All people are forced to see themselves as society has shaped them, both male and female. Although progress for gender impartiality has been made, it can still be said that societal maxims enforce the incorrect notion that women are inferior to men. In matters of economics, women are offered far fewer employment opportunities, and I believe that this can be validated by the fact that many women have been conditioned to "marry well and let him...
“For most of history, anonymous was a woman –Virginia Wolf.” For women, the path to equality in the home and workforce has been a long hard fought battle that is still taking place as we speak. With every victory that has taken place, there have also been road blocks at every turn, many shed tears, resistance, and an unwavering belief felt by men, that women truly will never amount to anything other than a housewife. If the women from the start of this battle were to see the great strides taken place over the years and the place women are at now, they would stand in utter disbelief. It is with great thanks that we as women are able to flourish as individuals; letting our goals, dreams, aspirations, and intelligence take the forefront of our duties to society.
Until the Feminist Movement in the 1960’s, women faced enormous inequality in the workforce. (E-Collaborative, 2014) Many jobs prior to this time were limited to only males, women often held submissive occupations, working under the supervision of a man. In many instances both sexes were carrying out the same responsibilities but were paid on an entirely differ...
Through investigations of writers as diverse as Silvia Federici, and Angela Davis, Maria Mies, and Sharon Hays, Judith Butler, and Steven Gregory we have come to understand that confronting the categorization of gender differences is a complex and nuanced project. Whether one is an ontologist, exploring the metaphysical nature of gender differences (that may or may not lead down the road of essentialism) or a phenomenologist exploring how exactly it is that one “does” gender—to the extent that there even exists a concept called gender—one must employ a varied and multipartite approach. Writers such as Federici, Mies, and Davis sketched out a framework of the history of gender roles for us. From what Federici calls a time of primitive consumption through feudalism, to the time of slavery and rapid industrialization and, indeed, through our current technological revolution, we have seen the basic gender differences between the sexes evolve over time. To be sure, our notions of what is expected from both women and men have changed since prehistoric times, and they continue to evolve. Sharon Hays in the chapter “Pyramids of Innequality” of her book Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform shows us how, in the United States, poverty and access to the social safety net have been raced and gendered. She provides a springboard for further investigation.
Why are most brain surgeons and CEO's male? Why are most secretaries and nurses female? Why not female surgeons and male nurses? These are simple and frequent questions that can be answered by most Sociologist and Theorists. Sociologists and Theorists equate this type of job inequality phenomenon with occupational sex segregation. Sex segregation in the workplace is one of the most visible signs of inequality in the labor market. In almost every work setting, it is rare to see men and women working at the same job. When they do, they usually perform different tasks, with unequal levels of responsibility and authority. Even when job tasks are virtually identical, it is not uncommon to find men and women allocated to distinct job classifications within an organization. The two theoretical perspectives that I will discuss in order to explain this sex segregation are neo-classical and human capital theories, and institutional and labor market segmentation theories.
Gender theorists and researchers analyze gender partly to understand the perpetuation of inequality and propose changes to diminish inequality. A central question researchers explore is whether challenges to gender inequality need to occur at the interactional or institutional level. The status characteristic and doing gender approach investigates power, agency and change within social interactions. Gendered organizational theories examine power, agency and structure within institutions. Each approach shifted research and theory on gender in interactions and institutions, and challenged the notion that gender is static. The two approaches scrutinize the social construction of gender, biological determinism created
The characteristics and behaviors associated with men and women are called gender roles. Gender can also be interpreted as the social, psychological, and cultural interpretation of biological sex. Gender as a social construct has been a term throughout history that explains the social distinction between men and women and is reinforced in social interactions. The crisis of the global economy brings about gender dimensions and different meanings for men and women in society. Men and women have been hierarchy organized and valued. Throughout the 19th century, women’s contributions to society were regarded as less significant than those of men. Stereotypes were put on genders, which included assertive, strong, and competitive for masculinity and submissive, weak, and emotional for femininity. Gender inequality arose as economic crisis took place throughout the 19th century. The changing conditions of work in the global state impacted the roles for men and women and many feminists started to challenge the idea that “biology is destiny”. With post-Fordism, a new gender order emerged, and Women occupied a broader place in the work force. However, sexism is still prevalent in society to some extent whether it’s unconscious or conscious and affects the lives of many women.
Society has seen the male dynamic of superiority, designation as the “bread winner”, or head of household for centuries. Women were specifically assigned to the roles of wife, mother, and nurturer through the process of the sexual or gendered division of labor. However, that has not always been the case. Over centuries of change and shifts in economic development, the roles of women have changed to adapt to their specific roles in society. The status of the individuals in society was defined by sex, age, physical trai...
Reskin (1993) stated that employers’ preferences for male workers, economic pressures, size of labour supply, gender-role socialization and workers’ values were some of the reasons why women and men are segregated in the workplace. Reskin concluded that there are many social and economic forces that increase and decrease sex segregation in the work force (Reskin,1993). The only way to decrease, better yet, to vanquish sex segregation in the workplace is for society to become “gender blind”. If society became “gender blind” differences in the workplace such a...
In this essay, I intend to analyze the division of labor based on the silent indoctrinated gender roles at home. After a careful and continuous observance for more than a decade, I have realized that my parents share a traditional relationship that is highly in favor of my father, my mother is the traditional home maker while my father is the sole bread winner for the family. With the cultural factors at play, I intend to discuss the gender ideologies that have been passed down from generations in my family. Since my grandparents shared a similar role, my parents have been passively influenced to follow. Women in my country try to fit into their mothers’ shoes; it is more than likely that my grandmother spent more time...
Gender inequality has been an abiding battle for centuries. Melissa J. Doak, author of Money, Income, and Poverty, states that “a wage survey taken in 1833 in Philadelphia found that most women workers in local textile factories received less for working seventy-eight hours per week than men were getting for one ten-hour day.” The question is why, after 180 years, this still continues to be an issue? Throughout history we see that men have become the breadwinners, while women were at home taking care of the children and carrying out household chores. This model created expectations of what both men and women were supposed to do in society. Therefore, this prototype or new stereotype of living didn’t provide many opportunities for women in the
Gender inequality is found in all societies in history. Each society typically assigns specific tasks or behaviors to each sex, although those assignments are not always the same in every society. This sex typing is not absolute across any society, one society may attribute a specific job as a “male” job, while a different society will attribute that same job as a “female” job. Sex typed work was researched in 324 societies around the world by Anthropologist George Murdock. (Henslin, 2014, p. 297)
The basic assumption of the economic exchange model as a mechanism for the gendered division of labour is that those who contribute more to the economic worth of a household (traditionally males), contribute less to the mundane household tasks that are routinely required (Brines, 1994:653). Thus, it is argued, women are forced to perform housework in exchange for economic support (Baxter, 2002:403). As recently as the mid-1990s, men were far more likely to be involved in full-time paid em...
These traditional roles and consequently women’s identities have been formed and maintained by the workplace, therefore understanding any gender differences in labor requires an examination in this light. Grant and Porter remind the researcher that the concepts of male and female are not independent relationships of the workplace, but have been strongly influenced and determined by the relationships of male and female in society at large.
Is the exploitation of women in the home through an unfair division of labor a result of the beginnings of capitalism? Is this exploitation in the home a cause of other inequalities, mainly those in the wage labor market? Is capitalism bolstered by already existing patriarchal social relations, or is capitalism continuing to reinforce patriarchal systems? Finally is it possible to liberate women and reach true equality in our current capitalist economy? These are the main questions I will examine throughout my paper.