gender inequality Flashcards
Functionalism overall view in gender differences
men and women have separate social roles that are based on biological differences
leads to a division of labour between men and women
Murdock (1949)
functionalist
Studied gender roles in over 200 societies and found that women were in the home because of their biological function of bearing children and because their physique meant that they were less able than men to perform strenuous tasks.
Parsons and Bales (1955)
functionalist
men as having the instrumental role whilst women had the expressive role. These separate roles are seen as contributing to the smooth running of society, but they also explain why men and women have different experiences in the labour market and elsewhere in the public sphere.
Engels marxist
argued that the exploiter-exploited relationships that occurs between the bourgeoisie and the working class is translated into the household in relationship between the men and women. This can be shown in a few ways:
Legitimate offspring:
Under capitalism men gained control over women as they wanted to pass on private property in the form of inheritance from one generation to the next and they wanted be sure that the heirs were their legitimate off spring. This gave rise to the ideology of the nuclear family, which sought to restrict women’s sexuality and enforce monogamy to protect male property rights.
The role of the women in supporting capitalism:
Unpaid domestic labour – looking after the husband to get him ready for work for the capitalism.
Women position in the world of work as a reserve army of labour
Differences of functionalist and New right
The focus for the New Right is on achieving a return to traditional family values and the traditional gender roles that accompany this. They are particularly concerned that changes in gender roles have led to social problems such as an increase in lone-parent families headed by women who do not socialise their children appropriately.
Schlafly’s explain gender inequality
new rights
She believes that the segregated roles between men and women are based on biological differences.
‘A positive woman cannot defeat a man in a wrestling or boxing match, but she can motivate him, inspire him, encourage him, teach him, restrain him, and reward him, and have power over him that he can never achieve over her with all his muscle’.
Oakley (1981)
liberal feminist
Oakley (1974) argues that gender role socialisation in the family is an important area where gender inequality takes root from a young age. She believes that this occurs through processes such as manipulation and canalisation which teach children expected norms and values for their sex.
manipulation meaning according to Oakley ?
Manipulation refers to the encouragement of behaviour that is seen as-gender appropriate — for example, girls being dressed in a ‘feminine’ way and attention being paid to their appearance.
canalisation meaning ?
Canalisation relates to the ‘channelling’ of children towards toys and activities seen as appropriate for their gender. This promotes different activities between boys and girls that will teach or reinforce accepted gender behaviour. Children learn their gender identity through internalising behaviour experienced in the family
Sharpe
liberal feminist
She found that the girls she studied in the 1990s were more confident, more assertive, more ambitious, and more committed to gender equality. Sharpe found that the main priorities of the girls from the 1970s were ‘love, marriage, husbands and children’. However, by the 1990s this had changed to ‘job, career and being able to support themselves’ especially in the event of a breakdown of marriage. They saw education as the main route to a good job. The girls in the 1990s also had fewer positive attitudes towards marriage. They had witnessed adult relationships breaking up around them, and had seen women coping alone, in a ‘man’s world’.
