Globalization and Its Complication on Gender and Sexualities

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AIS204
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4. How does globalization complicate our understanding of sexuality/sexualities and
gender identity?
Introduction
Studies in the field of gender and critical sexualities did between 2000 and 2006, has
shown an increasing preoccupation to globalization. Contemporary globalization definition
addresses the rapid increase in the movement of people, ideologies, capital, and information all
around the world. Gender and sexuality cannot be effectively analyzed without taking into
consideration these mentioned flows in the globalized world. These phenomena are deeply
rooted in the overview of the social, economic, cultural, political, regulation of sexuality and
HIV/AIDS. Other factors that have complicated the understanding of gender and sex are
prostitution and sex trafficking, queer mobility and heteronormativity, gender inequality and
sexual right discourses. Gender and sexuality are considered to be distinct yet closely relatable
fields. The concepts may appear as separate in explaining gender inequalities, and nothing much
on sexual forms and power, or hegemonic in men, women subordination, and the marginalization
of LGBTQ people. The introduction of globalization, gender, and sexuality explore the historical
development of these features and how common trends are constantly redefining them. The
reflection on gender and sexuality discusses the disjuncture and conceptualization of both of
these phenomena in the globalized world.
Gender has been strongly linked in the Anglophone academic and political writing after it
replaced the term sex roles. The term has been used in sexology, to discuss the assigned
biological (sex) roles and gender identity and by a feminist who emphasizes the political and
cultural nature of women oppression based on sexual differences. Feminist theories and

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ideologies as a result of globalization have constructed terms such as masculinity and femininity,
relating to the ontological existence of sexed bodies. Feminist theorist such as Judith Butler, in
her theory of gender performativity, have challenged the assumption relating to sex, like a
categorized form of body embodiment (Jenkins and Finneman, 2018, p.168). Such approaches
display the social construction dimension of gender by highlighting the historical and cultural
contingency of gendered practices. Sexuality is an unstable term in the social theory, and like
gender, it relates to the body purposely in the area of reproduction (Anthias, 2014, p.175).
Globalization has formed sexual identities based on economic, cultural, medical, legal,
governmental strategies and family systems. Sexuality has been categorized as a non-essentialist
factor that is regulated by the knowledge of power-pleasure (Jowett, 2016., p.5). Variety of
actions, emotions, and pleasures can be sexualized. The western countries have codified
sexuality in a hegemonic notion of heterosexual and homosexual orientations, and lately the new
contested and unstable bisexual category.
Globalization of gender and sexual identities seeks to understand the extent to which
identities are either becoming the same or different through social, economic, and cultural flows
due to globalization. Homogenization indicates that all cultures around the world are
increasingly becoming similar, modern and global through neo-colonialism or westernization.
However, there exists a conflict between the local and global forces, and this has resulted in the
hybridization approach. Several works of literature reviewed have rejected the homogenization
theory of sexual identities as a result of globalization (Gross, 2013, p.52). Globalization has been
found not to necessarily shape the local difference of similarity concerning sexual identities.
Therefore, members of a certain group exhibit similarity across national and continental
boundaries as opposed to the geographically established societies. For example, in Thailand