Examining Gendered Sexuality in “The Contest” episode of Seinfeld

Abstract

It is common to approach gender, sex, and sexuality together in sociology classes. Oftentimes, we initiate our examination of these by articulating how they are different. Still, we when we look at textbooks, course titles, and even sections of the American Sociological Association, we see that we continue to link these together. Because of the nuance,...

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Details

Subject Area(s):

Sex and Gender

Resource Type(s):

Class Activity

Class Level(s):

Advanced Graduate, Any Level, College 100, College 200, College 300, College 400, Graduate, High School

Class Size(s):

Any

Usage Notes

See attached usage notes.

Learning Goals and Assessments

Learning Goal(s):

1. Goal 1: Students will practice reading comprehension of a theoretical text on sex and gender.
   
2. Goal 2: Students demonstrate understandings of how sexuality is gendered based on sex based on identification of illustrative examples in an episode of Seinfeld.
3. Goal 3: Students identify ramifications of how these common understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality play out in social life.

Goal Assessment(s):

1. Assessment 1: Students discuss the social construction of gender in Judith Lorber’s text Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, Seeing as believing: Biology as ideology, West and Zimmerman’s Doing Gender or another text on sex, gender, and sexuality.
2. Assessment 2: Students identify examples of these assumption in an episode of the show Seinfeld titled The Wink (Season 4; Episode 11).
3. Assessment 3: Students examine ways these understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality are apparent in routine practices or poplar discourses and present them in class discussion or a short essay.