Economics of Gender Chapter 2 Assist. Prof.Dr .Meltem INCE YENILMEZ

1. Economics of GenderChapter 2Assist.Prof.Dr.Meltem INCE YENILMEZ

2. Gender Socialization • Socialization • A lifelong process • Primary Socialization • Generally takes place in the family • Gender Socialization • Learning the cultural behavior of femininity or masculinity

3. Culture & Socialization • Culture • A society’s total way of life with social heritage and guidelines for behavior • Social institutions • Organized methods of meeting the needs in society • Some institutions are family, economy, religion, government, education, etc. • Socialization agents

4. Culture & Socialization, cont • Social Control • Social norms • Can be formal (written rules or laws) • Or informal (ridicule, loss of support) • Socialization is an uneven process • Subcultures also impact socialization • Race, ethnicity, social class, age, sexual orientation, religion can all be subcultures that impact gender roles enactment

5. Social Class and Gender Socialization • Socialization differs in different social classes • Middle-class parents emphasize autonomy • Working-class parents emphasize conformity • Males in middle-class families are more traditional in gender role than females in middle-class families

6. Race and Gender Socialization • Latino Families • Females are more deferential and subordinate than in other racial and ethnic groups • The impact of Catholicism • The impact of familism • Buffers machismo • Source of prestige for females • Enhances father’s involvement with children

7. Race and Gender Socialization, cont • African-American Families • Less rigid and less stereotyped gender roles • Girls have high achievement motivation and self-esteem • Males engage in more childcare and housework than in other ethnic groups • Type of gender socialization is dependent on presence of father, racial makeup of community, work roles, and the church

8. Theories of Gender Socialization: Social Learning Theory • Children learn gender roles directly through: • Rewards which reinforce appropriate behavior or • Punishments which extinguish inappropriate behavior • Children learn gender roles indirectly through: • Observation and Imitation (Modeling) • Continuous gender role reinforcement

9. Theories of Gender Socialization: Social Learning Theory • Gender socialization for boys • Fathers are not as available • Often told what NOT to do, rather than what to do • View gender in more stereotypical and rigid manner than girls • Hostility toward girls, homosexuality, and cross-gendered behavior in other boys • Gender socialization for girls • Model behaviors that are less socially valued • Cross-gender behavior is more acceptable

10. Theories of Gender Socialization: Cognitive Development Theory • Jean Piaget • How children’s minds develop through interaction with the environment • Children play an active role in this process

11. Theories of Gender Socialization: Cognitive Development Theory, cont • Kohlberg • Children learn gender roles according to their level of cognitive development • Self-identify by gender by age 3 • Gender constancy at age 6 • Organize behavior around gender

12. Cognitive Development Theory: Critique • Model does not neatly fit the developmental stages • Gender stability rather than gender constancy in selection of gender-typed behaviors • Observation of gender in a wide variety of social settings is necessary

13. Theories of Gender Socialization: Gender Schema Theory • Related to Cognitive Development Theory • Schemas influence understanding, interpretation, and processing of information • Selective memory bias • Cultural lenses • Gender polarization • Biological essentialism • Androcentrism

14. Theories of Gender Socialization: Social Cognitive Theory • New theory • Draws from cognitive development, gender schema, and social learning theories • Knowledge from observations • Self regulation • Self-reflection

15. Agents of Socialization: The Family • Pink or Blue? • Son preference of parents • Gendered socialization beginning in infancy • Clothes, toys, and play • Girls allowed to cross-over more often • Gendered parent behaviors • Fathers are more traditional than mothers

16. Agents of Socialization: Preferences Boys Play • Large groups • Complex, team sports • Expansive spaces • Rough and tumble play • Competitive • Graduate to more physically demanding sports Girls Play • Small, intimate groups • Ordered • Cooperative play • Indoor play • Often become less active as they grow

17. Agents of Socialization • School • Teachers are unaware of their own gender-stereotyped behavior • Children’s Television • Many more male characters • Commercials marketed toward gender stereotype

18. Socialization for Gender Equity • Impact of ancestor worship, marriage customs, and inheritance laws • One child policy (in China) • Impact of poverty

19. Impact of unbalanced sex-ratio • Female infanticide, neglect, abandonment, and abortions • Dowry abuse • Bride shortage • Kidnapping and selling of women • Elderly widow abuse

20. Placing Women in History • Compensatory history involves exceptional women • Excludes women’s impact on society in general • Contribution history involves women’s contribution to social movements • Defined by men • Female masses remain invisible • Intersection of gender, race, and class

21. Historical Themes about Women • Theme of patriarchy • Focus on power of men over women • Women as victims • Central to feminist scholarship • Theme of women’s resistance to patriarchy • Courage, survival, achievement focused • Challenges the various dichotomies and misconceptions

22. Classical Societies: Early Greece • Greek mythology of Amazon women • Partnership or egalitarian societies • Goddess worship • Oppression • Plato’s emancipated women were still considered inferior to men • Aristotle believed women needed to be ruled by men

23. Classical Societies: Athens, Greece • Women’s status was low • Considered “chattels” or minors • Could not own property • Secluded, supervised • Two groups of successful women • Wives who helped elevate husband’s or son’s political power behind the scenes • Hetairai – High-level courtesans

24. Classical Societies: Sparta, Greece • Society organized around the threat of war • Weak baby boys were killed • Physical fitness was emphasized • Army life separated husbands and wives • Women spent time on their own, developing talents and skills • While men were away, women managed household and properties • Women were able to inherit property

25. Classical Societies: Rome • Women were still controlled by men, but had more freedom and public roles than Grecian women • Paterfamilias – Eldest male has absolute power over all family members • By 1st century, a freewoman could be emancipated after bearing 3 children

26. Middle Ages: Christianity • The Church as repository of knowledge • Nuns were educated • Women’s status erodes • Misogynistic interpretations of women’s roles • Prohibition of divorce • Witch hunts developed from distrust of independent women

27. Middle Ages: The Renaissance • Educated aristocratic women could become scientists, writers, and artists • Luther believed women were “beautiful handiwork(s) of God” but inferior to males • Women worked in shops, produced handiwork for sale • More diverse roles overall, but strict gender norms were enforced

28. The American Experience: Native Americans • Generally functional gender segregation with balance • Many tribes were matrilineal and matrilocal • Women held leadership roles in government, religion, and healing • The impact of Christianity on Native American women is debated

29. Frontier Life • Women had to be tough • Women were scarce • Women had to fill expanded roles • Women could own land, worked in the fields • Adversity brought men and women together more equitably

30. Industrialization • Factories employed working class and immigrant women and children for low-skilled labor • Appalling work conditions, long hours, unsafe conditions • Gender stratification in the workplace • Lower pay for women

31. World War II • Women’s roles expand in the workplace during wartime • War production industry ended the Great Depression • Women were needed to fill jobs as men went off to war • Employment preference given to white, young, single women • African American women given lower level jobs

32. The Postwar Era to the Millennium • Recovery from the Depression • Narrowing gender wage gap • Urban expansion • Home and family remain integral to women’s aspirations • Attitudes change more slowly than behaviors • Reemergence of the Women’s Movement

33. The Women’s Movement • The rise of feminism • Abigail Adams letter to John Adams, 1776 • Olympe de Gouge’s Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791 • Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792 • “Women must strengthen their minds, become friends to their husbands, and not be dependent on them”

34. The Early Movement: 1830-1890 • Middle-class and working-class women are first united in humanistic social causes of the dire economic condition of women • Abolitionist movement brought to attention female inequality within the movement, 1833 • The Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 • Declaration of Sentiments

35. Nineteenth Amendment • Divisions between more radical factions and more conservative • Radical faction developed their own group, led by Alice Paul, 1913 • NAWSA, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, began rigorous suffrage campaign, 1915 • By 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified

36. The Contemporary Movement • Equal Right Amendment first introduced in 1923 • After the vote was won, feminist movement was fairly inactive until the early 1960s • Second Wave Feminism • Consciousness raising to counter sexism • Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, 1961 • Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, 1963 • National Organization for Women (NOW)

37. The Contemporary Movement • Third Wave Feminism • 1990s • Recognizing the heterogeneity of women • No universal feminism • Intersection of gender, race, class, and sexuality