Sexuality, Gender and Power in the America Society
Gender inequality is an intimate inequality. Both class and race inequality are sustained with intense segregation, but gender inequality involves intense integration (for heterosexuals, at least). Gender, sexuality, and power interact.
The fact of their interconnectedness in our minds is revealed by two ideas:
First, that gender and sexual orientation are somehow related. In American society, doing gender involves doing heterosexuality. Masculinity means, in part, a sexual relationship with women. Femininity means, in part, a sexual relationship with men. In fact, gender and sexual orientation are not the same thing.
Second, that reveals the intersection of gender, sexuality, and power is the fact that we tend to think that sexual liberation for women IS women’s liberation. The relationship between sexual liberation and gender equality is our concern for today.
Our primary questions are:
How has gender inequality shaped the following?
Our very definition of sex?
How we understand our sexual bodies?
Our idea of sexual liberation?
How we think of ourselves sexually?
Our sexual interactions?