Gender Inequality: Understanding the Social Construction and Impact of Gender Roles, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Download Gender Inequality: Understanding the Social Construction and Impact of Gender Roles and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! SOCL 2501 2/23 Chapter 4: Gender Inequality - Gender vs. Sex o Gender refers to culturally and socially constructed differences between females and males found in the meanings associated with “femininity” and “masculinity”  Gender used as means to divide up work, allocate resources, distribute power o Sex- biological/anatomical differences between males and females o In other words:  Sex- only refers to reproductive abilities of individuals and to other physiological traits that are limited to these  Gender- refers to more than sex, refers to our social ideas concerning sexes  What does it mean to be male/female?  What should male/females do? o What work is appropriate o What behaviors are appropriate? o What social roles are appropriate?  Based upon our notions of what it means to be male/female o What sexual orientations are appropriate? o Construction of gender starts with sex  Based upon your sex at birth you are dressed a certain way, given a particular name, and responded to accordingly o We act upon gendered “cues” such as dress and behavior in interaction o While sex characteristics vary little between human societies, gender characteristics vary significantly and change over time  Women’s work vs. men’s work  Bread winners vs homemaker  Pink collar vs white collar  Femininity vs. Masculinity  Skirts vs pants o Why do we distinguish between sex and gender?  Sex vs. gender  Conceptions of sex are biologically founded  Conceptions of gender are socially constructed o To understand why men and women have unequal standing in society, we must understand how social ideologies concerning differences between the sexes, not biology, affect the distribution of wealth, power, and privilege. 2/25 - Gender Matters SOCL 2501 o We know that social conventions about sex matter-that gender matters- because over time our social understandings of the roles and norms appropriate for the sexes have changed and inequality between sexes has harrowed. o However, we know that gender still matters because a person’s gender and how well a person conforms to norms about gender affects his/her life chances o In the US women have had to fight for equality  Right to vote  Equal pay  Equal access to quality education  Entrance to male-dominated occupations o Through this fight for equality, ideas about what women are capable or perhaps worthy of have changes, and so has women’s access to valued resources o However, women and men are still not equal in terms of power, prestige, and wealth. - Gender Stratification o Remember that stratification refers to societies system of grouping and ranking categories of people in a hierarchy o Gender stratification frequently takes the form of patriarchy (males dominate females) o Sociologists see patriarchy – and entire image of gender- as creation of society itself o Matriarchy- social pattern in which females dominate males. o Inequality emerges as a result of allocation processes-as a result of how men and women are classified according to their sex, how well they fit sex stereotypes, and as a result of social attitudes that rank the worth or abilities of one group over the other (sexism) - Gender stratification and Patriarchy o Explanations of patriarchy  Men’s greater body size and strength  Brain power  Greater aggressiveness (testosterone)  Most sociologists reject the idea that any behavior is “hard-wired” into human biology - The problem of Sexism o Sexism is assertion that one sex is innately inferior to the other o Sexism supports patriarchy by claiming that men are “better” than women and therefore should dominate them 2/28 - Gender and the family o Importance of gender to family life begins with the fact that most expectant parents prefer a son to a daughter