GENDER EVIDENCE

Question 1

workplace (women)

Answer 1

• Laura Bates - Everyday Sexism Project - In the UK parliament men outnumber women by 4 to 1.
• The Financial Times (2018) - The current gender pay gap suggests that if both a man and a women in the same level job worked for one calendar year - A woman would effectively work for free from the 30th November. Also the biggest pay gap is in the financial and insurance sector.
• The Fawcett Society - The gender pay gap stands at 13.7% in 2019 - In 2015 is was 13.9% showing that the gap has closed but only slightly - Meaning there is little or no change occuring. For every £1 a man earns a woman earns 86p…that equates to 2 months of ‘free labour’ every year. Although in previous years the pay gap reduce, it has not improved since 2015.

Question 2

workplace (men)

Answer 2

• Mac an Ghaill (1997) - The Crisis of Masculinity. Deindustrialisation and feminisation of the labour market has led to increased unemployment for men.
• Dermott - Argues men work longer hours than women regardless of their status as fathers.
• Farrell - The ‘glass cellar’ – of the 25 professions ranked lowest, 24 of them are 85-100% male dominated e.g. roofer, welder, rubbish collector and sewer maintenance.

Question 3

education (female)

Answer 3

Skelton – Suggests that the hidden curriculum (such as attitudes of teachers) negatively influences subject choices.

Kelly – Suggests that Science is packaged as a boys subject – Boys are allowed to dominate science classrooms and examples in textbooks are male relates e.g. cars and footballs in examples. This leads to girls being disengaged from the subject.

Colley – Argues that subject choices are negatively influenced by:

• Perception of gender roles
• Subject preferences
• Learning environment

Question 4

education (men)

Answer 4

Willis – States that working class ‘Lads’ are fatalistic about their futures due to following in their father’s footsteps – Leading them into low status, low paid, basic manual labour jobs – This means that they developed anti-school attitudes in the workplace as they did not see the value in achievement (they did not need qualifications to get these jobs).

Mitsos and Browne – States that teachers treat males and females differently and that this can cause inequality for boys – They state that teachers are too lenient on ‘laddish’ behaviour of boys and that this can do them a disservice leading to their lack of achievement. Whereas they are hard on girls who are seen as breaking both the school rules and gender norms – ‘doubly deviant’ – This ensures that they achieve.

Department for Education - Statistics show that…
In 2019, 71.9% of female students achieved a C/4 grade or higher in comparison to 62.9% of male students who achieved a C/4 grade or higher in the United Kingdom.

Question 5

media (female)

Answer 5

• Mulvey notes that typical examples of the male gaze include medium close-up shots of women from over a man’s shoulder, shots that pan and fixate on a woman’s body, and scenes that frequently occur which show a man actively observing a passive woman. Women in the media are viewed through the eyes of heterosexual men (male gaze). Women are therefore presented as passive objects for male desire.
• Laura Bates - Everyday Sexism Project - Women directed 5% of 250 major films in 2012 and only 1/5 of front-page newspaper articles are written by women
• Ferguson – Conducted a content analysis of women’s magazines and counted up the number of times a certain topic was covered. She concluded women’s’ magazines were based around a ‘cult of femininity’ which promotes the idea that excellence is achieved through caring for others, the family, marriage and appearance.

Question 6

media (men)

Answer 6

Sewell – Found that black Afro-Caribbean boys turned to rapper role models due to a lack of father figure within the home, when they were from matriarchal backgrounds. This negative role model then lead these boys into deviant anti-school subcultures which lead to their lack of achievement.

Billington - Argues that the media presents masculinity as dominant and femininity as subordinate. Although this more so links to females it could be applied that boys feel pressure to look and act in a particular way.

Easthorpe (1990) argues that a variety of media, especially Hollywood films and computer games, transmit the view that masculinity based on strength, aggression, competition and violence is biologically determined and, therefore, a natural goal for boys to achieve.

Question 7

crime (men)

Answer 7

• Campbell (1993) - Men are denied their masculinity through academic success or being the breadwinner (in a de-industrialised society) therefore they turn to violence and anti-social behaviour to express their masculinity
• Faludi (1999) – Males are not ‘deviant’, they are ‘performing their masculinity’ and demonstrated qualities expected from males: toughness, bravery and strength
• Bourdieu – States that although working class males are violent, sociologists miss the ‘symbolic violence’ displayed by ‘powerful’ older males – Through being the exploiter (this is a Marxist explanation)

Question 8

crime (female)

Answer 8

• The Dark Figure of Crime - Walklate - Suggests that female victims are largely hidden or ignored and says that women are discouraged to report crime through the criminal justice system.
• Everyday Sexism Project - Laura Bates (2014) - Over 2 women a week in the UK are killed by a current or former partner.
• Home Office (2013) - Only 6% of rapes reported result in a conviction.