Chapters 10, 11 and 14 – Lindsey’s Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective
Work, Education and Power
“A woman’s place is in the home!” This module discusses the attitudes that place more value on the woman’s unpaid work in the home, rather than in the work force and education. The assigned two chapters highlight the roles that men and women have been assigned by socio-cultural forces. Women are seen as important contributors to the home environment including child rearing and housework; male roles are within the market place and bringing home the bacon. Women have won a great many victories over the past several decades in making inroads in education and work, but the struggles still remain daunting for most.
Readings: Chapter 10, 11 and 14
Chapter 10 – Work:
Historical Overview of Women and Work:
Women have made major economic contributions to their societies and families through their labor.
• Women provided most of the food for their families and villages, in hunting and gathering societies.
• Women (and children) were relied on for farm work, which included feeding and maintaining the animals, and harvesting crops.
• Women produced cloth from raw material, soap, candles, and most other consumables.
Women have engaged in three main types of production:
1. Producing goods or services at home for sale or exchange elsewhere (ie: in the “little house on the prairie” it was Mrs. Engles that raised chickens and sold the eggs to the grocer for money to purchase other items like sugar, butter, clothing, kerosene, or school supplies).
2. Producing goods or services for consumption within the household itself. (Mrs. Engles again sewed dresses for the children, cooks all the meals, and tended to the animals, and still found time to help Charles out in the fields).
3. Working for wages outside the household: As has been happening more in the last 30 years, women have been in the work force outside of the household for various reasons. In the movie “Mr. Mom” the husband loses his job. The wife, then lands a job in advertising, thus the woman is in the work force and the husband stays home to care for the children – there are many examples of women in the work force today but they are often seen as doing this out of necessity rather than a desire. On the other hand, when men stay home to care for the children, they are often seen as the hero.
In Colonial time, women functioned as innkeepers, shopkeepers, crafts workers, nurses, printers, teachers, and child-care providers, producing good and services outside their homes for an employer.
With the industrial revolution, women and children were relied on to work in textile mills, rather than in the home, to produce cloth. This showed the lack or unavailability or surplus of men workers, because their work was needed on the farm.
Beginning with the industrial revolution, and over a period of 150 years, women’s work gradually shifted from working in the home to working in factories and industry. No longer did women produce goods for her or her family, she was now producing goods for mass consumption – working outside the home.
The chapter goes on to highlight the family dynamics that have occurred with this change as well as pertinent socio-cultural and political factors.
Chapter 11 – Education focuses on the impact of education on gender role persistence and change. Despite international progress in access to schooling, girls lag significantly behind boys in educational opportunities in 50 countries. 76 million fewer girls are enrolled in primary and secondary schools; 2/3 of the illiterate people in the world are women; a staggering 90% of women in 17 countries are illiterate. The reason behind illiteracy is the traditional gender based practices. The girls take care of the younger siblings, help with the cooking, and fulfill other non-domestic tasks. Education is less important than the valuable unpaid resources female children bring to the family. The key to helping developing nations is to promote literacy for their women. In India, a woman with a high school education will have 2 fewer children than an illiterate woman who has four children. The children of a literate mother have a greater chance of survival. Investing in a women’s education will, most believe, benefit everyone.
Within the American system gender wars in education are heating up again. Please read the short article titled “The Gender Wars in Education” by Susan McGee Bailey and Patricia B. Campbell:
http://www.campbell-kibler.com/Gender_Wars.htm
These authors wrote “How Schools Shortchange Girls” showing how gender stereotypes , particularly those related to education, hurt both girls and boys and they explored ways educators and others can improve our educational system.
Also please read the short article on “Realizing Gender Equality in Higher Education: the need to integrate work/family issues” at:
http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-4/gender.htm
In this short article it is argued that though women constitute 50 percent of undergraduate enrollments, they remain broadly underrepresented in tenured faculty positions in higher education. They explore the question of whether gender discrimination still exists in academia after all the gains we have made in the past several decades and proposes several strategies that universities can employ in combating gender discrimination.
Chapter 14 – Power
The political institution is a critical lens through which we can view our society. According to your text, it defines what justice is, and more importantly, how it will be served. The political institution encodes justice into law, where it becomes a legitimate foundation and the “norm” of society. Thus, by analyzing these laws, we can see how gender and gender roles are defined, viewed, and in which direction the relationship is heading toward in any given society. This module centers on the analysis of power and in particular the focus on the law and the political structure that establishes and maintains that law.
According to some, what lies at the basis of law are certain assumptions of the relationship between women and men. These assumptions state that women are incompetent, childlike, and in need of protection; men are the protectors and financial caretakers of women; husband and wife are treated as “one” with the husband as the “one”; and there are biological differences which give men and women differing capacities and standards on which to judge their actions. The law favors men, and women are at a disadvantage. However, because of the continuing women’s movement and the spreading awareness of the inequality in all facets of life, efforts are being made to improve the status of women and correct the inequality between the genders. For example, the 1963 Equal Pay Act that requires equal pay for equal work is an attempt to remedy the way society has been praising work done by men more than the same work done by women. It attempts to improve women’s status as second-class citizens to one that is equal to men.
As your text illustrates, there has been an increasing awareness about the inequality between women and men and now we are more aware of the fact that we have interpreted the laws in favor of the male, ignoring when this was the case. Today, we see that changes in the political institutions are influencing changes in the relations between men and women. Because of the heightened awareness and the increasing acknowledgement of women as full citizens, the problems women face are becoming much clearer and again, are being recognized as real issues. For example, sexual harassment used to be something personal, ignoring the negative effects women were experiencing. It was not problematic because women’s feelings were not important to society as second-class citizens. In the same way, domestic violence was also viewed as a personal problem because men, who are the aggressors the majority of the time, were the ones in charge. The very culture that has supported inequality has undergone dramatic change in the past 50-100 years.
The popular saying: “The Personal is Political” from the women’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s lies at the foundation of our discussion about power and the law. Max Weber once described power as the “likelihood a person may achieve personal ends despite possible resistance from others”.
Using Power and the Law as the framework for analysis, your chapter explores the areas of employment, education, domesticity and reproductive rights. It argues that as we “approach the next century, there are already signs that the winds of political change have shifted toward a more favorable outlook for a feminist agenda. It is perhaps indicative of the success of the women’s movement that this agenda has widespread support. People no longer question the right of women to achieve their fullest individual potential, whether inside or outside the home or through a combination of both. As Freeman suggests, the next revolution is a social one-in personal and family relationships. It the earlier movement was characterized by mass mobilization and confrontation, the current one is less visible, with protest taking many forms on many fronts.”
Module Summary Questions
1. What are some important advances that have been made in the arenas of work and education that helps us move as a society closer to the goal of equality and justice and how have these impacted that process?
2. Through your reading of this module what are some common themes that women share in regards to work?
3. What is your opinion and analysis of the section in chapter 11 titled, “The Process of Education”?
4. Power is socially constructed in relationships. Authority is owned and power is constructed. Feminism recognizes that power is a social construct that can be manipulated, controlled, eroded and changed. Power and authority are not co determinants. Please explore these concepts and explain how they are related to the readings in this module.
5. What is the relationship between “power” and the “law”? How are social institutions used to maintain power over gender roles and perpetuate them?
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|