Visualizing Gender as a Cultural Structure

This video visually represents the web of cultural expectations associated with multiple categories of gender by working with student reports of characteristics associated with six gender categories: "woman," "man," "real woman," "real man," "good woman," and "good man." If gender is untethered from biological ideas of only two categories that must be determined by bodies, and instead is thought of in cultural terms, one of the outcomes of that decision is the uncovering of multiple genders with varying degrees of overlap. In other words, charting the interplay of cultural expectations associated with various categories explodes the notion of the gender binary and replaces it with an idea of gender that is nuanced and endless in its possibilities. Charting the web of connections between categories and the expected behaviors associated with those categories allows us to think of gender as a cultural structure.

(This exercise is based on categorical exercises developed by former sociologist Michael Kimmel. Kimmel has been disgraced for reasons of personal misconduct, but the usefulness of considering these categories still holds.)

[timothymichael]

Timotheo From University of Dar es Salaam
thanks a lot for the insighful videos