Gender Inequality Chapter Four

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Gender Inequality Chapter Four

• By Melissa Pereira, Melissa Weedon and Ivana
  Pandzic

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Agenda

• Introduction
• Chapter 4 Summary
• Part one Framing the Problem by Melissa. P
• Part Two (De) Constructing Gender by Ivana. P
• Part Three Gender Inequality By Melissa. W

• Question/Answer Period
• Game
• Treats

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Thesis

• Gender Constitutes a constructed and contested
  site of progress and regress of empowerment and
  disempowerment
• Social constructed ness of gender and gender
  relations creates social problems

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Framing the Problem

• Gender roles tightly scripted
• Feminism helped women progress and fight sexist
  assumptions
• Feminism has helped women come a long way
• Women are now able to assert control over their
  lives instead of having them decided by men

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• Women still have a long way to go
• The old boys network seems to have remained in
  tact
• Stereotypes still persist
• Women are expected to perform a double duty
• Seen as having a rightful place in workforce,
  also required to take care of household chores
  and children

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• Men, experiencing gender crisis
• Certainties associated with masculinity has
  dissolved
• Canada still continues to be governed by men
• Augie Fleras notes that the question is How to
  analyze and assess a situation in which women
  have made progress, but yet continue to be
  hobbled because of patriarchal biases? (pg 105)
• Social constructed ness of gender is problematic
  when

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• 1. perceived differences between men and women
  are manipulated
• 2. competition over scarce resources creates
  unhealthy friction which invites great
  interpersonal costs and risk
• 3. scripting of masculinity and femininity leads
  to rigid roles

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(De) Constructing Gender

• Individuals express interest in the cultural
  meaning of womanhood or manhood
• Manhood, nor womanhood qualify as purely
  biological attributes
• Culture shapes what is perceived as male and
  female

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A Gendered Society

• Gender is culturally defined
• Children and adults conditioned to absorb
  dominant ideals
• Reality in itself is gendered
• Feminism has helped to redefine the shift in
  balance of power
• Women continue to be portrayed as vacuous,
  vulnerable

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• double standard that prevails when a man shows
  his softer side
• Men are experiencing and identity crisis in
  trying to figure out who they are and what is
  expected of them

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Men are From Mars/Women From Venus?

• Some would argue that men and women are alike
• Others propose dissimilarity due to the radically
  different social and cultural experience
• Many believe that gender relations reflect innate
  and inherited qualities
• Biologists argue that brains of women and men
  process information differently

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• Similarities and differences in gender are the
  result of social forces
• Concepts of what it means to be a man or a women
  is socially constructed

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The Masculine Mystique

• Sociology textbooks that deal with gender focus
  on the social problem that confront women
• One sided look glosses over the male component of
  gender relations
• Both men and women experience confusion about
  male roles
• Men are now experiencing a crisis of confidence
• Support system for men is not in place
• Confusion can erupt into hostility
• Take charge guy appropriate at times but so to is
  the sensitive and thoughtful type

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From Ruling the Roost to Roasting the Chicken

• real man embodies core cultural values
• Women are unthinkable outside of their
  relationships to men
• Men are entering into new century in more
  precarious positions because
• Women have seized power
• Children are asserting rights
• Computers taking their jobs
• Their value to society is eroded
• Their command and control skills becoming
  obsolete

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• Men appear unhappy about sharing power
• Feminists have argued, women only and men only
  are not the same thing because men are trying to
  monopolize power and women trying to acquire
  power
• Masculine mystique has been unzipped
• Rules of the game are changing

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Gender Inequality

• Gender inequality is valued in many parts of the
  world
• Women and men are differently situated in society
• These inequalities are patterned, persistent and
  resistant
• Women are underrepresented in politics
• Women are excluded from the socio-economic ladder
• Women are subject to violence
• Patterns of inequality remain entrenched

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• Women represent about half of the worlds
  population
• Canadian women are about four fifths of the way
  to equality
• Women contributions are undervalued except in
  their roles as mothers, wives, sisters, and
  daughters
• Unpaid domestic work remains invisible
• Gender is not always the most important
  inequality for women
• Class, race and ethnicity create intersecting and
  interlocking patterns of inequality

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Employment Status

• Women are prominent in the labour force and
  occupy 46.7
• Women created 34 of all businesses
• Gendered division of labour restricts women from
  higher paid male jobs
• Progress in desegregating occupations has stalled
• Women spend more time looking after children
• Marital breakup due to failure to create an
  equitable division of household labour

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Income Earnings

• Women earn 61 of what men earn
• Single women earn 95.5 of what single men earn
• Married women earn 67.5
• Women between 45-54, single with university
  education earned same as men
• Gaps in earnings may be misleading
• Women tend to work in less progressive and more
  part-time companies
• Prone to jobs which they believe can help
  individuals or society

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Education

• Women are outperforming men across the board in
  math, writing, and reading
• Women represent 58 of university graduates
• Women moving into disciplines reserved for males
• So where is the problem?

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Political Status

• Women represent 20.6 of total seats
• Few women who do make it to Parliament find
  themselves on soft legislative committees
  pertaining to culture or welfare

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Domestic Violence

• rates of spousal violence rose from 302/100 000
  to 344/ 100 000
• Men and women display aggressiveness within
  domestic relations
• Women more likely to suffer injuries
• Men use violence to control, women use it in
  order to settle conflict