The concept of masculinity has varied with time and place. In the West, the diversion between man and woman is thin line. On the contrary, considering the case of India the difference is wide. The crisis of masculinity is crawling into the society. In ancient times masculinity was
Cicero said, "Viri autem propria maxime est fortitudo." Wrote in Tusculanae Quaestiones, (the Tusculan Disputations) series of books written by Cicero –
In translation, Cicero states: "a man's chief quality is courage."
In modern times, the stereotypical thought has changed. Man considered being the breadwinner and woman as house-maker has taken another shape. Liberalization leads to development in the society. The restrictions among the female section have minimized. Now woman has more liberty to express thoughts and live independently. Family boundaries have broken.
Liberalization and globalization – From 1991 started the period of liberalization and globalization which refers to ongoing economic reforms. Globalization established growing number of global corporation in India. Consequently, the economic growth and reforms increased market efficiency. As a result new avenues for employment opened in the market.
In the period of early 1990’s companies like General Electric, British Airways and American Express relocated their operation back in India.
From the 19th century there has been two categories- participation of women and widows as labor force and upper class women in high status profession. ‘Man is powerful’ has been a cliché as because women were always considered inferior to the status of man.
The reluctant of male dominated domain to acknowledge the reality that woman were as good as men with respect to hard work, intelligence and le...
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...vernor of Rajasthan Margaret Alva, told the media that the political parties are not to named but the male parliamentarians within the various party are not keen on passing the Women’s reservation bill. Ms. Alva said this in an informal interaction with journalists at the Raj Bhavan on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
She also added that male parliamentarians are reluctant to leave their chairs. This is the reason for not passing the bill. (Hindu, 2014)
Decision of this sort illustrates the fear of crisis of masculinity. For a man holding a position is a matter of respect. If the same is expected to share with woman the ego of man hurts. Crisis is defined.
Holding position is not only restricted to sharing it with woman who are considered lower compared to the level of men. Man ego clashes with man also when comes to holding a rank/position.
I also think that she has another audience in mind. She is also addressing the city officials, the politicians and the rest of the male population in society. She is addressing the city officials and the politicians because they are the people responsible for the decision making in the implementation of any new changes in the voting rights. She is also addressing the rest of the male population, such as the husbands, the fathers, the brothers, the nephews to stand by the women and support them in gaining their voting right in order to raise and educate a better generation of sons and daughters.
In the book Difference Matters, Brenda J Allen, begins writing about how gender matters in society. One of the main topics that she talks about is how in today’s society the male gender is the more predominate gender. As the reader, she has brought to mind many new ways to view how males earn more money then females, how we classify jobs as masculine or feminine, and also how society excepts males’ vs females to act and preform in the work force.
ostentatious part in measures of reform, and countenance any of that sex who so far
Masculinity is described as possession of attributes considered typical of a man. Hegemonic masculinity is a form of masculine character with cultural idealism and emphasis that connects masculinity to competitiveness, toughness, and women subordination. Masculinity hegemonic is the enforcement of male dominion over a society. Masculine ideology dates back to the time of agrarian and the industrial revolution in Europe when survival compelled men to leave their homesteads to work in industries to earn a living for their families while women remained at home to take care of family affairs (Good and Sherrod 210). Women did not work in industries then because industrial labor was considered too physical beyond their capacity. This led to definition of roles which placated the position of men in a society while condemning women as mere subordinates who cannot do without men. The critics of gender stereotypes in America describe the following five hegemonic features of masculinity: frontiersman ship, heterosexuality, occupational achievement, familial patriarchy, and physical force and control (Trujillo 4). The advent of the 20th century led to sweeping changes in American masculinity.
The genre of analyzation in this paper is masculinity. More in depth, the societal perpetuation of the concept of masculinity and its effects on individuals. Masculinity is a concept defined as a category of attributes, social behaviors and roles generally associated only with individuals of the male sex. It is rarely associated with females unless they are butch lesbian, and even if they are not, society will portray them as so. The concept of masculinity is a social construct – most often seen in patriarchal cultures and societies and identified mainly with gender roles. Gender roles are the acceptable or appropriate societal norms dictating
Recently the concerns of women around their equality in society has become a hotly debated topic in the public spot light. Much of the debate concerns women and the ingrained sexism that permeates most cultures. Many women's activists feel that this ingrained sexism has widened the gap between men and women in a political, social, and economic sense. And for the most part they do have strong evidence to support these claims. Women have suffered through millennia of male dominated societies where treatment of women has been, and in some cases still is, inhuman. Women are treated like subhuman creatures that have only exist to be used for procreate and to be subjugated by men for household use. It has only been very recently that women have become recognized as equals in the eyes of men. Equals in the sense that they have the same political and social rights as males. While the situation has improved, women still have to deal with a male oriented world. Often women in the workplace are thought of as inferior and as a liability. This can be due to concerns about maternity leave, or women with poor leadership skills. But also in part it is due because of the patriarchy that controls all aspects and dynamics of the culture, family, politics, and economy. Even developed countries like The United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and France, could be classified as a patriarchies. These countries may not agree with this notion because of expansive, but not complete changes, that have gradually equalized women in society. However, there are developed countries that openly express a patriarchy and have enacted little societal changes to bring equality to women. Japan is one such country, and t...
The workplace became masculinized, and the home feminized. By the separation of the masculine and feminine spheres that had been promoted, men and women now lived in separate worlds. By the turn of the twentieth century, men realized that their exclusion from the domestic sphere was, in fact, harmful to them: It left men “unable to experience the love, nurture and repose that the home supposedly represented” (Kimmel 158). Men were also worried at the “feminization” that potentially threatened their sons: men feared that women, who had the main responsibility for the upbringing of the children, would make the sons into
Women have historically been submissive to men and with this, it may also be recalled that the perception of one also plays a major role in how that individual is treated by society. The inequalities present between men and women will be further discussed in this essay in respects to the gender discrimination which exist in the workforce.
“Father Knows Best”, a popular sitcom in the 1950s, was a program where the archetypal father’s wisdom was solomonic and his judgment was left unquestioned. A patriarchal social hierarchy was maintained in the idealized post-war family. The 1950s in the United States were the golden age of masculinity, as books like The Modern Woman: The Lost Sex, to decree motherhood as the duty and civic responsibility of women, became best sellers (Rhode, 1947). Luckily, the United States has unshackled themselves from the imposing views of the mid-20th century, now fully accepting female leaders and workers as contributors to the economy. Yet, there is still a struggle and the modern mindset remains gilded. Gender can act as a divider. Science lends itself to the study of the human body, of the mind, and of human habits. The distinctive tendencies of men and women, as well as the completely different biological makeup, establish the two sexes. Yet women have barriers, invisible to the naked eye, that discourage them from participating in various things, things that are seen as male dominant fields, such as engineering (a current issue in the United States) (only 17% to 19% of engineering degrees go to women) (Catalyst). The professional world of America is vying for more female presence in particular spheres of influence. Gender roles have been exuded and exhausted during history (as seen in shows like “Father Knows Best”), in turn creating mental blockades for the vast majority of women, ultimately limiting their social and economic capabilities. This is a global issue. In some nations, women have become the “lesser” of society, not able to overcome sexism that is sometimes violent and aggressive (Berg, 17). The spectrum of gender inequality ...
The implementation of gender quotas in electoral politics is a mean to combat the democratic deficit that occurs when a social group is excluded from the political sphere due to structural or cultural reasons. Quotas are a form of affirmative action/positive discrimination which is meant to remove the structural and cultural obstacles that keep women out of the formal political ...
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.
In this era of modernization with the advancement of technology, there are some countries which are still in the stage of developing country trying to improve the status by offering more jobs to the society like Malaysia, India and Korea. As we know, a country needs the excellent people who can work and sacrifice for the country to improve the economics and lifestyle. But, there is some Asian culture which seriously appears in Malaysia. Generally in the corporate sectors, our government have found out that the women are still being left out decision-making due to relunctance and stereotyping of gender roles. Let’s see the phenomenon of gender inequalities. For example, in Japan, many women move into part-time work upon having children. In United States of America, women held only 16% of board seats of large companies. A study shows that women in senior management positions were three times more likely to lose other jobs than men in similar positions. Let’s move on to see the occurrence of gender inequality in our country, Malaysia. Recently, the minister Datuk Seri Sharizat A.J. stated that the women are still being left out of decision-making due to the gender inequality.Nowadays, gender inequality is being practiced widely in corporate sectors. So, what do you know actually about gender inequality? Gender Inequalities refers to the obvious or ...
In a family, women hold most of the commitment in keeping it together and the men are known to be the budgetary suppliers of the family. Women fill the role of the mother, lover, nurturer, the cook, and the cleaner. This is a staggering measure of work that she should go up against, yet over the long haul the male assumes the acknowledgment in his tendency of supporting the whole family. Since we have these desires of women and men, we disparage the capacity to attempt new things. For instance, if a woman goes out to land a position in a work field, she will be isolated against due to her sex. Furthermore, it is likewise accepted that men won't deal with the family unit duties as a women. With this a gender inequality in the family life, women and men are dealt with contrastingly past their home. Women are out of the house doing her piece of the shopping and men are out working completing things and getting paid for it. It is this part of getting paid for work that is over looked in the female point of view. Women do not get paid to hold the obligation of the family household foundation; they get the affirmation that she is doing what is instructed of her. This is gender inequality disparity that influences for the most part the women. This underestimation of woman in the workforce, suggests to society that she is strange and is dealt with so
This becomes a major problem when it comes to occupation. Theres is a phenomenon around the world known as occupational isolation, which is the segregation of jobs due to gender. Often, there are occupation which are target the male gender and others the female gender. Female are not considered for male jobs, such as prosecutors or front-line police officer. Women compete for jobs that pay less than their male counterparts. The perception is that a woman’s best occupation is being a housewife, and there is a generalization that her attitude at home will transfer to her work place. This is why women are being paid lower rates while men fight over high income jobs. When such segregation maintains itself, it leads to women becoming less progressive, while male continue to develop and acquire new skills, which leads to higher social life status and position. A consensus has been created by society and globalization policies in most countries where a woman’s work has been devalued, which removes women from the contention of new job’s available. It is also well known the the female wage and development projects do not receive the same fund compared to women, which leaves women in the
According to Vera Nazarian, “A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given.” For centuries, gender discrimination and inequality issues concerning employment and wages, has been a serious problem that still is in the midst of being solved. Women excel in all fields and play a vital role in economic development of the country, and their contribution is nothing short of their male counterparts. However, there are still several issues and problems that women face today. Sometimes, they are not treated equally in their workplace and are considered as inferior to their male co-workers. Gender discrimination and inequality issues has been a reoccurring issue for years and because of this, it impedes single and/or married women from acquiring certain occupations or levels of occupations as males, receiving equal wages as males, and therefore affects women’s economic class placement in society.