Chapter two

Question 1

social inequality

Answer 1

• the relatively long-lasting differences among individuals or groups of people that have implication for individual lives, especially ‘for the rights or opportunities they exercise and the rewards privileges they enjoy’
• e.g. women, racialized and ethnic-minority groups disproportionately represented in lower-paying, more insecure jobs

Question 2

cages

Answer 2

class, age, gender, ethnicity/race (CaGEs) are structural sets of social relations and structures of inequality in canada

Question 3

social relations

Answer 3

fundamental elements of the social structure which reflect power differences among groups of people

Question 4

structures of inequality

Answer 4

durable patterns of social organization that influence social inequality

Question 5

types of feminism

Answer 5

1. liberal feminism
2. socialist feminism
3. radical feminism

Question 6

liberal feminism

Answer 6

• belief and focus on individual rights of men & women
• legal and cultural barriers should be removed to allow men and women to reach their potential
• as long as men and women have the same rights, and equal opportunity then that’s all we need
• e.g. famous five

Question 7

socialist feminism

Answer 7

• women aren’t just oppressed by lack of opportunity or barriers but because the system is capitalist system will always exploit women, so the only way to achieve gender equality is to eliminate capitalism
• believe that liberation will only come through collective action
• family form must be replaced so that women are not ‘domestic slaves’
• calls for a socialist revolution

Question 8

radical feminism

Answer 8

society must eliminate patriarchy

Question 9

first wave feminism (1850s-1940s)

Answer 9

• female suffrage (1918)
• women become ‘persons’ (1929)
• e.g. own land

Question 10

second wave feminism (1960s-1980s)

Answer 10

• betty friedan & misery of a housewife (1963)
• no fault divorce: don’t need proof of abuse, cheating or abandonment anymore just proof you’ve lived separate for 3 years (1968)
• access to ‘the pill’; abortion access (1962)
• marital rape (1983)

Question 11

third wave feminism (1990s)

Answer 11

recognition of matrix and that white middle-class women don’t speak for all women

Question 12

fourth wave feminism (2010 on)

Answer 12

• recognition of stalled gains in politics/business world; focus on violence against women, ‘slut and body shaming’, access to daycare; ‘more activists than theorists’
• developed because of the shortcoming of the second and third wave

Question 13

joan acker

Answer 13

• argued that previous feminist writers had addressed production and reproduction issues well, but had failed to interrogate issue of distribution
• assumed distribution of husbands wealth & money with his family
• e.g. failure to extend wealth to domestic chores, raising children etc

Question 14

gender inequality: production

Answer 14

• canadian women earn 87 cents an hour for every dollar made by men
• structural/systemic issue

Question 15

gender inequality: reproduction

Answer 15

• women today do twice as much childcare as their male counterparts
• risk of poverty is higher being raised by a single mother vs. single father

Question 16

gender inequality: distribution

Answer 16

• wage sharing
• taxation and social programs
• social policies discriminate against women

Question 17

wage sharing

Answer 17

• distributing wages with family in home country after immigration
• assumptions men share wages with wife and kids, but elsewhere (e.g. gambling, addictions, affairs, etc)

Question 18

taxation and social programs

Answer 18

e.g. subsidized day care through taxation

Question 19

social policies discriminate against women

Answer 19

• workers compensation benefits: attached to work, so it does not account for domestic labour
• employment insurance: not paying into EI if you are staying at home and/or raising kids
• canadian pension plan: not working means you aren’t paying into your CPP so time off being a homemaker has impacts

Question 20

Barbara risman on gender structure

Answer 20

• stated that for a full understanding of the structural nature of gender, the relationship between 3 levels of analysis must be considered:
  1. individual level: socialization & identities
  2. interactional level: cultural expectations; taken for granted meanings
  3. institutional level: distribution of material advantage, ideological discourse; formal organizational schemas

Question 21

individual level: gender socialization

Answer 21

• is a major force in understanding how gender relations work
• large reason we have inequality is because we socialize genders differently
• we respond to people based on their assumed gender and this starts when people are babies
• gender socialization in family, gender within peer groups, gender within schools, gender and the media

Question 22

naomi wolf - promiscuities

Answer 22

• wrote a book about the irresponsibilities of women sexually (stds, unwanted pregnancies, not using birth control)
• why were women being so irresponsible with their newfound freedom after the wave of feminism in the 70s? and its because:
  1. they were not socialized to have these rights and freedoms so they didn’t know how to act
  2. interruption and failure to socialize

Question 23

candace west & done zimmerman: doing gender (1989)

Answer 23

• work based on Goffman’s dramaturgical theory
• gender is not a fixed identity that we take with us into our interactions with others; gender is a product of those interactions and socialization
• gender is active doing-not natural being
• people tend to reproduce masculine dominance and feminine submissiveness in their behaviour

Question 24

Coffman’s dramaturgical theory

Answer 24

• the whole world is a stage in which we are all acting; you do things because you are socialized to be a girl and that is what girls do
• you’re not a gender you do gender

Question 25

gender identity: psychoanalytic understanding

Answer 25

• individuate ourselves from our parents and become who we are, typically beginning around the age of 12; a child who doesn’t individuate might not be psychologically healthy
• attempts to explain patriarchy in reference to psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• men become aware of the higher valuation of men over women and seek an identity separate from their mother…but residual emotional needs leads to men seeking a woman of his own, but one who he can control

Question 26

interactional level: gender and parenthood

Answer 26

• adrienne rich (1976):
• ’motherhood gene’: all women have the desire to become mother and are suited to child-rearing
• good parenting generally refers to ‘good mothering’
• good mothering ideal today is ‘intensive mothering’
• sisyphean work: housework

Question 27

gender and parenthood: hegemonic masculine ideal

Answer 27

• encouraged to partake in high-risk behaviours- increased risk of accidents
• emphasis on competition=> separates men from others including men => lose opportunities for intimacy and trust

Question 28

gender and parenthood: fatherhood

Answer 28

• expected to be primary breadwinner/provider
• parenthood- focus on mothers rather than fathers
• expectation that men are emotionally strong- emotionality increased stigmatization

Question 29

institutional level: gender institutions

Answer 29

• family is gendered
• education system(s) are gendered
• health care system(s) are gendered
• justice system is gendered