In current society, social divisions feature a lot on the prospects of people within each society. This essay will explain how the in such concepts as women being forced into unpaid labour, male dominance over females in employment, the sexualisation of women in the media as well as briefly looking into inequalities within violence. Through discussing each of these concepts, we can compare the historical context of gender inequalities to the present day to see if things have improved or deteriorated in modern society.
Before looking into the concepts of gender inequalities, we must first explore gender itself which is the division into two groups - men and women. In sociological terms, it has been pointed out by transgender activist Leslie Feinberg that: ‘gender is a key factor that shapes social behaviour and social institutions.’ and ‘gender is ‘understood culturally and theoretically as a dualism.’ (Marsh et al, 216) Gender inequality is definitely something that we often take for granted; it is accepted and seems so normal in society. These differences often seem invisible to us even though it happens in our everyday life in everything from employment and education to politics and the media without us being aware of it. (Davis, K. 2006) explains: ‘Society shows us that gender is a system that privileges some men and disadvantages most women.’ I agree with this and believe that social differences significantly changes male and female attitudes and views on life more than biological differences in gender.
Before we look at the gender inequalities in paid employment, it is vital to look at unpaid labour and the discriminations that women face. History has shown us that the roles and respon...
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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.
During the American Industrial Revolution, women began to work in factories, leading to conflicts in 19th century society that would eventually result in the Cult of Domesticity—the belief that women’s only responsibilities existed at home. This aimed to establish the subservient woman and the husband as the master of the house as the social norm. Kate Chopin's bleak but realistic depiction in her work, The Awakening, reveals her reasonable attitude during the Second Great Awakening in American history. Men coveted control and achieved it by undermining women and being their superior. Society followed a mob mentality and accepted gender inequality as a social norm. Subjugation of women lead to panic and mania in men and the oppression made
For many years there has been inequality between men and women. Basketball, football, soccer, baseball, golf, sumo wrestling, motocross, mixed martial arts, rugby, hockey, auto racing, boxing, and the list goes on and on. By now most are thinking “Oh, it’s just a list of sports.” This is not just a list of sports. These are sports dominated by men. Then again, there are sports listed such as basketball and soccer that have women’s teams, but the men’s teams get the attention and praise that women do not. Forbes list, parenthood, relationships, politics, social events, etcetera. Forbes list’s richest one percent of the world has seventy-three men, but only seven women (Forbes 400, 2015). Society has praised men, who take care of their children, but expect women to take care of the children.
Throughout the twentieth century, American women fought for the right to vote, the right to make choices regarding their own bodies, and the right to be their own people. The disparities between men and women were often overlooked or blindly accepted, but as Gloria Steinem said, “history is herstory too.” After nearly 200 years of struggling, women made up only 10% of Congress, received wages less than 75% of their male counter parts, and are stigmatized based on their class and race. By the end of the century, female citizens were still treated unfairly in every aspect of American society. Women did not achieve equality in America in the 20th century, based on their roles in politics, the widespread views of female sexuality, and the race, class, and gender ideals for women at the time. Although women have made progress in each of these areas, and more, they still have so far to come.
Today's world, as much as we pride ourselves to live in the 21st century, is still a world where gender inequality is very much present. It has taken mankind many thousands of years to reach the point where we are today, when women are almost on equal foot with man, regarding education, choice of profession, rights and privileges. It was uncommon not many decades ago for women to pursue any academic path, women in science were very rare, and those who did manage to put their foot in the door had to deal constantly with men who were telling them that they were in the wrong place, and that they should conform themselves with the gender role that society has cut out for them. No wonder that women were given almost no credit for the inventions and discoveries of importance in history, even less when it comes to prehistoric times, where we all know, it was a man's world, of “the man the hunter.” But was it really? In recent decades, starting with the 1970's feminist anthropologists started to question the concept of “man the hunter” that dominated social anthropology and archeology for more than 40 years. In their opinion it was highly unlikely that this theory was accurate since it “leaves out half of the human species.”(Slocum, “Toward an Anthropology of Women”, p. 38).
Equal status for women of all races, classes, sexualities and abilities - in the 21st century these feminist claims for equality are generally accepted as reasonable principles in western society; yet the contradiction between this principle of equality and the demonstrable inequalities between the sexes that still exist exposes the continuing dominance of male privilege and values throughout society (patriarchy). This essay seeks to move beyond the irrepressible evidence for gender inequality and the division of labour. Rather, it poses the question of gender inequality as it manifests itself as an effect of patriarchy drawing from a theoretical body of work which has been developed so recently that it would have been impossible to write this essay thirty years ago.
Society has females and males alike typecasted into roles which have basic characteristics that are the reverse of each other. Although this has begun to change over the past thirty years, typically the man was seen as superior to the female. This superior image is one that today, is slowly on its way to being reduced to one of complete equality between the two genders.
This endeavor is necessary to protect women’s rights in the labor force in matters such as sexual harassment, salary, work opportunities, etc. Currently, there are several trade unions in Malaysia namely Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) and Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (CUEPACS). However, specific trade unions that fight for women and their equal rights does not exist. At the most, women are only a small part of the committee in general trade unions due to a low number of female workers in the labor force. Therefore, the formation of FTAs can reap benefits in terms of gender inequality and female labor participation which eventually leads to an increase in income per capita and economy
According to Holmes, Hughes, and Julian (2012) “at its most ambitious, sociology attempts to understand human societies from a wholistic point of view – what they are composed of, how they are reproduced over time and how they might differ from other societies”. Viewing society in this context, allows sociologists to understand the foundation of a society; and the motivations / values that underpin its function. Social phenomena, such as ‘sex, gender, and sexuality’ and their respective dominating themes [and inequalities] shape society as a whole. Throughout the following paragraphs, you will be presented with evidence to support sociology’s role in understanding important social phenomena, I primarily focus on gender and some of its widely known inequalities.
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.
While all sociological perspectives offer new and unique understanding into the problems of society, Feminist perspectives optimally illustrate the complexities of gender inequality. Structural Functionalist perspectives see gender inequality as functional for society. There is an oversight in this viewpoint in that there is a focus on the function from a male centric mindset. Conflict perspectives focus on the stratification of gender, also from the view of men in society, without examining the different levels of discrimination for different ethnicities or classes of women.
Girls and boys tend to find themselves fitting into where they should be in their family. In the past women were given domestic work that was done for the well-being in their household. This work was done without pay. Men did more physical work, additional leadership roles, and were paid for this physical labor and women didn’t not get the same benefits. This “status quo” defined women’s “place” for any years. Because women were seen beneath men in their homes, this mind set translated into the work place. Although the exact time and instance that cause gender inequality is uncertain, it is believed that this is where gender inequality truly began
Gender equality has been an on going quandary for women because of male potency, misogyny, and patriarchal conceptions, which are ideas that are harmful and feared by women throughout society. Women are constantly demeaned by men with their inappropriate slurs towards women, their aggressive attitudes and forceful actions, and the expectations and feminine qualities men assume women should abide by. Gender inequality is not natural, but constructed by people in society, which discriminate against women. At a young age, we are assigned a gender role that we are forced to fulfill with proper behaviors, whether that be a female or male. Gender is performed, and the media helps manifest these mis-conceptions and ideas that contribute to male power
and wages. It will also tackle what is being done to solve this problem and what
To be frank, I have not really read much about gender inequality until recently, that said I have read more articles in which I have sided for gender equality than sided against it due to persuasion. That said, when I learn something and I learn something that I notice is relevant, I tend to be passionate about it and have the feeling to share or discuss the topic. Gender schemas and social constructs expected out of each sex is definitely one of them. In my opinion, gender inequality does exist and things need to be done in order to fix it. While I may not have all the answers, I do know that awareness is one of the first places to start. This tends to be true in most issues, for example, you normally don’t see commercials displaying a black screen with a phone number asking for donations, rather you see sad children or animals. This is not an attempt to relate humans inequalities to that of dogs and cats, the point here is the same, in order to achieve equality, people must be aware of the issues that