Sociology Chapter 10 Gender

Front 1

Who met in Seneca Falls in 1848 and why?

Back 1

Over 300 women met at Seneca Falls in the Wesleyan Chapel to challenge the second-class citizenship of women. Their leader was Elizabeth Stanton who called for expanding the rights and opportunities for women as well as the right to vote. Women could not own property, keep their wages if they were married, draft a will, file lawsuits or attend college!

Front 2

What did Margaret Mead find out about gender in 3 simple societies?

Back 2

Margaret Mead was an anthropologist who made some very significant discoveries regarding gender. She studied 3 societies in New Guinea.

Premise of her research: if gender is based on the biological differences bwtn men and women then people everywhere should define "feminine" and "masculine" in the same way. if gender is cultural then these concepts should vary.

Within the mountainous tribe, men and women were both cooperative and sensitive - our culture would label them both "feminine"

Within the southern tribe, who practiced headhunting and cannibalism, both men and women were aggressive and selfish - our culture would consider them both "masculine"

Within the western tribe, Mead discovered that females and males were defined different BUT the ideas of male and female were reversed. Females were dominant and rational while makes were submissive, emotional and attentive toward children.

*George Murdock's research: in a very large study of more than 200 pre-industrialized societies Murdock found some global agreement on which tasks are feminine and masculine. Hunting and warfare generally fall to men while home-centered tasks such as cooking and child-care are typically for women. These roles reflect physical characteristics (men are larger so better left to them to fight and women bear the children so take care of kids and the home). Many other tasks are equally distributed between the two sexes such as agriculture, building shelters, etc

Front 3

What is sexism? Please note especially the institutional sexism (same as societal sexism).

Back 3

Matriarchy: a form or social organization in which females dominate males

Patriarchy: a form of social organization in which males dominate females

Sexism is the belief that on sex is innately superior to the other. Sexism is not just a matter of individual attitudes - it is built into the institutions of our society.

Institutional sexism: is found throughout the economy with women highly concentrated in lower paying jobs such as waitressing and house cleaning. Also, the legal system has long excused violence against women especially in regards to husbands, fathers, boyfriends.

Front 4

Do males lose, as well as benefit, from sexism?

Does society lose?

What do you think?

Back 4

Society loses because:
Sexism limits the talents and ambitions of half the population (women).

Men lose because:
Although men benefit in some ways perhaps the price is higher than most realize b/c masculinity encourages men to engage in more high-risk behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use, playing dangerous sports and driving recklessly.

Some argue that patriarchy drives men to seek control not only over women but the world as well. Thus, masculinity is linked not only to accidents but to violence, stress-related diseases and suicide.

Masculine traits such as chronic impatience, driving ambition and competitiveness as well as hostility can cause heart disease.

Because men seek to control and dominate they lose out on opportunities for trust and intimacy.

Note: patriarchy continues in preindustrialized countries because women tend to have little control over pregnancy and childbirth thereby limiting the scope of their lives. Industrialization (and the discovery and acceptance of birthcontrol) increases womens/peoples choices on how they want to live. Here in the US biological differences offer little justification for patriarchy yet it still does persist although to a lesser degree. Some researchers purport that the brain of the different sexes are wired in a certain way that makes patriarchy difficult to eradicate. Yet other researchers feel that patriarchy continues not due to biology but societal factors.

Front 5

Are boys and girls pushed into blue and pink worlds (p276)? Please explain.

Back 5

Gender roles: are the attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex. Sex is the biological distinction and gender is the meaning that society attaches to male and female.

Gender and the family: gender is at work even before the child is born. people ask: is it a boy or girl? Research shows that boy and girl infants are handled differently; girls more gently (hugs and caresses) and boys more aggressively (lots of lifting in the air or bouncing on the knee). Females = cooperation and emotion. Males = action and independence

Front 6

What do peer groups teach children about gender roles?

Back 6

Gender and peer groups: considerable research shows that young children tend to form single-sex play groups. More research demonstrates that boys favor team sports with complex rules and objectives with resulting winners and losers. This reinforces masculine traits of aggression and control.

Girls will play team sports as well but tend to favor hopscotch, jumping rope, sing or dance. There are few rules and having a victor is not the aim of play. Thus, female peer groups promote cooperation and interpersonal skills (not competitiveness).

Later in life, men will view "rightness" as "playing by the rules" while women will consider morality a matter of responsibility to others.

Front 7

What effect do schools and books have on sex role learning?

Back 7

In high school, girls tend to learn more secretarial skill and take up vocational classes such as cosmetology and food service while boys tend to take up woodworking and auto/shop

Regarding college, women make up MORE than half of the student body (57%). As there are more and more women attending college women are being more well represented in fields of study that once excluded them, including math and science. However, men still dominate fields such as physics, engineering and philosophy. Women seem to exceed around fine arts such as music, dance and drama as well as social sciences like sociology and anthropology.

Front 8

How do mass media effect sex role attitudes and values? Please illustrate.

Back 8

Gender and mass media:

In the early days of TV, men held center stage. When both sexes were represented on the screen men played brilliant, fearless and intelligent roles while women were relegated to less capable characters (often simply the sexual interest in the story line).

Historically, advertisements have shown women in the home with cleaning products, appliances, food and clothes. Men in ads are often seen with cars, banking services and alcohol. The authoritative voiceover is almost always male.

Front 9

Are women victimized by a "beauty myth"? Explain.

Back 9

YES!

Naomi Wolf certain cultural patterns create a "beauty myth" that is damaging to women. Society teaches women to measure their worth in terms of physical appearance. Yet the standard that society and the media present is very difficult to achieve. In striving for beauty women become very disciplined and "forced" to become highly attentive and responsive to men. Beauty minded women try to please men and avoid challenging male power. Ex/ beauty pageant contestants have become thinner and thinner over the years. Also, men like to possess beautiful women which reduces women to objects and motivate men to treat women as if they were dolls rather than human beings.

Front 10

Note the dramatic increase in the percentage of US women in the work force from 1900 to today. (p277)

Back 10

In the 1900's only 1/5 of women were in the US work force. Today, that figure has tripled to 60% and 75% of these women are working full-time.

Factors that contribute to the this change in the US work force include decline in farming, growth of cities, shrinking family size and rising divorce rates.

Front 11

Please illustrate sexist patterns in occupations.

Back 11

Gender involves more than how people think and act. It is also very much about how society is organized and the reality if gender stratification can be seen in every aspect of our lives.

Although women are closing the gap with men regarding working for income, the work done by the 2 sexes remains very different.

The US Dept of Labor reports that there is a high concentration of women in two types of jobs: administrative support work (secretaries) and service work (food industries, childcare and healthcare). These are known as "pink-collar jobs" and tend to be lower paying with limited advancement potential and male bosses.

Men dominate most other categories such as building trades (construction - 99%), architects and engineers (87%), law enforcement (85%), physicians and lawyers (approx 65%).

In a recent survey of Fortune 500 co's only 15 women held CEO titles and only 15% of board of director members were women. The highest paid women CEO had compensation equivalent to the 9th highest paid male CEO.

Even more examples of gender stratification:
female nurses assist male doctors
females secretaries assist male executives
female flight attendants under command of male pilots
even look at teachers

We hardly hear people say aloud: women don't belong at the top
BUT people think it/feel it and this produces a barrier, aka "the glass ceiling" which makes it difficult for women to advance especially in corporate setting.

However, women are presenting a big challenge to male domination in the area entrepreneurship.In 2008 there were more than 10 million woman owned businesses that generated over 2 billion.

Front 12

Some people complain of a "glass ceiling"....what is it? (p279)

Back 12

The "glass ceiling" is what sociologists term the barrier that often blocks women's careers - it is the societal belief that women either should not or cannot be at top levels within a company. It is an unfortunate example of gender stratification that shapes the workforce.

Front 13

What is the connection between gender and income? Note the "77 cent rule". (p279) And please state the causes.

Back 13

In 2008, the median earnings for women was approx $36K while that of men was $46K. For every dollar a man earned, a woman made about 77 cents. The earnings difference was more represented in older working folks where women typically have less education than men. In younger worker the earnings difference is not as pronounced because the men and women have similar schooling and experience.

3 factors contribute to the earnings difference between men and women:

1) type of work (mainly clerical and service jobs)
2) family responsibility (children)
3) discrimination (glass ceiling)

Supporters of gender equality have proposed a policy of "comparable worth" meaning paying people according to the level of skill and responsibility. Interestingly Great Britain and Australia have adopted comparable worth policies but the US has not.

Another cause of gender-based income inequality concerns society's views of the family. Our culture (and many others) relegate the responsibility of parenting to women. Pregnancy and raising young children prevent younger women from participating in the work force while many of their male counterparts are making significant career advancements. Additionally, women who have children find it difficult to take-on fast-paced jobs that often require working evenings and weekends.

Front 14

What are the causes of income inequality according to sex?

Back 14

Ch 10

Front 15

Examine women's "second shift". Note the graph of housework on p281

Back 15

In the US, housework has always presented a cultural contradiction. As women have entered the workforce, the amount of housework being done by women has gone down but the share of housework by women has stayed the same. Many men still resist taking on an equal amount of housework despite the fact that many of them count on their wives bringing in a paycheck.

Front 16

Note the connection between sex and education. How have things changed in recent years?

Back 16

Our society used to believe that schooling was only necessary for men because women tended to stay home. Today, almost 60% of BA's are women as are MA's. 50% of all doctorate degrees are awarded to women.

Despite the progress, men still predominate in some of the professional fields such as law, dentistry.

Front 17

How prominent are women in politics?

Back 17

100 year ago, almost no women held any kind of elected office in the US. Remember that women were barred from voting until the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. NOTE: the Equal Rights party supported Victoria Woodhull for president in 1872 and she spent election day in jail.

However, today many thousands of women serve as mayors of towns and cities and many more hold jobs within the federal gov't.

Change is more difficult at the highest levels of power although the majority of US adults claim they would support a qualified woman for any office.

Although women make up half the world's population they hold only 19% of seats throughout the world 180+ parliamentary gov'ts.

But we are making slow, steady strides. Today in the US there are a record number of women in both the Senate and the House, respectively 17 and 73.

Front 18

What are the facts about women in the US Military? Are women suitable for military work?

Back 18

Since colonial times, women have served in the US armed forces. In 1940 WWII only 2% of military personnel were women. As of 2009, women represented 14% of all deployed troops.

Today, almost all military assignments are open to men and women and women are a growing share within the military but the law prevents women from engaging on offensive warfare.

Some people object to women in the military saying that women are no physically capable of participating in the military. Other say that women are more educated and test better than men. But at the heart of the issue is the fact that our society views women as nurtures - not as killers.

Front 19

Much violence against women occurs in the home. Please explain.

Back 19

In the 19th cent men claimed they had the right to rule their households even if it meant using physical discipline against their wives. The govt today reports over 1.5 million assaults (simple, aggravated and rape).

Most gender linked violence occurs where men and women interact the most: the home. Sociologist Richard Gelles claims that besides the police and military, the family is the most violent and it is women who suffer the most injuries. The risk of violence is especially greater in lower income families that face lots of stress and lower income women have fewer options to get out of a dangerous home.

Front 20

What are the medical facts and social purposes of female genital mutilation?

Back 20

Ch 10

Front 21

What is sexual harassment? Explain the key issues.

Back 21

Sexual harassment refers to comments, gestures or physical contacts of a sexual nature that are deliberate, repeated and unwelcome. In the 1990's sexual harassment became a national issue and rules in the workplace were rewritten.

Most sexual harassment victims are women. Why?

-Our culture encourages men to be sexually assertive and to see women in sexual terms. It is very easy for encounters to take on sexual overtones.
-Most people in a position of power (executives, doctors, assembly line supervisors, professors, etc) are men who oversee the work of women

Sometimes it is overt and obvious - a supervisor (male) might seek sexual favors from an employee (female) and make threats of refused, ie/ quid pro quo which is a violation of civil rights

However, it is typically more subtle, in the form of comments on looks, sexual teasing and off-color jokes. Although they may or may not be intended to harm anyone feminists claim that based on the "effect standard" such actions create a hostile environment for women in the workplace. Something even as seemingly benign as a compliment about looks could cause a woman to think her work is not being considered seriously and thus might hamper her from getting a promotion.

Front 22

Theoretical Analysis of Gender
(structural-functional vs social-conflict)

Explain and evaluate Parson's view:

instrumental role for men
expressive role for women

Back 22

The structural-functional approach views society as a complex system of many separate but integrated parts. From their point of view, gender serves as a means to ORGANIZE society.

Over the centuries, sex-based division of labor (men fight and hunt b/c they are bigger while women are responsible for children and the home) became institutionalized and largely taken for granted.

According to Parson, gender helps integrate society by providing a complimentary set of roles that links women and men into family units and gives each sex responsibility. Society encourages gender conformity by instilling in both sexes that aberrations from the norms that define their gender will cause them to rejected by the opposite sex.

Gender plays an important part in socialization -

Instrumental qualities in men are nurtured (to be rational, self-assured and competitive).

Expressive qualities in women are nurtured (sensitivity to others an emotional responsiveness)

Front 23

How do conflict theorists view sex inequality? Do you agree?

Back 23

From the social-conflict point of view, gender involves differences not only in behavior but in power as well. Conventional ideas about gender do not make society operate more smoothly - they create division and tension with men seeking to protect their privileges as women challenge the status quo.

Interesting note: Although the social-conflict approach draws from the ideas of Karl Marx, his writings focused on men (did not include women). His friend and contemporary Friedrich Engels was the one who developed a theory of gender stratification

Friedrich Engels on Gender and Class -

In hunting/gathering societies the activities of men and women were different yet of equal importance. Successful hunts brought men prestige but the gathered vegetation by women provided most of the group's food supply.

With technological advances came production surplus and gave to private property and class hierarchy leaving behind the ways of social equality and communal sharing. Men gained power over women - with surplus wealth men wanted to pass on their heirs, and therefore, their need to control the sexuality of women. Women were taught to be virgins until marriage and then bear only one man's children.

According to Engels, capitalism strengthens male domination because: 1) capitalism creates more wealth which gives even more power to men as income earners and property owners 2) capitalist economies depend on turning people into consumers, especially women, who seek personal fulfillment by buying and using products 3) society assigns women the task of maintaining the home while men work at factories, Engels sees this as double exploitation of capitalism because male labor pays low wages and women don't get paid at all.

NOTE: problems with social-conflict include the fact that it minimizes the extent to which men and women live together cooperatively in families. Also, it asserts that capitalism is the basis of gender stratification. However, agrarian societies are typically more patriarchal than industrial-capitalist societies.

Front 24

What is feminism?

Back 24

Feminism is the support of social equality for women and men, in opposition to patriarchy and sexism. The first movement of feminism in the US began in the mid-1800's when women (Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott) opposed slavery and drew parallels between the oppression of slaves and that women. Their main objective was the power to vote which they finally gained in 1920.

Feminism views everyday lives of men and women through the lens of gender - gender identity (how we think of ourselves), gender roles (how we act), gender stratification (our social standing as a man or woman) are all rooted in the operation of society.

FIVE principles of basic feminism:
1) working to increase equality
2) expanding human choice, oppose the female world (emotion and cooperation) and the male world (rationality and competition), instead propose a "reintegration of humanity" in that all people develop all traits
3) eliminate gender stratification, supports "Equal Rights Amendment" (ERA). Although widely supported it is not a law.
4) ending sexual violence, including domestic abuse, rape, sexual harassment and porn
5) promoting sexual freedom, birth control and abortion.

Front 25

Please give a brief explanation of the different types of feminism:

Liberal feminism
Socialist feminism
Radical feminism

Back 25

Liberal feminism: rooted in classical liberal thinking that individuals should be free to develop their own talents and pursue their own interests. Liberal feminism accepts the basic organization of society but wants to expand the rights and opportunities of women.

Socialist feminism: evolved from the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They do not think liberal feminists go far enough. They that the family form fostered by capitalism must change in order to replace "domestic slavery" with some collective means of carrying out housework and child care. Their belief is that this can only be achieved by socialist revolution that creates a state-centered economy to meet the needs of all.

Radical feminism: believe that patriarchy is so entrenched in our society that even a socialist movement would not end it. In their minds, gender equality will only be achieved if society eliminates gender itself!!! They would like to remove motherhood from women by technological means, thereby freeing women, men and children from the oppression of family, gender and sex itself.

Front 26

Why is there opposition to feminism?

Back 26

Today there is only 20% of the population that says the oppose the feminism.

However, because feminism calls for drastic change there is of course opposition and resistance. Some oppose it because they distrust a social movement that attacks the traditional family and that calls to question the male-female relationship that has existed for centuries. Men are perhaps uncomfortable exploring feminist ideals of men being gentle and warm. Women who do not work outside the home might feel threatened as they have made their children and husbands the center of their world.

Within academic circles, some sociologists charge feminists of ignoring growing evidence that men and women simply think and act in somewhat different way and therefore complete gender equality would be impossible. Additionally, critics point out that feminism undervalues the crucial and unique contribution women make to the development of children, especially in their young formative years.

There is also question of HOW women should go about improving their social standing. Most people feel that women should advance individually based on merit and abilities. Only 10% are in support of women's rights groups or collective action.