Gender issue

UNIT 2 : GENDER ISSUES

1) Introduction : men vs women, the difference between sex and gender

What differences between men and women can you think of ?

Sex differences Gender differences

- physical differences : women are smaller/ men are taller

- chromosomes XX / XY

- only women bear babies / get pregnant

- different reproductive / sexual organs - girls and boys are educated / raiseddifferently

- women are paid less than men when they do the same work

- women didn’t have the right to vote &express their opinion / don’t have the same rights

- social inequalities >boys are more encouraged to leave home whereaswomen are encouraged to stay at home &take care ofdomestichousework/ chores

- women take care of their children more than men

- male sport is more advertized / shown on the media

- men have moreadvantages thanwomen on the job market

- more male presidents than female ones

! comparatif : adjectif court + er than

more + adjectif long than

Sex refers to bilogical differences, that is to say, physical or bodily characteristics which have been assigned to an individual at birth / when he/she was born.

However, gender is a social and cultural construct to which boys and girls can identify themselves. Gender is based on biological differences but not limited to them. It is a set of social and cultural expectations and representations.

Definition of the notion : places and forms of power

2) Desperate housewives

Vocabulaire – description d’image :

- temps de la description : be + V-ING

- vocabulaire : in the foreground / background

on the right / left

at the top / bottom

- an advertisement / a photograph / a painting

Picture 1 : Kenwood Chef

The picture is an ad / ‘advert / ad’vertisement for the brand Kenwood. It was made in 1961.

In the foreground we can see the product advertized : the Kenwood Chef, a food processor.

In the background, a couple is standing. They look happy of their purchase.

The woman is wearing a chef’s hat which might suggest that she is the chef whereas it is the household appliance who is called « Chef ». So the ad personifies the machine. It implies that the woman is no longer the one who decides in the kitchen, but she is just a simple everyday cook.

On the other hand, the slogan says that the kitchen appliances does everything except cooking : it cuts, slices, blends / mixes, grates, whips… so it does all the basic tasks but it is the wife who does the proper recipe to make the dish.

Thus / so, the ad is rather ambiguous : it is based on the gender expectations of the 1960s where women are expected to stay at home and do the cooking and take care of the house, whereas men are expected to work and earn money. The society of the 1960s expects women to be housewives and men to be breadwinners.

The slogan means « The Chef does everything except cook » which implies that women are not chefs anymore. The Chef can refer to the husband or to the food processor but not to the woman on the picture, so the chef’s hat that she is wearing is ironical.

The bottom of the picture reminds that husbands have purchasing power = have the power of buying / purchasing things, since it encourages women to persuade their husbands into buying the appliance. So husbands are the head of the family, they are superior to their wives in terms of power > social and financial power.

! 1 woman / 1 man

2 women [ɪ] / 2 men

blend / mix the dough to bake a cake

grate ; slice / cut ; whip

cooker // cook > household appliance // person

dish

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