Reading Questions
Chapter 1: Developing a Critical Gender/Sex Lens
Instructors are provided with two sets of questions to engage students: discussion questions
(in the text) and reading questions (below).
1. Why do people assume men and women are different? How can people avoid focusing on
gender differences?
2. Why should you avoid focusing on gender differences? What are the advantages of
focusing on gender diversity?
3. Communication scholar Gust Yep (2003) defined normativity as the “process of
constructing, establishing, producing, and reproducing a taken-for-granted and all-
encompassing standard used to measure goodness, desirability, morality, rationality,
superiority, and a host of other dominant cultural values.” Name two examples of ways you
see normativity creating standards in your life. What are the negative effects of normativity?
4. Why is it important to consider Whiteness when thinking about gender?
5. How has your socioeconomic class influenced your identity?
6. Essentialism is the presumption that all members of a group are alike because they have
one quality in common. How can you avoid engaging in essentialism?