Complete overview and notes of the Intersectionalities course for year 2 sociology. It contains all the important information about the lectures and presentations, and the notes are a good overview of the entire course! I used the notes as the basis of the subject matter and passed the course with ...
1.4 Social construction
● social reality is socially constructed
● the categories to capture social reality are also socially constructed (and impact that
reality)
● social relations of power construct social structures, bodies, common-sensical
classifications, etc.
● analytical categories are constructed (lenses); the categories we use to study the
world are constructions by us
2. Sociological construction in relation to biological variation
● social class used to be considered a biological reality
● race, gender, sexuality are ‘haunted’ by biological notions
21. Race
● ‘’Race is an idea that we ascribe to biology’’
● Biological variation, but categorisation is social
2.2 Sex
The five sexes
● western culture deeply committed to idea of two sexes biological speaking:
gradations
● 5 sexes
1. Hermaphrodites (testes + ovaries)
2. Male pseudo herms (merms; testes + some female genitalia but no ovaries)
3. Female pseudo herms (ferms; ovaries + some male genitalia but no testes)
4. Male
5. Female
● Biological dimensions of sex
- chromosomes
- hormones
- internal sex structure (womb/prostate)
- gonads (testes, ovaries - production of gametes)
- genitalia
- secondary sex characteristics
, Conclusion (what we are left with)
● great biological variation
● crucial importance of epigenetics
● great sociological variety of organising biological variation
● rapidly changing theories (and social dynamics)
Lecture 2 - 5/9
Seminar week 1
Mind the gap
● between ideas of race and physical differences in bodies
● world of ideas and concepts and world of physical differences between bodies
● differences range widely; great biological variation
● gap between varieties of bodies and social identifications
● gap between social practises and social identifications
● discours/ideology/ideas interact with reality and then materialise
Five sexes revisited (text)
● (re)classification of sex
● male, female, hermaphrodite, female hermaphrodite, male hermaphrodite
● ‘’intersexuals have materialised before our very eyes’’
● critique of the classification altogether
● intersex
- do not fit the binary
- biological variation
- umbrella term for great variation of bodies; not one intersex body
- variation of chromosomes, genetics, hormones, secondary sex characteristics
- a concept to describe body types that do not fit the female/male normative
binary; construction (biologically, not social/identity)
● how did these classifications come into being? how did they change? note that they
vary across societies and time/place
The life of the gay gene
● gay gene does not have a biological existence, but gets a social existence
● biologically speaking no gay gene, but it became a social reality and got a social life
of its own → materialisation
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