The Discursive Construction of Gender
January 17, 2007 |
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Beliefs about the interaction between language and gender range from a
belief that language use is the natural outcome of the essence of
maleness and femaleness to a belief that language use is an important
part of what makes people male and female. Today's
class will introduce the discussion of gender as constructed in
everyday symbolic practice.
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Class Slides PDF
Readings
Today's
reading will complicate our examination of the gender binary
by introducing a constructivist view of sexual categories:
Cameron and Kulick Chapters 1 and 2.
Purely Optional:
Sociologist Erving Goffman's early article
presents an examination of
the ways in which the opposition between male and female is maintained
through everyday social arrangements.
The arrangement between the sexes. Theory
and Society 4: 301-32.
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