Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

From Naturalized Presumption to Analytical Categories

Bibliographic Data

ID23596010
AuthorsMary Hawkesworth (0000-0002-4582-3399, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages31-56
Publication date2013-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueThe Oxford handbook of gender and politics (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199751457.013.0001
OpenAlexW2633298075
ISBN9780199751457
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited40

Contrary to popular opinion, sex is not only a physical or biological characteristic but also a legal status and a political category. This article studies the various debates found in feminist scholarship that concern gender, sex, and sexuality as both analytical categories and lived experiences. The first section discusses the vocabulary feminist scholars have created to “denaturalize” embodiment and to show how physical capacities have been included in national orders of well-honed hierarchies of difference. The article then differentiates sex from sexuality and gender and highlights the power dimensions present in these concepts. It also studies competing accounts of gender as a cultural mechanism and other uses of sex, gender, and sexuality as overlapping analytical categories.

Human sexuality · Linguistics · Political science · Power (physics) · Presumption · Scholarship · Sociology · Vocabulary · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law

Tools

Open DOISci-HubLibgen