Sex and Gender Exam 1 SYD3800
What is ideology? Provide an example of an ideology as it relates to sex and gender. - ✔✔ correct answer
a. Ideology: a set of beliefs that affects our outlook on the world. Our ideology is out most closely held
set of values and feelings, and it acts as a filter through which we see everything and everybody.
i. Ex: gender ideology is concerned with the attitudes of men and women in society, their rights, and
responsibilities.
2. Explain the "structure versus agency" debate. Why is it a false dichotomy? - ✔✔ correct answer a.
Agency is your ability to make a decision to cause a reaction
i. Deciding what you're going to wear for the day
b. Structure is rules that have consequences
i. How society is arranged (think about "institutions")
ii. Not wearing shorts to your job because it is not allowed or appropriate
iii. How society is arranged
c. Thought of as "determinism vs. free will"
d. It is a false dichotomy because it can't be either/ or. We have constraints but throughout this we still
make decisions for ourselves. Structure and agency are interdependent
3. What is the sociological imagination? - ✔✔ correct answer a. The ability to link personal problems to
public issues
b. E.x: Poverty is not simply an individual issue
i. One's odds of living in poverty or experiencing social mobility are shaped by larger social forces outside
the control of individual agency
4. How does Schwalbe's concept of "sociological mindfulness" extend C. Wright Mills's concept of the
"sociological imagination?" - ✔✔ correct answer a. The practice of critically examining how the social
world operates and what makes it so unique
b. "The ability to link personal issues to social problems"
c. Being able to look at a social problem a different way. Instead of looking at a homeless person as
someone who doesn't want to work and putting themselves in that position, looking at different aspects
to it.
d. More focused on identifying inequality and also understanding how those inequalities are reproduced
in everyday life.
e. Extends the idea of sociological imagination
, Sex and Gender Exam 1 SYD3800
i. Pushes us to see how individual actions are shaped by our social conditions
ii. Underscores human interdependency - our actions affect other people
iii. Calls for a sensitivity to patterns and inequalities in the social world
iv. Focuses more on understanding the reproduction of social conditions, rather than simply identifying
them
5. Provide an example of how you experience the "looking glass self" with regard to your gender - ✔✔
correct answer a. Regulation of the Self:
• Not only do we think how we will express our gender on our own preferences but how people will
perceive us
• Decide how you will express yourself
• Take into account how others will perceive this or respond
• Then when considering how people will respond, you act on it: pride or shame?
b. First, we imagine how we appear to another person. Sometimes this imagination is correct, but may
also be wrong since it is merely based on our assumptions. Second, we imagine what judgments people
make of us based on our appearance. Lastly, we imagine how the person feels about us, based on the
judgments made of us. The ultimate result is that we often change our behavior based on how we feel
people perceive us.
6. Define intersectionality. How does intersectionality help us better understand gender inequality? -
✔✔ correct answer a. The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender
as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent
systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
b. Intersectionality is a sociological theory describing multiple threats of discrimination when an
individual's identities overlap with a number of minority classes — such as race, gender, age, ethnicity,
health and other characteristics.
c. Examples from Crenshaw reading: a woman is not being discriminated in the workplace but a BLACK
woman is discriminated against
In her Ted Talk, how does Kimberle Crenshaw demonstrate the "urgency of intersectionality?" - ✔✔
correct answer a. Arguing that were not using intersectionality as we should
b. Talks about how we recognize the names of the black men who were involved in crimes but not the
women
What is ideology? Provide an example of an ideology as it relates to sex and gender. - ✔✔ correct answer
a. Ideology: a set of beliefs that affects our outlook on the world. Our ideology is out most closely held
set of values and feelings, and it acts as a filter through which we see everything and everybody.
i. Ex: gender ideology is concerned with the attitudes of men and women in society, their rights, and
responsibilities.
2. Explain the "structure versus agency" debate. Why is it a false dichotomy? - ✔✔ correct answer a.
Agency is your ability to make a decision to cause a reaction
i. Deciding what you're going to wear for the day
b. Structure is rules that have consequences
i. How society is arranged (think about "institutions")
ii. Not wearing shorts to your job because it is not allowed or appropriate
iii. How society is arranged
c. Thought of as "determinism vs. free will"
d. It is a false dichotomy because it can't be either/ or. We have constraints but throughout this we still
make decisions for ourselves. Structure and agency are interdependent
3. What is the sociological imagination? - ✔✔ correct answer a. The ability to link personal problems to
public issues
b. E.x: Poverty is not simply an individual issue
i. One's odds of living in poverty or experiencing social mobility are shaped by larger social forces outside
the control of individual agency
4. How does Schwalbe's concept of "sociological mindfulness" extend C. Wright Mills's concept of the
"sociological imagination?" - ✔✔ correct answer a. The practice of critically examining how the social
world operates and what makes it so unique
b. "The ability to link personal issues to social problems"
c. Being able to look at a social problem a different way. Instead of looking at a homeless person as
someone who doesn't want to work and putting themselves in that position, looking at different aspects
to it.
d. More focused on identifying inequality and also understanding how those inequalities are reproduced
in everyday life.
e. Extends the idea of sociological imagination
, Sex and Gender Exam 1 SYD3800
i. Pushes us to see how individual actions are shaped by our social conditions
ii. Underscores human interdependency - our actions affect other people
iii. Calls for a sensitivity to patterns and inequalities in the social world
iv. Focuses more on understanding the reproduction of social conditions, rather than simply identifying
them
5. Provide an example of how you experience the "looking glass self" with regard to your gender - ✔✔
correct answer a. Regulation of the Self:
• Not only do we think how we will express our gender on our own preferences but how people will
perceive us
• Decide how you will express yourself
• Take into account how others will perceive this or respond
• Then when considering how people will respond, you act on it: pride or shame?
b. First, we imagine how we appear to another person. Sometimes this imagination is correct, but may
also be wrong since it is merely based on our assumptions. Second, we imagine what judgments people
make of us based on our appearance. Lastly, we imagine how the person feels about us, based on the
judgments made of us. The ultimate result is that we often change our behavior based on how we feel
people perceive us.
6. Define intersectionality. How does intersectionality help us better understand gender inequality? -
✔✔ correct answer a. The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender
as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent
systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
b. Intersectionality is a sociological theory describing multiple threats of discrimination when an
individual's identities overlap with a number of minority classes — such as race, gender, age, ethnicity,
health and other characteristics.
c. Examples from Crenshaw reading: a woman is not being discriminated in the workplace but a BLACK
woman is discriminated against
In her Ted Talk, how does Kimberle Crenshaw demonstrate the "urgency of intersectionality?" - ✔✔
correct answer a. Arguing that were not using intersectionality as we should
b. Talks about how we recognize the names of the black men who were involved in crimes but not the
women
