Gender Inequality: Understanding Social Stratification and Feminist Perspectives
Write your text here!
Gender & Inequality
– Gender: personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being male or female
– Gender Stratification: the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women
Male/Female Differences
– We must be careful not to think of social differences in biological terms
– Differences in physical abilities, but in athletics the gap is smaller today
– Differences in abilities reflect both biology and socialization
– No difference in overall intelligence between males and females
Gender in Global Perspective
The Israeli Kibbutz:
– Gender equality is one of its stated goals-
– Men and women share in both work and decision making
– Girls and boys are raised in the same way
Margaret Mead’s Research:
– If gender is based on biological differences people everywhere should define “feminine” and “masculine” in the same way
— She found that definitions varied
George Murdock’s Research:
– In pre-industrial societies, hunting and warfare belong to men and domestic duties to women;
– However, beyond this pattern he found much variety
– Gender is too variable across cultures to be a simple expression of biology
– With industrialization, the importance of muscle power declines, further reducing gender differences
Patriarchy & Sexism
– Patriarchy: a form of social organization in which males dominate females
– Matriarchy: a form of social organization in which females dominate males (has never been documented)
– Sexism: belief that one sex is innately superior to the other
The Costs of Sexism
Stunting the talents and limiting ambitions of women
Privileges to men come at a high price:
– Men engage in high-risk behaviors
– Masculinity is linked to suicide, violence, and stress-related diseases
– Competition and aggression separates men from everyone else
– Control-seeking masculinity loses in intimacy and trust
– In modern societies, biological differences offer little justification for patriarchy
– Gender is socially constructed and can be changed, patriarchy can be left behind
Gender & Socialization
– Patriarchy exists through the learning of gender roles; attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex
– Gender and the Family:
Pink and blue worlds for girls and boys
Girls treated tenderly, boys more roughly
Treats men as independent and women as cooperative
– Gender and the Peer Group: young children have single-sex play groups
– Gender and Schooling: Textbooks now portray people in balanced ways
– In university, women are in humanities and social sciences, and men are in mathematics and natural sciences
Gender and the Mass Media: Men play more interesting characters than women
Ads traditionally show women in domestic roles and men in occupational roles
Men are photographed to appear taller than women and the latter most often lay down in beds or sofas or in the floor
Gender & Social Stratification
Working Women and Men:
– In 1901, women made up 13% of the workforce
– In 2006, 57.5% of women were in the labor force
Women still dominate sales work and service occupations, Men dominate most senior positions and trades
Are women a minority?
– Minority: People distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a society sets apart and subordinates
– At every class level, women typically have less income, wealth, education, and power than men
– Patriarchy makes women dependent on men for their social standing
Minority Women: Intersection Theory
– Interplay of race, class, and gender resulting in multiple dimensions of disadvantage
– This is especially true for disadvantages linked to race and gender
– Aboriginal women earn less than other Canadians
– African-American women earn 62% of the income of white men
Structural-Functional Analysis
– Gender is a means to organize social life
– Modern societies relax gender roles to release talent
Talcott Parsons (1940s-50s): men and women have complementary traits by socialization:
– Instrumental: rational, competitive for boys
– Expressive: emotional responsiveness for girls
Symbolic Interaction Analysis
– Focuses on face-to-face interaction in everyday life
– Sex roles define the way a society expects women and men to think and behave
– With less power, women are expected to be more deferential
– Gender plays a part in shaping almost all of our everyday experiences
Social Conflict Analysis
Friedrich Engels: Gender and Class
– Men gained power over women as the productive technology advanced
– Private property contributed to male domination
– They controlled the sexuality of women to identify male heirs
– Capitalism makes male domination even stronger
Feminism
– Advocacy of social equality for men and women in opposition to patriarchy and sexism
Basic Feminist Ideas:
Working to increase equality
Expanding human choice
Eliminating gender stratification
Ending sexual violence
Promoting sexual freedom
Types of Feminism
– Liberal feminism: Freedom to develop own talents and interests
– Socialist feminism: Pursue collective (male and female) social revolution with a state-centred economy
– Radical feminism: Revolution for an egalitarian, gender-free society
– Cultural feminism: Rejects privileged white middle-class feminism that ignores others
– Postmodern feminism: Rejects general theories as dominant and oppressive