explores how gender roles have changed over history. It notes that 100 years ago, women were not allowed in universities as their role was restricted to domestic work. The document also discusses the concepts of gender roles, norms, and how they are socially constructed. It outlines qualitative and quantitative research approaches used in gender studies and principles of ethics in related research. Finally, it discusses the human ecological perspective in analyzing gender and sexuality realities at various environmental levels.

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Sandro H Sabillena
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111 views18 pages

Lesson 3 - Gender and Sexuality As A Subject of Inquiry

This document provides an introduction to gender and sexuality studies. It discusses how gender studies emerged from the need to analyze how gender, sex, and sexuality impact lives and create inequalities. Gender studies explores how gender roles have changed over history. It notes that 100 years ago, women were not allowed in universities as their role was restricted to domestic work. The document also discusses the concepts of gender roles, norms, and how they are socially constructed. It outlines qualitative and quantitative research approaches used in gender studies and principles of ethics in related research. Finally, it discusses the human ecological perspective in analyzing gender and sexuality realities at various environmental levels.

Uploaded by

Sandro H Sabillena
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Gender and Society

LESSON 3

Gender and Sexuality as


a Subject of Inquiry
Introduction
Gender seems so obvious and so simple, many would ask why we have to
study it. Well, gender studies as an area of knowledge, is about
looking into, analyzing, and examining society so that we notice power relations
in the seemingly “simple things”. It helps us see the issues in our everyday lives
through a different lens.

Gender studies emerged from the need to analyze how gender, sex,
and sexuality impact our lives, especially how it creates gender equality. It came
about in the mid 1970’s after the second wave feminism as a way to challenge the
male- defined and male –centered knowledge.
Gender Studies
Gender studies is not just for women or all about women,
it is about everyone. It is about everyone. It explores how
our gender roles have changed throughout our history
and how it created inequalities.
Gender role or sex role
• This are the "sets of culturally defined
behaviors such as masculinity and
femininity".
• "culturally defined behaviors"
• In binary system, "we only see the male and
the female where men are expected to be
masculine while women are expected to be
feminine.
• It is the norm or the accepted standards
like woman as mahinhin ;
• behave like a man as matapang.
Gender studies is not just for women or all about women, it is
about everyone
It explores how our gender roles have changed throughout our
history and how it created inequalities. One hundred years ago, women
were not allowed to study at universities since their role was only
restricted to domestic or the household. This repressed women’s
potential in shaping the social and political and scape in the past,
but is also placed the burden on the men to provide for the whole
family.
Diversity and Inclusion
Gender roles are socially constructed and are not
something that we are “born with”. Society, through a
lifelong process of normalization, encourages or
reprimands behaviors to make a child adapt to these
social expectations
A young boy is always encouraged to be brave, to play rough, to
be loud, and not show signs of weakness such as crying. A young girl is
discouraged from playing rough and being loud, instead, they are told
to be gentle and soft. If a child does not follow these gender roles,
they are reprimanded by parents, relatives, friends, or anybody that
they interact. That is how gender norm is forced upon an individual, a
lifelong process of normalization

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people often do


not fit in the traditional binary gender roles so they are
often reprimanded, bullied, and discriminated. They are often
subjected to violence and hate just because they donot fit in what
society calls “normal”.
Gender Studies and Research
As a subject of inquiry, Gender Studies
utilizes a systematic approach in identifying
problems, making hypothesis and assumptions,
gathering data and making conclusions. This
systematic process is referred to as the
research process.
Approaches in Research
Since Gender and Sexuality cuts across a variety of issues that could be
biomedical, psychosocial, or political-legal, there is no singular way in
conducting the research process. These are however a variety of
approaches which can be used.

Qualitative approach
Focuses more on the meanings created and interpretations made by people
about own personal or vicarious (observe) experiences. For example, if
you want to know how women, men, or LGBTQ+ live their lives on a daily basis
and how they make sense of their lived experiences, then the qualitative
approach is fitting.
• Phenomenology – conducting intensive interviews with individuals
who have experienced a particular event and understanding their
“live experience”
• Hermeneutics – understanding the meaning of texts (literary
works, artworks) and what they convey about human realities;
and
• Ethnography and ethnomethodology – immersing in a community
and talking note of their experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and
practices
Quantitative approach

Focuses more on characterizing population (total number of


individuals in a group) or a sample (a sub-group within the
population), and in some cases, making generalizations about the
population based on the behavior of a simple. For instance, if you
want to know how many Filipino adolescence are engaged in a
romantic relationship or how many of them believed in marriage,
then a quantitative approach is appropriate.
• Survey – collecting information from a sample; and
• Experiment- creating actual set-ups to observe the behavior of people
in an experimental group (a group receiving treatment such as training
or a new experience) and comparing it to the behavior of people in a
control group (a group without any treatment).

In most cases, information from both qualitative and quantitative


approaches provide a holistic view about certain social realities, such that
there are researchers who prefer to used mixed methods (combining
qualitative and quantitative methods to derived data from multiple
sources).
Ethics in Gender and Sexuality
Research
There are some principles to remember in conducting
and sexuality researches. These principles are referred to as
ethical principles because they make sure that people
involved in the research are protected from harm.
Ethics is a prerequisite to a properly conducted study.
The following are the principles to remember:
• Informed consent - researchers should make sure the participants in the
study are aware of the purpose and processes of the study they
are participating in. they should also ensure that only those
participants who agree (in writing) will be included, and they shall not force
any participants to join.
• Confidentiality and anonymity – researchers should not reveal any
information provided by the participants, much so, their identity to anyone
who are not concerned with the study. All data gathered from surveys or
interviews should also be placed in a secure location of filling system
• Non-maleficence and beneficence – a study should not harm
(non-maleficence) anyone. Especially in research involving
humans, a study should be beneficial (beneficence) for it to be
worth implementing.
• Distributive justice – any study should not disadvantage a
particular group, especially the marginalized and the oppresses
(e.r., poor people, women, LGBTQ+, the elderly). The benefits of
a study should be for all.
Gender Sexuality and
Human Ecology
Human ecology, as a field, recognizes the interplay among
internal and external environments- physical, socio-economic, and
cultural (Bronfenbrenner 1994 Bubolz and Sontag 1983). Hence, to look
at realities from an ecological perspective is to appreciate that human
development across the lifespan is influenced by these environments. In
the context of gender and sexuality, a human ecological approach looks
at human sexual lives and experiences at various levels and
spheres of analysis.
ACTIVITY
DIRECTION: Please read the following instructions.
1. 1. Look for books or articles that have gender and sexuality
as its focus area.
2. 2. Identify possible topics which will fall under gender
studies.
3. 3. Distinguish whether they are quantitative, qualitative or
mixed method researches.
END OF DISCUSSION
Thank you for listening

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