Gender (40) Flashcards
Gender Inequality
The imbalance of life chances between men and women, women have lesser rights and lower chances than men.
Introduction
- Women experience inequality in family life, work and living situations
- Men experience inequality in wealth and education
Introduction Stat (Women)
26% of women aged 15-59 experienced Domestic Abuse compared to 15% of men. (Crime Statistics for England and Wales)
Introduction Stat (Men)
Males had a higher custody rate for indictable offences (34%) than females (20%).
Females were 43% less likely to be sentenced to custody for indictable offences, relative to males. (Ministry of Justice)
Functionalism (Parsons)
- Bio diff between men and women is innate
- ‘Expressive Role’ for women
- ‘Instrumental Role’ for men
- Different roles contribute to the smooth running of society so they have diff experiences in the labour market and elsewhere in the public sphere
- Socialisation reinforces the naturalness
Functionalism (Murdock)
- Women are there are to gratify the male sex drive
- Gender roles in over 200 societies and found that women were at home because of their biological function of bearing children and they were less able than men to perform strenuous tasks.
- Gender division of labour was evident in all of the societies so universal because they were functional.
Functionalism and Employment Stats
- Slater/Gordon: Survey of 500 managers revealed 40% admit to avoiding highering women of childbearing age
- 98% of households with a stay at home parent. W
Functionalism Cristsism
- But ONS 2018 71% of women aged 16 to 64 are employed
- Gender roles are not natural but learnt,not natural/Oakley and Gender Canalisation
- Anthropological Studies have shown gender roles diff/ Mead (1935) studied the Mundugumor society in New Guinea where women are as assertive as men and completely lack any maternal desire to bear or rear children. Such examples show that gender roles are learnt and challenge Parsons’ idea that they are innate.
New Right
- Gender roles are biological and should play different roles in society
- Men take the roles in the public sphere of work and women are located within the private domestic sphere
- NF and the gender division of roles are desirable and based on human nature
- The focus for the New Right is on achieving a return to traditional family values and the traditional gender roles that accompany this.
- Changes in gender roles have led to social problems such as an increase in lone-parent families who do not socialise their children appropriately.
NR and Feminism (Faludi)
- Society had gone ‘too far’
- Masculinity became threatened; male underachievement and ‘feminisation’ of society
- Crisis of self-doubt as their self-worth and usefulness becomes ever smaller.
- The workplace is threatening to men through rising unemployment, shrinking pay, longer hours and perpetual fear of redundancy.
- Undermine the secure ‘breadwinner’ role.
- Marriage and relationships, which are no longer as stable.
NR and Education
- The feminisation of Education disadvantages men
- Girls outperform boys at all levels at education from primary school to university (more female teachers) 73% versus 64% achieving 5 A*-C
NR Criticisms
- Men remain in power including in Education/22% of professors were female in 2013-14 compared with just 15% in 2003-04, Higher Education Statistics Agency.
- 57% of NEETs (16-24) (Parliament 2014) were women and 60% aren’t looking for work due to family or home compared to men
- Outdated, Unproven, Ignored the dark side
- ‘golden age’ that never really existed as lone parenting, cohabitation and extra-marital affairs existed then, too
Marxism (Engles)
- The exploiter–exploited relationship that occurs between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is translated into the household in relationships between men and women
- Under capitalism, men gained control over women as they wanted to pass on private property in the form of inheritance and they wanted to be sure that the heirs were their legitimate offspring.
- Rise to the ideology of the nuclear family, which sought to restrict women’s sexuality and enforce monogamy to protect male property rights.
Marxism
- Women are exploited just like men
- Workers and the Reserve Army of labour
- Treated the same in regards to class identity
Marxism Criticisms
-Criticised for over-emphasising the impact of class on gender. RF argue that the oppression of women by men was the first form of oppression.
-Criticised for focusing on macro, structural issues and neglecting the small- scale interactions that provide a more valid understanding of relationships between men
and women.
-Postmodernists would argue that Marxist views are outdated and fail to recognise the changes to gender roles that have happened