SOC 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Pink-Collar Worker, Gender Role, Genital Modification And Mutilation
Chapter 10: Gender Stratification
Gender and Inequality
• Gender refers to the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach
to being male or female.
• Involves hierarchy, placing men and women in different positions in terms of power,
wealth, and other resources.
• Gender stratification: the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between
men and women
Male-Female Differences
• Many differences attributed to biology are actually a result of cultural patterns
• Biologically men and women only differ in limited ways
Gender in Global Perspective
• The Israeli Kibbutz:
o Collective settlements are called kibbutzim.
▪ An important setting for gender research
o Men and women share in both work and decision making
o Boys and girls raised in the same way
o Almost complete equality
• Margaret Mead’s research:
o Groundbreaking research on gender
o In two communities in New Guinea, both sexes had remarkable similar behavior
o In the third they were defined very differently
▪ Reversed many of our ideas gender
• George Murdock’s research:
o Some global agreement on which tasks are feminine and which masculine
▪ Hunting and war-fare = men
▪ Home-centered tasks = women
o Beyond this there is much variety
Patriarchy and Sexism
• Conceptions of gender vary and in some societies women have greater power over men
o The Musuo in southwest China
o Matriarchy: a form of social organization in which females dominate males
• The pattern found almost everywhere in the world is patriarchy
o A form of social organization in which males dominate females
• The justification for patriarchy is sexism
o The belief that one sex is innately superior to the other
o Institutional sexism is found throughout the economy with women highly
concentrated in lower-paying jobs
o The legal system has long excused violence against women
• The costs of sexism:
o Limits the talents and ambitions of half the human population
o Masculinity encourages risky behavior and need for control
▪ Leeds to suicide, violence, and stress-related diseases
▪ Type a personality is masculinity
• Must patriarchy go on?:
o It seems that patriarchy is unnecessary in post-industrial societies
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▪ But men are still dominant
o Most sociologists see gender as socially constructed and something that can be
changed
Gender and Socialization
• Gender affects how we think of ourselves and teaches us how to behave
• Gender roles: attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex
o Males are defined as ambitious and competitive
o Females as deferential and supportive
Gender and the Family
• People send gender messages the way they handle infants
• The first thing people ask about a new born is its sex
Gender and the Peer Group
• Peer groups teach additional lessons about gender
• The games played as children lead to life-long traits
o Competitiveness, aggression
o Communication, cooperation
Gender and Schooling
• Gender shapes our interests and beliefs
• Women now represent 57% of people on campuses, but men still dominate certain
degrees
• Women towards the humanities and social sciences, men towards science and math
Gender and the Mass Media
• Men have always held center stage in mass media and the portrayal of women has been
lacking
o Women in media are still paid less
• Advertisements have women in the home
• Also perpetuate the beauty myth
Gender and Social Stratification
• Gender involves how a society is organized, how our lives are affected by social
hierarchy
Working Women and Men
• Now 57% of women are in the labor force and 69% of men
• 47% of all US jobs are held by women
• Now married women with children are a part of the labor force a well
• Pink collar jobs: jobs primarily held by women
• Men dominate most other job categories
• Gender stratification in everyday life is easy to see
o The higher in a company we look the fewer women we find
Gender and Unemployment
• Men have a slightly higher unemployment rate
• Recently unemployment has been worse for women though
Gender, Income, and Wealth
• Women earn about 78 cents to a man’s dollar
• The main reason women earn less is the type of work they do
o People devalue work that is considered women’s work
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