Gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics.[1][2] The field now overlaps with queer studies and men's studies. Its rise to prominence, especially in Western universities after 1990, coincided with the rise of deconstruction.[3]
"Gender theory" redirects here. For the term used by critics of gender studies, see Anti-gender movement.
Disciplines that frequently contribute to gender studies include the fields of literature, linguistics, human geography, history, political science, archaeology, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, cinema, musicology, media studies,[4] human development, law, public health, and medicine.[5] Gender studies also analyzes how race, ethnicity, location, social class, nationality, and disability intersect with the categories of gender and sexuality.[6][7] In gender studies, the term "gender" is often used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity, rather than biological aspects of the male or female sex;[8] however, this view is not held by all gender scholars.
Gender is pertinent to many disciplines, such as literary theory, drama studies, film theory, performance theory, contemporary art history, anthropology, sociology, sociolinguistics and psychology. These disciplines sometimes differ in their approaches to how and why gender is studied. In politics, gender can be viewed as a foundational discourse that political actors employ in order to position themselves on a variety of issues.[9] Gender studies is also a discipline in itself, incorporating methods and approaches from a wide range of disciplines.[10]
Many fields came to regard "gender" as a practice, sometimes referred to as something that is performative.[11] Feminist theory of psychoanalysis, articulated mainly by Julia Kristeva and Bracha L. Ettinger,[12][13] and informed both by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and the object relations theory, is very influential in gender studies.[14][15][16][17]
Influences[edit]
Psychoanalytic theory[edit]
A number of theorists have influenced the field of gender studies significantly, specifically in terms of psychoanalytic theory.[18] Among these are Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and Bracha L. Ettinger. Gender studied under the lens of each of these theorists looks somewhat different. In a Freudian system, women are "mutilated and must learn to accept their lack of a penis" (in Freud's terms a "deformity").[19] Lacan, however, organizes femininity and masculinity according to different unconscious structures. Both male and female subjects participate in the "phallic" organization, and the feminine side of sexuation is "supplementary" and not opposite or complementary.[20] Lacan uses the concept of sexuation (sexual situation), which posits the development of gender-roles and role-play in childhood, to counter the idea that gender identity is innate or biologically determined. According to Lacan, the sexuation of an individual has as much, if not more, to do with their development of a gender identity as being genetically sexed male or female.[21]
Kristeva contends that patriarchal cultures, like individuals, have to exclude the maternal and the feminine so that they can come into being.[22] Bracha L. Ettinger transformed[23][24][25][26][27][28][29] subjectivity in contemporary psychoanalysis since the early 1990s with the Matrixial[30] feminine-maternal and prematernal Eros[31] of borderlinking (bordureliance), borderspacing (bordurespacement) and co-emergence. The matrixial feminine difference defines a particular gaze[32] and it is a source for trans-subjectivity and transjectivity[33] in both males and females. Ettinger rethinks the human subject as informed by the archaic connectivity to the maternal and proposes the idea of a Demeter-Persephone Complexity.[34]
Development of theory[edit]
History[edit]
The history of gender studies looks at the different perspectives of gender. This discipline examines the ways in which historical, cultural, and social events shape the role of gender in different societies. The field of gender studies, while focusing on the differences between men and women, also looks at sexual differences and less binary definitions of gender categorization.[55]
After the universal suffrage revolution of the twentieth century, the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s promoted a revision from the feminists to "actively interrogate" the usual and accepted versions of history as it was known at the time. It was the goal of many feminist scholars to question original assumptions regarding women's and men's attributes, to actually measure them, and to report observed differences between women and men.[56] Initially, these programs were essentially feminist, designed to recognize contributions made by women as well as by men. Soon, men began to look at masculinity the same way that women were looking at femininity, and developed an area of study called "men's studies".[57] It was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that scholars recognized a need for study in the field of sexuality. This was due to the increasing interest in lesbian and gay rights, and scholars found that most individuals will associate sexuality and gender together, rather than as separate entities.[57][58]
Although doctoral programs for women's studies have existed since 1990, the first doctoral program for a potential PhD in gender studies in the United States was approved in November 2005.[59] In 2015, Kabul University became the first university in Afghanistan to offer a master's degree course in gender and women's studies.[60] After the Taliban took over the Afghan capital, the university fell under their control and banned women from attending.[61]