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Effects of gender inequality in education
Is sociology a science
Is sociology a science
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The dominant voice in sociology is white, heterosexual and male. This is certainly true of the “Classical” theorists and forefathers Georg Simmel and Max Weber. Over the years Sociology has recognized different voices in the tradition, opening the doors for feminist theory and theorists such as Candace West, Don H. Zimmerman, Judith Butler, Patricia Hill Collins, Dorothy E. Smith, and Raewyn Connell. These sociologists attempt to offer a different standpoint from the dominant one, a standpoint that can find some of its roots in the works of the sociological forefathers.
West and Zimmerman’s Doing Gender was a seminal sociological work. The authors asserted, “the essential male and female natures are an achieved status of objective fact, they provide the rationale for the differing fates of women and men” (Kivisto 2011: 319). Max Weber’s views on status compliment this idea. Weber states “a status group can exist only to the extent that others accord its member prestige or degrading, which removes them from the rest of social actors and establishes the necessary social distance” (Coser 1977: 229). West and Zimmerman go on to discuss the difference between sex, sex category, and gender. They also concentrate on gender, submitting that instead of an essential part of our nature it is an act we portray daily (Kivisto 2011).
West and Zimmerman take on gender was revolutionary but at its very foundation is the idea of status in American society. Generally, gender difference has been used to subjugate the female sex category. Georg Simmel also dealt with status in his essay on Fashion. He discussed the lower class acquiring material items to mimic higher classes. Similarly, West and Zimmerman discussed gender displays a...
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...2011). Many jobs that are considered masculine make more money, such as businessman and pro football players. While teachers, nurses, and cleaning ladies traditionally female positions barely make a enough to survive. It says a lot about what gender we value in society.
Arguing for a living wage from a feminist stand point, would highlight the contradictory act of teaching one thing and practicing another. The feminist perspective might point out that feminine and masculine are social constructions. This ideal would equalize the sex category female and male (Kivisto 2011). Making “female” activities as valuable as male activities. They would accept knowledge from all groups. Use a variety of standpoints to make decisions about wages (Kivisto 2011). Try to dismantle the gendered hierarchal structure of the university and disavow “masculine” and “Feminine”.
In Devor’s article, “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the social Meanings of Gender” one can better understand how society has a big impact on how gender is perceived. Understanding
The article The Complex Causes of the Gender Pay Gap written by Barbara Wagner, she shows “Economic research on the gender pay gap has found many reasons for the differences in pay between men and women, including different career and education choices, differences in work experience, and, yes, discrimination. Both male and female managers are equally likely to demonstrate gender bias in hiring and pay” (Wagner, 2015).
The characteristics and behaviors associated with men and women are called gender roles. Gender can also be interpreted as the social, psychological, and cultural interpretation of biological sex. Gender as a social construct has been a term throughout history that explains the social distinction between men and women and is reinforced in social interactions. The crisis of the global economy brings about gender dimensions and different meanings for men and women in society. Men and women have been hierarchy organized and valued. Throughout the 19th century, women’s contributions to society were regarded as less significant than those of men. Stereotypes were put on genders, which included assertive, strong, and competitive for masculinity and submissive, weak, and emotional for femininity. Gender inequality arose as economic crisis took place throughout the 19th century. The changing conditions of work in the global state impacted the roles for men and women and many feminists started to challenge the idea that “biology is destiny”. With post-Fordism, a new gender order emerged, and Women occupied a broader place in the work force. However, sexism is still prevalent in society to some extent whether it’s unconscious or conscious and affects the lives of many women.
In their publication, “Doing Gender, ” Candance West and Don H. Zimmerman put forward their theory of gender as an accomplishment; through, the daily social interactions of a man or woman which categorize them as either masculine or feminine. From a sociological perspective the hetero-normative categories of just sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, are blurred as a middle ground is embedded into these fundamental roots of nature or nurture.To further their ideology West and Zimmerman also draw upon an ethnomethodological case study of a transsexual person to show the embodiment of sex category and gender as learned behaviours which are socially constructed.Therefore, the focus of this essay will analyze three ideas: sex, sex
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
In “Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism”, the author Barbara Risman explains her theory to readers about how gender should be thought of as a social structure. Thinking of it as such would allow people to examine how gender is ingrained in almost every part of society, thus putting gender on an equal level of importance with economics and politics. In society, gender dictates many of the opportunities and limitations that an individual may face in his or her lifetime. Barbara Risman points out the three aspects of the gender structure that happen at an individual, interactional, and institutional level (Risman, pg. 446). First, gender contributes to how a person will develop themselves in life. This is the “individual level”. At an interactional level, men and women face different expectations that are set by society. The individual and interactional level are linked because sometimes, changes to one level can affect the other. The third level, the institutional level, notes that gender is affected by laws, rules, and organizational practices that dictate what
In this article, Shaw and Lee describe how the action of labels on being “feminine” or “masculine” affect society. Shaw and Lee describe how gender is, “the social organization of sexual difference” (124). In biology gender is what sex a person is and in culture gender is how a person should act and portray themselves. They mention how gender is what we were taught to do in our daily lives from a young age so that it can become natural(Shaw, Lee 126). They speak on the process of gender socialization that teaches us how to act and think in accordance to what sex a person is. Shaw and Lee state that many people identify themselves as being transgendered, which involves a person, “resisting the social construction of gender into two distinct, categories, masculinity and femininity and working to break down these constraining and polarized categories” ( 129). They write about how in mainstream America masculinity and femininity are described with the masculine trait being the more dominant of the two. They define how this contributes to putting a higher value of one gender over the other gender called gender ranking (Shaw, Lee 137). They also speak about how in order for femininity to be viewed that other systems of inequality also need to be looked at first(Shaw,Lee 139).
Whitbeck, Caroline. Theories of Sex Difference. Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Marilyn Pearsall. Wadsworth Publishing Company: California. 1986. 34-51.
Such jobs as being an engineer, physician, mechanic, lawyer and even top notch business women! Up to the present time, there is an ongoing public debate on women suffering from double standards. If it makes a female feel threatened or belittled, then it may be sexist. A very interesting article, this came to be because the writer had numerous accountants to keep her argument steady. A worthy writer brings up present time activities, statistics, and people being affected by the scenario and provides the reader with some closure.
A great place to begin is by investigating when and where or even how did our society, the United States, become socialized to the point where roles and expectations are defined by gender. How have theorists or researchers expla...
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
Kendal, Diana. "Sex and Gender." Sociology in Our Times 3.Ed. Joanna Cotton. Scarborough: Nelson Thomson, 2004. 339-367
Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are deemed to be proper in the eyes of the society. They are as a matter of fact proper but as time move on, the mind-set of women changes as well, women also want to move on. However the institutional stratification by the society has become more insidious that the stereotypical roles have created a huge barrier between men and women. These barriers has affected women in many aspects such as minimizing their access on a more superior position in workforce organization, limits their ownership of property and discriminates them from receiving better attention and care.
Historically, males and females normally assume different kinds of jobs with varying wages in the workplace. These apparent disparities are widely recognized and experienced across the globe, and the most general justification for these differences is that they are the direct outcomes of discrimination or traditional gender beliefs—that women are the caregivers and men are the earners. However, at the turn of the new century women have revolutionized their roles in the labor market. Specifically in industrialized societies, the social and economic position of women has shifted. Despite of the improving participation of women in the labor force and their ameliorating proficiency and qualifications, the labor force is still not so favorable to women. The opportunities available for women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life.
Wharton (2005:21) views gender as a ‘system of social practices’ which gives rise to gender distinctions and maintains it. What Wharton wants to say is that gender involves the creation of both diffe...