Answer to Question #251062 in Sociology for jay

Question

does post structuralism theory explain the gender inequality in the south african context and why

Answer 1

Post structuralism theory does not explain the gender inequality in the South African context. The theory instead burst out the notion that male and female is discrete categories. Transgender people change sex or inhabit multiple sex, and erogenous, or fluid identities. I theorize this by developing and then comment on poststructuralist transgender theory. A poststructuralist theory of transgender disassociates sex and gender, models both as constructed, and emphasizes the technologisation and commodification of the body. Poststructuralist accounts can, however, entail denial of bodily limitations, erase transgender people's subjective experience, and overlook social and political factors, such as the importance of gender categories as a basis for identity politics. I argue for the deconstruction of gender binaries to be combined with the development of a gender-pluralist, flexible, model of gender. This point to the replacement of bipolar models of gender with a gender spectrum, with important implications for conceptualizing gender.