Chapter 4 Gender Inequality

1
Chapter 4Gender Inequality
2
What is Gender?

• Gender the meaning a society attaches to being
  male or female
• Sex the biological distinction between females
  and males

3
Gender Stratification and Patriarchy

• Gender is an important dimension of social
  inequality.
• Gender stratification frequently takes the form
  of patriarchy (social patterns by which males
  dominate females)
• Patriarchy is widely evident in the U.S. and
  around the world
• Sociologists see patriarchy - and the entire
  range of gender - as the creation of society
  itself

4
Gender Stratification and Patriarchy

• Gender stereotypes rigidly divide humanity by
  constructing femininity and masculinity in
  opposing terms.
• Critics conclude that gender stereotypes overlook
  the fact that people are much more complex than
  stereotypes allow for.

5
The Problem of Sexism

• Sexism is the assertion that one sex is innately
  superior or inferior to the other
• Sexism supports patriarchy by claiming that men
  are better than women and therefore should
  dominate them.

6
Gender and the Family

• The importance of gender to family life begins
  with the fact that most expectant parents prefer
  a son to a daughter.
• The influence continues in the childhood
  socialization process.
• After reaching adulthood, gender makes marriage
  two distinctive relationships
• Jesse Bernards his marriage and her marriage
  

7
Gender and Education

• Even before starting school, children are exposed
  to gender bias in childrens books.
• By 2000, 57.3 of college students were women
• social pressures still steer women toward majors
  in English, dance, drama, or gender issues
• men still are directed toward physics, economics,
  math, computer science, and engineering

8
Gender and Education

• Research indicates that the social aspects of
  campus life discourages the career aspirations of
  many women
• Despite the passage of Title IX in 1972, equality
  in athletic programs is more the exception than
  the rule

9
Gender and the Mass Media

• By 2000, there were more than 200 million
  televisions in the United States
• TV directs its advertising toward women but
  ignores them in TV programming
• While gender biases in advertising is more subtle
  than in programming, its still very much in
  evidence

10
Gender and Religion

• Religion has traditionally been patriarchal
• In recent decades, more liberal denominations
  have moved toward greater gender equality
• This liberal trend includes revising prayers,
  hymnals, and even the Bible to reduce sexist
  language, as well as ordaining both men and women
  as priests
• Orthodox Judaism, Islam, and Roman Catholicism
  have retained traditional male leadership

11
Gender and Politics

• Women have played only a marginal role in this
  nations political history
• Thousands of women now serve at the local levels
  as mayors and council members
• In 2001, 59 of 435 members of the House of
  Representatives and 13 of 100 Senators were women

12
Gender and Work

• By 2000, 60 percent of the adult labor force that
  worked full-time were women
• This increase has been due in part to a reduction
  in the time spent doing housework and the drop in
  average number of children born compared to a
  century ago

13
Gender and Work

• Even though more women work for pay, their range
  of jobs is still limited
• Gender discrimination was outlawed by the Federal
  Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil
  Rights Act of 1964 but even today, it continues
  to be an issue

14
Gender Stratification

• Inequality between men and women is reflected in
  differences in income and in responsibility for
  housework, as well as in patterns of violence and
  even reproductive issues
• Gender income inequality is the result of men
  holding different kinds of jobs, family life, and
  gender discrimination

15
Violence Against Women

• Perhaps the most serious problem linked to
  patriarchy is mens physical violence against
  women
• Assault, rape, and murder are common
• Why is violence a gender issue?
• Physical aggressiveness is a key element of the
  cultural definition of masculinity.
• Gender violence is not so much sexual as an
  expressions of power
• When it comes to serious violence, the most
  dangerous setting for women is the home

16
Sexual Harassment

• Sexual Harassmentcomments, gestures, or physical
  contact of a sexual nature that are deliberate,
  repeated, and unwelcome
• Sexual harassment that is blatant and direct is a
  violation of civil rights
• Other forms involve more subtle behavior
• they are still wrong if they create a hostile
  environment

17
Sexuality, Beauty and Reproduction

• Men define women in sexual terms to gain power
  over them
• Social norms encourage females to wear attractive
  clothes and to be attentive to men
• Womens reproduction has been regulated
• regulation of birth control
• restricted access to abortion clinics

18
Women A Majority-Minority

• Numerically, women are a slight majority of the
  U.S. population
• Women meet the test of being both a physically
  distinctive and disadvantaged category
• women have less income, wealth, and power than
  men

19
Minority Women

• Minority women are doubly disadvantaged
• They earn less than white women
• Minority women earn less than minority men
• In 2000, African American women earned 64 percent
  as much as white men and Hispanic women earned 51
  percent as much

20
Structural-functional analysis Gender and
Complimentarity

• Functionalists contend that differences between
  men and women help build families and integrate
  society as a whole
• The structural-functional analysis of gender was
  quite influential twenty-five years ago but is
  far less today

21
Structural-functional analysis Gender and
Complementarity

• Critics contend that
• functionalism ignores how men and women can and
  do relate to one another in a variety of ways
  that do not fit any norm
• functionalism fails to take into account the
  personal strains and social conflicts produced by
  rigid gender patterns

22
Symbolic-Interaction Analysis Gender in Everyday
Life

• The symbolic-interaction paradigm provides a
  micro-level analysis of gender at work in the
  everyday lives of individual people
• Gender directly affects personal behavior, the
  use of space, and the language we use
• Critics point out that symbolic-interaction
  overlooks the fact that gender is a basic part of
  social organization

23
Social-Conflict Analysis Gender and Inequality

• Friedrich Engels expanded Marxs theory to
  include gender, arguing that the same process
  that allows a ruling class to dominate a worker
  places men in a dominant position over women
• patriarchy is a system by which wealthy men
  transmit their wealth to their sons.
• the double problem of capitalism lies in
  exploiting men in the factories and exploiting
  women in the home

24
Social-Conflict Analysis Gender and Inequality

• Critics of this perspective point out that
  conflict theorists minimize the extent to which
  women and men live together cooperatively and in
  many cases quite happily.

25
Feminism

• Feminism
• the study of gender with the goal of changing
  society to make women and men equal
• involves both theory and action

26
Feminist Foundations

• There is no one version of feminism but almost
  all feminists agree on
• the importance of gender
• the importance of change
• the importance of personal choice
• the need to eliminate patriarchy
• the need to eliminate violence and
• the importance of sexual autonomy

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Types of Feminism

• Types of feminists
• liberal feminists - want women and men to be
  treated as individuals but want change to occur
  within existing social institutions
• socialist feminists -claim that a Marxist-style
  class revolution is needed to secure equality for
  all people
• radical feminists -argue that patriarchy is built
  into the concept of gender itself and nothing
  short of erasing gender will bring about equality

28
Politics and Gender Constructing Problems and
Defining Solutions

• Conservatives focus on the value of families
• While most conservatives are willing to support
  women in the workplace and even in positions of
  national leadership, most also support policies
  to strengthen families

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Politics and Gender Constructing Problems and
Defining Solutions

• Liberals contend that patriarchy is alive and
  well in the U.S. and is a serious social problem
• Liberals seek government support for the kinds of
  families that exist today.
• They support affirmative action and comparable
  worth policies

30
Politics and Gender Constructing Problems and
Defining Solutions

• Radicals argue that, at a minimum, basic change
  must come to the economic and political system
• Some radical feminists promote the elimination of
  gender itself