Bem, S.L. (1993). The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
In this book, leading theorist on sex and gender Sandra L. Bem discusses how hidden molds in our cultural discourse, social institution, and individual minds support male dominance while oppressing women and sexual minorities. She explains her lenses of gender, which shape perceptions of social reality and also more physical things – like unequal salary and insufficient daycase – that establish social reality itself before she presents her theory of how cultural gender lenses are shaped and influence either the adaptation of conventional gender identity or the resistance of conventional gender identity. She then presents evidence for reframing the discussion on sexual inequality so that it focuses not only on the variances between men and women, but on how androcentric dialogue and societies transform gender differences into female disadvantage.
Kindlon, D. & Thompson, M. (2000). Raising Cain: Protecting the emotional life of boys. New York, NY: The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
In Raising Cain, two of the country’s leading child psychologists Dr. Dan Kindlon and Dr. Michael Thompson share what they have learned in their years of experience working with boys and their families. They reveal an unaddressed culture of boys who are hurt by the expectations set for them because of their gender. They discuss the forces that threaten boys, teaching them that to be masculine means to be strong and stoic, dismiss outdated theories, and shed light on the destructive and inadequate emotional preparation that boys receive. Kindlon and Thompson urge parents to teach emotional literacy t...
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This article discusses three studies conducted by Moon and Hoffman that investigated others’ parenting expectations for mothers and father and parents’ reports of their parenting behaviors with their 3-to-6-year-old children and demonstrates that mothers rated higher for physical care and emotional support than fathers and that mothers reported engaging in the parenting behaviors assessed more than fathers across the subscales used. They discuss how, in each different study, they saught to observe parent and child gender interactions only for “personal-interaction parenting” (e.g., hugging their child) and found the lowest scores for fathers with daughters. They then present their findings and the relation between parents’ rating of suitability and their own behaviors that support the view that gender-based expectation shape gender differences in their parenting.
Murray, Judith Sargent. "On the Equality of the Sexes." Ed. Paul Lauter.The Heath Anthology of American Literature, third edition. Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992. 1058-1064.
Biblarz and Stacey came into this already thinking that the gender of parents does not matter, but they stay open minded, often contributing sources that contradict their belief. Offering both viewpoints on the issue, they discuss why boys and girls do need a fatherly figure growing up. They state, “fathers foster
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
Authors of the book Modern Sexism: Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimination, Nijole V. Benokraitis and Joe R. Feagin, examine gender inequality and sexual discrimination in today’s society while comparing them to issues of the past with hard hitting facts. The book examines multiple forms of sexual discrimination, in addition to the past decades problems. Overall, the authors use of nonstop statistics created a view of a bleak future for the female race.
Throughout much of mainstream American culture runs certain assumptions about gender and sex. Often these assumptions are left unacknowledged and unaddressed even as we continue to use them as a framework upon which to build our knowledge of the world. Sexism and sexual inequality are supported for example by a wide variety of "popular" beliefs, such as ideas about the natural and universal differences between the sexes and their therefore rightful duties or "spheres"—including gendered parenting roles and the dichotomy between the public world of men and the domestic world of women. Using examples from authors Cordelia Fine, Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Louise Lamphere to illustrate these assumptions, I will further identify a few of the social,
If analyzed carefully, the melancholy verses of the song are in sharp contrast to the overpowering chorus. Ignore the addictive chorus "Born in the U.S.A.” and what you really hear is a protest song that tells the depressing story and struggle of Vietnam Veterans returning home to a disillusioned life. To his most devoted ...
It has been said that “Society has always defined for us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, what a man should be like and what a woman should be like, and these traditional definitions of gender roles have limited and even harmed individuals”. The theme of sexual politics comes to mind for this quote. One can define sexual politics as the relationship of the sexes, male and female regarding power. Society’s definition of this can limit an individual in their gender role and restrain a person to not be themselves.
We see gender roles and the results of gender stereotyping around us every day in the society. In our homes, there are often certain tasks that are usually carried out by a man - cutting the lawn, for example, or fixing a broken washing machine - and others, like the bulk of the cooking and the washing up - that often are almost always done by the woman. The stories we watch on TV and in the movies often follow exactly the divisions of sexual roles that so many cultur...
Prior to the 1970s when the theme of gender issues was still quite foreign, the societal norm forced female conformity to male determined standards because “this is a man’s world” (Kerr 406). The patriarchal society painted the image of both men and women accordingly to man’s approach of societal standards that include the defining features of manhood that consist of “gentil...
While Reading the book Real Boys by Dr. William Pollack, I realized that our society is holding boys to contradictory standards aiding the problems that many of them face while in adolescence. This book introduces the reader to numerous boys who share their feelings of shame and despair in trying to live up to the "Boy Code". Pollack feels the pain that comes from boys prematurely separating from their mothers puts them on the cycle to hardening themselves emotionally. The one acceptable emotion becomes anger.
At first I just thought it was a song, but when I found out this song was based on an actually event, it just made it even more impacting. The lyrics of the song, like the ones mentioned, made me realize that life of person could easily be taken away just for being at the wrong place, at the wrong time. It also shed light on the opposite side of the barrel. It displays the deep remorse the killer felt because he killed that innocent kid, which it drove him to suicide. The most impacting line of the song to me was, “There is always a chance to rectify what you’ve taken, make your peace in the world.” It taught me that no matter what we have done, or however much remorse we might feel, there shall always be a consequence that we will have to pay in order to balance out our
Social Construction of Gender Today’s society plays a very important role in the construction of gender. Gender is a type of issue that has raised many questions over the years in defining and debating if both male and female are equal. Today, gender is constructed in four different ways. The The first way gender is defined is by the family in which a child is raised.
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
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.
Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male regardless of which sexuality they fall under. The males are superior over the females and gays superior over the lesbians, however it different depending on the place and circumstances. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes, social policy, and homosexuality from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by the two different societies to understand how much changes has occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. In general a traditional society is more conservative where as a modern society is fundamentally liberal. This is to say that a traditional society lists certain roles depending on the gender and there are stereotypes that are connected with the genders. One must obey the one that is dominant and make decisions. On the other hand, a modern society is lenient, It accepts the individual’s identity and sexuality. There is no inequality and everyone in the society is to be seen as individuals not a part of a family unit...