Gender

Question 1

Evidence for gender inequality in crime for females

Answer 1

Office of national statistics (2015) =
2 women are killed every week due to domestic violence
84% of victims are female

Buckle =
Study into shoplifting shows that there are 2x more men shoplifters than women despite statistics being equal, suggesting that women are more likely to be prosecuted than men for shoplifting

Question 2

Evidence for gender inequality in crime for males

Answer 2

• Home office (2003) = 81% of known offenders are men and 94% of prisoners are men in the UK
• Williams = Men dominate all categories when looking at type of offence concerning more serious offences

Question 3

Evidence for gender inequality in the media for females

Answer 3

Gauntlett =
From 1990 to present, there are traditional gender roles across a range of TV and film

Ferguson =
Him, home and looking good (for him)

Question 4

Evidence for gender inequality in the media for males

Answer 4

Gauntlett =
From 1990 to present, there are traditional gender roles across a range of TV and film

Easthorpe =
Males represented as biologically strong and expected to be masculine

Question 5

Evidence for gender inequality in education for females

Answer 5

Stanworth =

• Attitudes of teachers towards girls impeid their education progress of girls e.g. forgetting girls names
• Teachers had more stereotypical views of what girls would do in the furture
• Girls would under estimate their ability whereas boys would overestimate theirs
• Classroom interaction disadvantaged girls

Spender =
Described women as invisible in education, arguing that the curriculum was male biased with limited attention being paid to the role of women in history, sciences or the arts and also found that boys received more encouragement from teachers

Question 6

Evidence for gender inequality in education for males

Answer 6

Jackson =
-Boys laddish behaviour was constructed within the framework of hegemonic masculinity
-Boys and girls believe it is uncool to work and in order to be cool, they have to untie school and work
-Middle class boys can have the best of both worlds by not doing the work but still succeed due to having resources(makes them cool)
Laddish behaviour is seen as a defense mechanism, most boys are scared to fail, they’d prefer to not even try

Francis and skelton =
-Problem boys = Lad culture has developed which is seen as anti-school behaviour. Lad culture is also an insight for wider society for anti-social behvaiour

-At risk boys = Boys are not bad but more vulnerable in today’s society. They experience social exclusion and have low self-esteem. They seek refuge in hegemonic masculinity and mach exterior to protect their fragile interior

Question 7

Murdock

Answer 7

Functionalism - Murdock believes that gender inequality was due to biological differences. Men and women prefer certain jobs due to biological reasoning. Men prefer to go into more labour demanding jobs like construction and women prefer to go into more caring jobs like nursing.

Question 8

Parsons

Answer 8

Functionalism - Parsons believes that men and women have roles within society: instrumental and expressive roles. The men are the breadwinners and play the instrumental role because they are the workers and the women play the expressive role because they are the emotional caring ones that look after the children and cook (warm bath theory)

Question 9

Rastogi

Answer 9

Functionalism - Argued that wage gap and other employment related differences can be explained by the amount of human capital an individual or group of workers have.

Question 10

Schlafly

Answer 10

New Right - Women should support men because they can’t beat them in this society: “marriage and motherhood have their trials and tribulations but what lifestyle doesn’t”

Question 11

Millett

Answer 11

Radical Feminism - Men acquire power over women due to biological factors (women getting pregnant and they cannot make the same contribution) but in today’s society with technology and contraceptive pills, men can no longer hold that power over women

Question 12

Johnson

Answer 12

Radical Feminism - Men try to have a terroristic control over their wives that involves the systematic use of not only violence but also economic subordination, threats, isolation and other control tactics

Question 13

World Health Organisation (WHO)

Answer 13

Radical Feminism - 30% globally and 25.4% in Europe women have reported incidence of physical or sexual abuse from an intimate partner in their lifetime

Question 14

Delphy an Leonard

Answer 14

Radical Feminism - Family is an institution that plays a major part in the oppression of women. Women work for the man because he has the economic power in the relationship.

Question 15

Stanko

Answer 15

Radical Feminism - Argues that sexual harassment in the workplace is used to keep women in their place. Men use their power in the workplace to protect their position

Question 16

Pringle

Answer 16

Radical Feminism - Argues that the work of female secretaries is largely governed by patriarchal images of the job. It is difficult for secretaries to be taken seriously or have their work valued because of those images

Question 17

Legislation (sex discrimination act, Equal pay act)

Answer 17

Liberal Feminism - Introduction of these legislation and attempting to change attitudes these try to eradicate sexism and stereotypical views of men and women from children’s books and the mass media

Question 18

Anne Oakley

Answer 18

Liberal Feminism - Believes that socialisation into gender roles has the consequence of producing rigid, inflexible expectations of men and women, discrimination prevents women from having equal opportunities
Due to manipulation (encouragement of behaviour that is seen as normal for that gender and discouragement of behaviour that is seen as abnormal for that behaviour), canalisation (‘channelling’ of children towards toys and activities seen as normal for that gender), Different activities (being forced into certain hobbies due to gender), Verbal appellations (verbal names and hints that boys are masculine and girls are feminine).

Question 19

Beechey

Answer 19

Marxist Femnism - Explains the position of women in the labour market in terms of how capitalism operates. Beechey sees women as a cheap reserve army of labour, bought during economic booms but thrown out during slumps. In addition women tend to be in the reserve army because they are seen as combining work with domestic responsibilities.

Question 20

Benston

Answer 20

Marxist Feminism - Argued that women are used to benefit the operation of the capitalist economy by carrying our unpaid work in terms of housework and childcare

Question 21

Ansley

Answer 21

Marxist Feminism - Women are the ‘takers of shit’, when husband arrive home after being exploited at work, the women are left to take their frustrations and anger out on their wives (emotional sponges). Women have an important role in maintaining capitalism as the men are less likely to take out anger on ‘bosses’

Question 22

Dalla Cost & James

Answer 22

Marxist Feminism - Drawing attention to how much domestic work contributes to the economy and whether the women’s work/role within the home (housework, childcare) should be compensated with a wage

Question 23

Yuval-Davies

Answer 23

Black Feminism - Criticise feminism as she argues it is ethnocentric and only focuses on white women and doesn’t focus on the views and inequality that black women face

Question 24

Abbott et al

Answer 24

Black Feminism - Feminism claims to address issues concerning women in general but actually concentrates on ‘women’s experience derived from white perspectives and priorities’

Question 25

Brewer

Answer 25

Black Feminism - Argues that class, race and gender combined to create multiple sources of deprivation and inequality. Black women therefore suffer from disadvantage because they are black, working class and women. These are known as the ‘triple systems theory’

Question 26

Aziz

Answer 26

Black Feminism - Argues that white feminists have been allowed to speak on behalf of black women but black feminists are not expected/allowed to speak on behalf of white women

Question 27

Walby

Answer 27

Post-Feminism - Claimed there were three systems inhibiting women’s experience: capitalism, patriarchy and racism, these are important because they overlap to shape an individual’s life chances.
Argues that there has been a move from private patriarchy (in the home) to public patriarchy (outside the home). She identified the six structures of patriarchy: paid employment, household, state, culture, sexuality, violence

Question 28

Hakim

Answer 28

Post-Feminism - Argues that women now have more choice, and inequality stems from personal preference and choice. Women have better labour market opportunities than ever before. However, not all women make the same choices and they adopt different lifestyle preferences: Adaptive women, work-centred women and home-centred women. It’s the choices women make that disadvantage them not patriarchy

Question 29

Weber

Answer 29

Weberianism - When looking at gender inequality the focus of Weberian explanations focus mainly on women’s experience in the workplace. Women are going to have less party, class and status within society compared to men

Question 30

Horizontal segregation
Vertical segregation
Glass ceiling
Glass elevator

Answer 30

Horizontal segregation is the different jobs that men and women do are gendered due to socialisation, men are more likely to become construction workers or something more labour demanding and women are more likely to become a more caring role like a nurse or a teacher.
Vertical segregation is that men are always going to be higher up position within a career.
Glass ceiling concept is that there is barrier for women to get a job or a promotion.
Glass elevator concept is that men have a ‘hidden advantage’ and are able to get promoted quicker without any effort or have to do as much work as women.

Question 31

Equal Opportunities Commission

Answer 31

Weberianism - The equal opportunities commission explains horizontal segregation as individual differences (including human capital theory), individual career choices based on their perceptions (parents, teachers), discrimination by employers and barriers within organisations

Question 32

Barron and Norris

Answer 32

Weberianism - The dual labour market focuses on gender inequalities in employment, they argue that two labour markets exist: primary and secondary. Barron and Norris argue that women can be found in the secondary labour market because within a job they get lower pay, poor security and low promotion prospects and women are also getting worse employment opportunities than men

Question 33

Electoral Commission

Answer 33

Weberianism - There is a ‘political activism gap’ by gender. According to their research women are significantly less likely than men to participate in campaign-orientated activities such as contacting a politician and donating money to, working for, or being a member of a political party

Question 34

Skeggs

Answer 34

Postmodernism - Skeggs argues that women are too divided by class, gender, ethnicity and age for the concepts of femininity and masculinity to be useful

Question 35

Faludi

Answer 35

Postmodernism - Suggests there has been a feminist backlash and the younger generation do not want to talk about the ‘F’ word