Gender and Inequality

1. Gender and Inequality • Gender – the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being female and male. • Gender shapes how we interact with others and how we think about ourselves. • Gender stratification – the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women.

2. Gender in Global Perspective • Margaret Mead carried out ground breaking research on gender. • To the extent that gender reflects biological facts, people everywhere should define “feminine” and “masculine” in the same way. • If gender is cultural, the two concepts should vary. • Mead concluded that culture is key to gender.

3. George Murdock’s Research • Murdock found some global agreement on which tasks are feminine and which are masculine. • Hunting and warfare generally fall to men, and home-centered tasks tend to be women’s work.

4. Patriarchy and Sexism • Everywhere in the world we find some degree of patriarchy. • Patriarchy – a form of social organization in which males dominate females. • Matriarchy – a form of social organization in which females dominate males. • Matriarchy has never been documented in human history.

5. Gender and Socialization • Just as gender affects how we think of ourselves, it teaches us how to act. • Gender roles – attitudes and activities that a society links to sex. • Our culture defines males as ambitious and competitive. • Our culture defines females as deferential and emotional.

6. Gender and Social Stratification • Gender implies social hierarchy. • The traditional view that earning an income is a man’s role no longer holds true in the United States. • Women working for income is now the rule, rather than the exception. • Women remain segregated in the labor force in jobs that offer low pay and little opportunity.

7. Figure 10-2 (p. 252)Men and Women in the U.S. Labor Force

8. Housework • With women’s entry into the labor force, the amount of housework performed by women has declined. • The share women do has stayed the same. • Women average 16.5 hours a week of housework. • Men average 9.2 hours per week.

9. Gender and Education • By 1980, women earned a majority of all associate and bachelor degrees. • College doors have opened to women. • Differences in men’s and women’s majors are becoming smaller. • Women earn 57 percent of master’s degrees, and 42 percent of doctorates.

10. Gender and Politics • Until passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, it was illegal for women to vote in this country. • In global perspective, although women are half the Earth’s population, they hold just 13.9 percent of seats in the world’s 179 parliaments.

11. Are Women a Minority? • Minority – any category of people, distinguished by physical or cultural difference, that a society sets apart or subordinates. • U.S. women are a minority even though they outnumber men. • Most white women do not think of themselves this way.

12. Female genital mutilation is practiced in three dozen countries. Most victims of sexual harassment are women. Sexual harassment – comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual nature that are deliberate, repeated, and unwelcome. There is concern that pornography promotes violence against women. Violence Against Women

13. Structural-functional analysis suggests that traditional sex roles emerged in hunting and gathering societies. Social-conflict analysis explains sex roles in terms of dominance, subordination, and sexism. Theoretical Analysis of Gender

14. Feminism • Feminism – the advocacy of social equality for men and women, in opposition to patriarchy and sexism. • Feminism views the personal experiences of women and men through the eyes of gender. • Opposition to feminism is directed primarily at its radical forms.

15. Looking Ahead: Gender in the Twenty-first Century • While changes may be slow, we are seeing movement towards equality. • Women and men enjoy equal rights and opportunity. • Efforts to change our ideas will continue to provoke opposition.