Gender in Society: Identity, Equality, and Social Change
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Presentation Transcript
Chapter 13, Gender • Defining Sex and Gender • Sex Differences: Nature or Nurture? • The Social Construction of Gender • Gender Stratification • Gender and Diversity • Theories of Gender • Gender and Social Change
Defining Sex and Gender • Sex refers to biological identity. • Gender refers to the socially learned expectations associated with members of each sex.
Biological and Social Sex Identity • Biology alone does not determine gender identity. • When fetal sexual differentiation is compromised, biological sex identity is unclear. • Transgendered people indicate that there is no fixed relationship between biological and social outcomes.
Sources of Gender Socialization • Parents • Childhood play and games • Schools • Religion • Media
The Price of Conformity Conformity to gender expectations has negative consequences: • Women are denied access to power, influence, achievement, and independence. • Men are denied nurturing, emotional, and other-oriented world.
Characteristics of Societies With Gender Equality • Women’s work is central to the economy. • Women have access to education. • Ideological or religious support for gender inequality is weak.
Characteristics of Societies With Gender Equality • Men contribute to housework and childcare. • Work is not highly sex-segregated. • Women have access to formal power and authority.
Women’s Worth: Still Unequal • Women who work full-time earn on average 74% of what men earn. • Women’s labor force participation rate in 1997 was 60%, compared with 75% of men. • 2/3 of mothers are now in the labor force. • Women work to support themselves or their family or to bring in extra money.
Explaining the Pay Gap • Human capital theory - age, experience, education, marital status and hours worked influence worth in the labor market. • Dual labor market theory - women and men earn different amounts because they tend to work in different segments of the labor market.
Explaining the Pay Gap • Overt discrimination - white men use their power to perpetuate their advantage over women and racial minorities, through labor union practices, legislation, harassment, and intimidation.
Explanations of Gender Segregation • Gender socialization • Glass ceiling to advancement • Women’s family responsibilities
Theories of Gender • Functionalism - socialization into prescribed roles is the major impetus behind inequality. • Conflict theorists - women are disadvantaged by power inequalities that are built into the social structure. • Symbolic interaction theory - gender is produced through interaction and interpretations.
Feminist Theory: 4 Frameworks • Liberal feminism - gender socialization contributes to inequality because it is through learned customs that inequality is perpetuated. • Socialist feminism - the system of capitalism is the origin of women's oppression.
Feminist Theory: 4 Frameworks • Radical feminism - patriarchy is the primary cause of women's oppression. • Multiracial feminism - developed new avenues of theory for guiding the study of race, class, and gender.
Legislative Changes Legislation can promote change, but cannot guarantee change: • The Equal Pay Act of 1963 • Civil Rights Bill of 1964 • Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972