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In feminist theory, heteropatriarchy (etymologically from heterosexual and patriarchy) or cisheteropatriarchy, is a social construct where (primarily) cisgender (same gender as identified at birth) and heterosexual males have authority over other cisgender males, females, and people with other sexual orientations and gender identities.
Critics of heteronormative attitudes, such as Cathy J. Cohen, Michael Warner, and Lauren Berlant, [8] argue that such attitudes are oppressive, stigmatizing, marginalizing of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender, and make self-expression more challenging when that expression does not conform to the norm.
The terms womyn and womxn have been criticized for being unnecessary or confusing neologisms, due to the uncommonness of mxn to describe men. [8] [9] [10]The word womyn has been criticized by transgender people [11] [12] due to its usage in trans-exclusionary radical feminist circles which exclude trans women from identifying into the category of "woman", particularly the term womyn-born womyn.
Social constructionists sociologists tend to disagree with biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that socialization processes are primarily responsible for establishing gender roles [5], they further argue that gender roles and gender inequity are instruments of power and have become social norms to maintain control over women.
The SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies states that cisnormativity is "the presumption that most people do, or should, conform to the norms about gender assignment in their society". It elaborates: " 'cisnormative' behavior varies depending on the gender norms in place within a given society. For example, in some societies, having only 'woman ...
[1] [2] The term helps define the "concept of what is the norm and how a particular group is different from that norm". [3] Non-heterosexual is used in feminist and gender studies fields as well as general academic literature to help differentiate between sexual identities chosen, prescribed and simply assumed, with varying understanding of ...
The Britannica dictionary defines gender as “a person's own sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female”. [55] The American Heritage Dictionary (5th edition) states that gender may be defined by identity as "neither entirely female nor entirely male"; its Usage Note adds:
The term gender had been associated with grammar for most of history and only started to move towards it being a malleable cultural construct in the 1950s and 1960s. [27] Before the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a role developed, it was uncommon to use the word gender to refer to anything but grammatical ...