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.
Karl Marx, one of the prominent social thinkers of the 19th century, based his theoretical thinking on inequality and social reproduction (Holmes et al, 2012) – most evident in his interpretation of capitalism. Whilst we primarily associate capitalism with social class; gender inequality – particularly in the working world – is intrinsically linked with capitalism and the systemic culture associated with it. Acker (1990) supports this link by arguing that “class is constructed through gender and that class relations are always gendered. The structure of the labour market, relations in the workplace, the control of the work process, and the underlying wage relation are always affected by symbols of gender, processes of gender identity, and the material inequalities between women and men.”
In Acker's (1990) findings on gendering patterns in the divisions of labour, it is noted that “men are almost always in the highest positions of organizational power.” Further to this, a...
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..., Australia, January 2013 (retrieved 20 March 2014)
Holmes, Hughes, and Julian, (2012) – Australian Sociology: A Changing Society, Chapter 1, 2, 5 (retrieved 19, 20 March 2014)
Martin, P. Y. (2004), Gender as Social Institution, (i) Social Forces, June 2004, 82(4):1249-1273 (retrieved 17 March 2014)
Meyer. L. (2003) - Economic Globalization and Women's Status in the Labor Market: A Cross-National Investigation of Occupational Sex Segregation and Inequality (retrieved 17 March 2014)
Thelwall, M (2008), Social Networks, Gender and Friending: An Analysis of MySpace Member Profiles (i) J.Am.Soc.Inf.Sci., 59:121-1330. doi:10:1002/asi.20835 (retrieved 18 March 2014)
Vaux, A. (1985), Variations in Social Support Associated with Gender, Ethnicity, and Age. (i) Journal of Social Issues, 41: 89-110. doi:10.1111/j. 1540 - 4560. 1985. tb01118. x (retrieved 17 March 2014)
Sex Segregation in the Work Place In the article “Sex Segregation at Work: Persistence and Change” by Anastasia Prokos explores ideas around the challenges and reasons of sex segregation in the work place. She argues that even though the United States has made several steps in the right direction throughout our history, there is still “… women and men in the contemporary United States continue to be concentrated in different occupations, jobs, and industries” (Prokos 564). She is presenting this as a social problem that leads to stereotypes, discrimination, and unequal pay.
Gimenez, Martha E. "Capitalism and the Oppression of Women: Marx Revisited." Science & Society 69.1 (2005): 11-32. ProQuest Central. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. .
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
This essay will compare Marx’s understanding of the relationship between laborers and capitalists and Wollstonecraft’s understanding of the relationship between women and men. Both Marx and Wollstonecraft’s conception of these groups of people show a large gap between their treatment and status in society. Marx argues that capitalism is not created by nature and the unequal relationship between laborers and capitalists is not humane. In other words, it is actually the cause of social and economic problems during that time period. On a similar note, Wollstonecraft believes that the oppressive relationship between men and women is also unnatural. The standards for men and women are placed by society, not by biological facts. Society and how people
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
Iversen, Torben and Frances Rosenbluth. Women, Work, and Power: The Political Economy of Gender Inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Kindle E-Book.
Almost all of us live daily with the effects of social construction, whereby one is observed through their cultural or social practices. Society discriminates against us depending on skin colour and social class. Carole Vance in her article “Social Construction Theory”, has a unique approach to social construction of gender. She painstakingly points out that these cultural influences affect individuals on a personal basis, but society as a whole.
Parcheta, N., Kaifi, B., & Khanfar, N. (2013). Gender Inequality in the Workforce: A Human Resource Management Quandary. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 4(3), 240-248.
Kendal, Diana. "Sex and Gender." Sociology in Our Times 3.Ed. Joanna Cotton. Scarborough: Nelson Thomson, 2004. 339-367
Half of all employees in the US alone are women and yet “only around five percent hold senior positions (Source 11)”. According to this, one can assume that out of all the employees in the US, only around three percent are women in senior positions, which is a small number of women. However, the representation of women in large corporations is bigger with twenty five percent as higher level managers (“Sexism in the workplace”). Small numbers of women in different kinds of jobs is still common in today’s jobs, even though some may consider the sexes to be equal. They are also underrepresented in blue collar jobs such as construction workers, precision production, and mine working. The cause of these small numbers could be because the employers of these jobs are sexist and the gender of the applicant matters when finding people to fill the jobs, but this is not always the case. Women could also not be applying for the blue collar jobs as well. They may not do this because they do not feel that they could stand doing the heavy duty work. Men could be convincing them that they could not last in the job, when in reality they most certainly
It is only recently that sociology has begun to explore the topic of gender. Before this, inequalities within society were based primarily on factors such as social class and status. This paper will discuss gender itself: what makes us who we are and how we are represented. It will also explore discrimination towards women throughout history, focusing mainly on women and the right to vote, inequalities between males and females in the work place and how gender is represented in the media.
Before I started taking the course of sociology I wasn’t really expecting to learn anything, it was just supposed to be an easy online class. However, that was not the case. It challenged my mind. I started to see sociology all around me, starting with family, then friends, and how I see things overall in general. The fact that we have an everyday life in which there are patterns in ways of living is what sets a platform for a sociological breakdown and for being a part in what we do. A better way of understanding ourselves. We use sociology in many ways every day. One central and important study of sociology is the study of everyday social life. Everyday life and sociology are definitely two different words and situations, but they tend to hold a close relationship. While sociology is the study of the human interaction, everyday life consists of everyday human interaction. Everyday life is filled by human beings interacting with one another, ideas, and emotions. Sociology studies the interactions with all of these and shows how mere interaction resulted in things such as ideas. For an example, race and ethnicity are important concepts in the field of sociology and are ones that are studied a great deal. Race plays a large role in everyday human interactions and sociologists want to study how, why, and what the outcomes are of these interactions. Current sociological theories focus mainly on how there are many different factors in our everyday items of life, like movies. We were assigned a final to write a review for a movie in sociological form. The movie that was on the list that also happened to be one of my favorite movies, Toy Story. When we were assigned the assignment, I never thought about how in-depth it was with sociol...
Gender stratification limits women’s achievement in their lives. In term of jobs, women continue to enter a narrow passage of occupations range. Compared to men, women often face greater handicap in seeking job because the higher income and prestigious jobs are more likely held by men. In the workplace institution, men are also prior to a faster promotion. There is a case where women were allowed to get promoted to a more advance posi...
The opportunities available to 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. There is no denying that the salary of men is far more than that of women’s. In the Great Britain (and other parts of the globe), there are pieces of evidence which suggest that gendered practices of participation in the labor force still have significant impact on the economic security level that men and women develop over the course of their lives (Warren 606).
Women’s subordination within the labour market is seen by Marxist feminists as suiting the needs of capitalism as women are considered a ‘reserve army of labour’ as they are a more disposable part of the workforce. According to Beechey (1986) women are a cheap ‘reserve army of labour’ that are brought in during economic booms but then thrown out during slumps. Women are often not members of trade unions and are prepared to work for less money as their wage could be a second income. This benefits capitalism as a group of unemployed people looking for work creates competition and exploitation. Employers are given an advantage which allows them to reduce wages and increase the rate of exploitation. Benston (1972) supports this as women are used to benefitting the operation of the capitalist economy by carrying out unprepared work in the home. This proves that patriarchy dominates women which leads to women’s subordination. Hartmann (1981) believes that patriarchy and the economy both play a crucial role in explaining and understanding gender inequality. Historically, men have controlled women especially by control of labour power. This can come through legislation that operates economically to the benefit of men, for example Maternity and Paternity Rights. This proves that patriarchy and economics together explains gender inequality. However, Walby (1986) argues that women staying at home can actually harm capitalism because if women were to compete for jobs with men this would lower wages and increase profits. Women who earn also have superior spending power which would boost the economy and benefit