 Sex, gender and sexualityTerrell Carver Chapter 8 in Handbook on Gender in World Politics, 2026, pp 44-49 from Edward Elgar Publishing Abstract: Sex, gender and sexuality are ideological concepts that are constructive, not simply constructed. Without that element of feminist understanding those concepts are de-politicizing, making the power-relations through which oppression is normalized invisible. In this way feminism has caused a ‘knowledge quake’ in male-centric practices of epistemic privilege. That privilege is reflected in the institutions of social reproduction, namely kinship, marriage, divorce, motherhood, inheritance, and life-chances. Heterosexuality thus instantiates hierarchies of gender oppression, of women by men. Gender science, dating from the later nineteenth century, was wholly complicit with the continued exclusion and subordination of women. Masculinity allows men to pose as the apparently de-gendered human norm, and without contradiction to be overtly gendered male, albeit moralized as presumptively good. Strategies of inclusion based on concepts of equality fail to address the hierarchy inherent in the concepts man and woman. Those strategies are thus inadequate as transformative ways to resolve the oppressions to which women are subjected. Keywords: Sex; Gender; Sexuality; Oppression; Masculinity; Hierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21594_8 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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