Gender Inequality (20) Flashcards
Two Areas of Life with Gender Inequality
Income and Employment
The Family
Income and Employment Example One
ONS Employment Figures for those aged 16 to 64 (2017)
80% of Men are employed compared to 71% of women
Income and Employment Example One Explanation
Explained By Hakim’s Preference Theory
Women have more Choice: Home-centred (20%), Adaptive, (60%) and Work-centred (20%)
Women are not the victims of unfair employment practices but that they have preferences and make rational choices
in terms of the type of work they do; for example, they choose part-time work in order to manage childcare. That’s their choice. The lack of affordable and available childcare is not a major barrier to women getting jobs, because mothers prioritise childrearing over employment. Women are not as committed to their careers as men are and inequalities in the workplace are the result of this.
Men are work- centred. Men will retain a dominant position in the labour market because only a minority of women are prepared to prioritise their jobs.
Income and Employment Example Two
High Pay Centre’s review of 100 FTSE Executives Pay Packages (2017)
Only 6/100 were women and on average were only paid 2.6 million compared to the 94 who make an average of 4.7 million.
Income and Employment Example Two Explanation
Showcases women are paid less even when at the top of their profession or in similar roles.
Due to disrupted careers. Barron and Norris Dual Labor Theory suggests there is a primary and secondary job sector. High paid executives are in the primary sector while most female perceived jobs are in the secondary. Women’s careers are disrupted due to children meaning they have less experience than males who don’t have those responsibilities. So are passed over for promotions.
Family Example One
ONS (2016)
Estimated women would earn £259 a week on average if paid for unpaid chores while men on average would only be paid £166 a week.
Family Example One Explanation
Women’s domestic work is unpaid, which benefits capitalism since only one wage has to be paid and the wife is then dependent upon her husband’s wage.
Benston argues that a wife keeps her husband in good running order by feeding and caring for him and that this is essential to the smooth running of capitalism. Men must provide for his wife and children means that he is less likely to challenge the capitalist system. Benston believes that the unpaid domestic labour of women helps to support the capitalist system. She contends that if women were paid a wage for their work, there would have to be a massive redistribution of wealth.
Family Example Two
Crime Survey of England and Wales (2016)
1.3 million women experienced domestic abuse that year and a further 4.3 million experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16.
Family Example Two Explanation
Men in a patriarchal society use domestic abuse to maintain and defend power in order to keep control over women according to Radical Feminists.
Radical feminists point to the level
of domestic violence across the world as evidence of the broad nature of patriarchal aggression.
Johnson’s concept of patriarchal terrorism can be used to explain violence that is the result of ‘patriarchal traditions of men’s right to control “their” women’. It is a form of terroristic control of wives by their husbands that involves the systematic use of not only violence but also economic subordination, threats, isolation and other control tactics.
