Gender and Bodies

Abstract

Scholars from various disciplines (anthropology, gender studies, history, philosophy, and sociology, among others) have written about gender and bodies. The interdisciplinary nature of this topic has resulted in scholarship on many different aspects of the body across the life course. The works included here are foundational to knowledge about the gendered body and particularly the sociology of the body. Moreover, they exhibit intersectionality and begin with the assumption that social constructs such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and dis/ability intersect with gender to shape life experiences, social outcomes, and self-concept. While there are many areas that fall under the topic of gender and bodies (such as medicalization, sport, disability, gendered violence, sexual practices, and eating disorders) this article focuses particularly on theory and research on the social construction of female and male bodies, as well as bodies that disrupt sex, gender, and sexuality binaries, i.e., intersex and LGBTQ Bodies. Specifically, there is an abundance of scholarship that examines how social and cultural structures patrol normative femininities and hegemonic masculinities thereby reinforcing binary understandings of sex and gender. Nonetheless, there is some work that emphasizes the undoing of gender, social activism, and embodied resistance. Writings on gendered constructs and the body also examine how some bodies are privileged over others, showing a body hierarchy based on, for example, beauty, skin tone, and body size that furnishes some people with physical capital while disadvantaging others. Finally, the article acknowledges research and theory that engages labor-related processes about the body; the body as a modification project (including body building, tattooing, and Cosmetic Surgery); and the role of medical and other technologies on gendered bodies and lives.