Gender & Sexuality Studies
Gender and sexuality studies analyse how gender and sexuality are constructed, experienced, and organized, and how they intersect with power and other social divisions — drawing on feminist, queer, and intersectional thought.
Scope
The interdisciplinary field includes feminist theory, women's and men's/masculinity studies, queer studies, sexuality studies, and the study of gender in relation to development, work, politics, and the body, alongside the framework of intersectionality.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How are gender and sexuality socially constructed and regulated?
- How do gender and sexuality structure power and inequality?
- How do gender, race, class, and other divisions intersect?
- How are gendered and sexual identities formed and performed?
- How can gender and sexual injustice be challenged?
Key concepts
- Sex/gender distinction
- Patriarchy
- Intersectionality
- Gender performativity
- Hegemonic masculinity
- Heteronormativity
- The personal is political
- Social construction
Key theories
- The social construction of woman
- Beauvoir's claim that 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' and Friedan's critique of domesticity founded modern feminist analysis of gender.
- Sex/gender system and intersectionality
- Rubin's 'sex/gender system' analysed how societies transform biological sex into gender; hooks insisted feminist theory centre race and class, anticipating intersectional analysis.
- Performativity and queer theory
- Butler argued gender is performatively produced rather than expressing a prior essence, a founding move of queer theory.
- Masculinities
- Connell theorized multiple, hierarchically ordered masculinities and the concept of hegemonic masculinity.
History
Building on first-wave feminism, the field took shape with Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) and the second-wave feminism of the 1960s-1970s (Friedan, Rubin). Women's studies institutionalized in universities; Black and intersectional feminists (hooks) widened its scope. From around 1990, Butler's work and queer theory transformed analysis of gender and sexuality, and masculinity studies (Connell) and trans and sexuality studies extended the field.
Debates
- Is gender essential or constructed?
- The field largely rejects biological essentialism in favour of social construction and performativity, while debating the place of the body and of difference.
- Whose feminism?
- Intersectional and postcolonial critiques challenged early feminism's focus on white, middle-class women, insisting on race, class, and global difference.
Key figures
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Betty Friedan
- Gayle Rubin
- bell hooks
- Judith Butler
- R. W. Connell
Related topics
Seminal works
- beauvoir-1949
- friedan-1963
- rubin-1975
- butler-1990
- connell-1995
Frequently asked questions
- What is intersectionality?
- The idea that systems of oppression (gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.) interlock and must be analysed together, since people experience them simultaneously.
- What is the difference between gender studies and women's studies?
- Women's studies centres women's experiences and feminism; gender and sexuality studies broadens this to all genders and sexualities, including masculinity and queer studies.