Males and females unequal access to power, prestige and property on the basis of their sex

Answer by Blue

Sex: biological characteristics that distinguish females and males, consisting primary and secondary sex characteristics. Primary sex characteristics are the sex organ distinctions, secondary sex characteristics are the other physical distinctions. Sex refers to male or female.

You inherit your sex

Gender: the behaviours and attitudes that a society considers proper for its males and female; masculine and femininity. Gender is a social not a biological characteristic.

Gender varies from one society to another. Gender refers to masculinity or femininity.

You learn your gender

Patriarchy: a society in which men as a group dominate women as a group; authority is vested is males

Matriarchy: A society in which women as a group dominate men as a group; authority is vested is females

Answer by Blue

What is the sociological significance of gender?

It is a device by which society controls its members. Like social class, gender is a structural feature in society.

Answer by Blue

Almost all sociologists chose to say that it is Nurture and not Nature that affects behaviour. Social factors, not biology are the reasons we behave the way we do. Our visible differences of sex do not come with meanings built into them. Each human group makes it own interpretation of these physical differences and on this basis assigns male and females to separate groups.  In these groups people learn what is expected of them ideas of gender vary greatly form one culture to another and as a result so do male-female behaviours.

Answer by Blue

Male dominance is a social construct (nurture/cultural) - Kerrie

differences between the behaviour of males and females are solely the result of social factors-specifically, socialization and social control.

1.      Hunting and gathering societies exist in which women are not subordinated to men. Anthropologists claim that in these societies women have separate but equal status.

2.      Biology “causes” some human behaviour, but they are related to reproduction or differences in body structure.  The differences are relevant for only a few activities, such as playing, sports or crawling through a small space

       3.  Female crime rates are rising in many parts of the world. This indicates that aggression, which is often considered a biologically dictated male behaviour, is related instead to social factors.

Social factors-socialization, gender discrimination, and other forms of social control-create gender differences in behaviour.

Answer by Blue

Male dominance is Nature not nurture - Kerrie

it is not environment but inborn differences that “give masculine and feminine direction to the emotions and behaviours of men and women”

1.      The anthropological record shows that all societies for which evidence exist are (or were), patriarchies (societies in which men dominate women). matriarchies are myths.

2.        In all societies, past and present, the highest statuses are associated with men. In every society, politics is ruled by ‘hierarchies overwhelmingly dominated by men”

3.      Men dominate societies because they “have a lower threshold for the elicitation of dominance behaviour

4.      Male dominance of society is and “inevitable resolution of the psycho physiological reality” Socialization and social institution merely- reflect - and sometimes exaggerate inborn tendencies.

Alice Rossi (1977): Feminist and former president of the American Sociological Assoc. says that women are better prepared biologically for “mother” than are men. They are more sensitive to non-verbal communications and babies’ skin. The issue is not either biology or society.  Instead, nature provides biological predispositions, which are then overlaid with culture.

Are men more aggressive than women?

Gerda Lerner (1986): there is not a single society known where women-as-a group have decision-making power over men (as a group). Consequently, sociologists classify females as a minority group.

Answer by Blue

Although there are more females than males in the “minority group” applies as it refers to people who are discriminated on basis of physical or cultural characteristics regardless of their numbers. In hunter and gatherer societies and even horticultural societies there were less gender discriminations than now. In these societies, women may have contributed about 60% of the group’s total food. Yet, around the world gender is the basis for discrimination.  The primary theory as to why women became the minority group is the origin of Patriarchy.

Answer by Blue

Lerner (1986)/Friedl (1990): In early human history, life was short. To balance the high death rate and maintain the population women had to give birth to many children.  This limited them and around the world women assumed tasks that were associated with the home and child care whilst the men hunted. As a result, men became dominant. They hunted, traveled and had contact with other groups. In contrast little prestige was given to the woman at home not risking their lives for the group. Eventually, men took over society.

Patriarchy may have different origins in different places

Answer by Blue

proposed that because men are stronger than women and combat was necessary in tribal groups, men became the warriors and women became the reward that enticed men to risk their lives in battle

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patriarchy came with the development of private property

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Men came to think of themselves as inherently superior-based on the evidence that they dominated society

Answer by Blue

1. global gap in education, politics, pay and violence.

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George Murdock (1937): analyzed data reported on 324 societies around the world and found that in all of them activities are sex typed

Sex Typed: every society associates certain activities with one sex or the other.

Murdock also found that activities that are considered “female” in one society may be considered male in another eg. taking care of cattle is women’s work, while other groups assign this task to men.  The exception was metal working which was considered men’s work in all of the societies that Murdock examined.  Making weapons, pursuing sea mammals and hunting, were almost universally the domain of men Murdock found no specific work that was universally assigned only to women.

Answer by Blue

Nothing about biology requires men and women to be assigned different work. Pursuits that are considered feminine in one society may be deemed masculine in another and vice versa.

Answer by Blue

Linton (1936)/Rosaldo (1974): Universally, greater prestige is given to male activities-regardless of what those activities are. eg. if taking care of goats is men’s work then it carries high prestige but if its women’s work, it is considered less important and given less prestige.

Ehrenreich/English (1973): it is not the work that provides the prestige but the sex with which the work is associated.

What are the global gaps in Education Politics and Pay?

Education: 2/3 of 1 billion illiterate are women

Politics: around the world, women lack equal access to national decision making. Except for Rwanda (at 49%) no national legislature of any country has as many women as men

Pay: in every nation, women average less pay than men. In the US full-time working women average only 70% of what men make.

Violence against Women:  a global human rights issue is violence against women

Answer by Blue

The institutions of each society work together to maintain the group’s particular forms of inequality and customs, often venerated throughout history, both justify and maintain these arrangement.

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Feminism (suffragist movement): the philosophy that men and women should be politically, economically, and socially equal: organized activities on behalf of this principle. It is a view that biology is not destiny and that stratification by gender is wrong and should be resisted.

A central lesson of conflict theory is that power yields privilege. Like a magnet, power draws society’s best resources to the elite and because men held onto their privileges and used social institutions to maintain their position, basic rights for women came only through prolonged and bitter struggle.  Both men and some women resisted the feminist movement. Men because they didn’t want to lose their prestige and women because they accepted their status as morally correct eg. Jeannette Gilder (1984) said that women should not have the right to vote because “Politics is too public too wearing, and too unfitted to the nature of women”

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Who was a leading Feminist?

Lucy Burns (1916): lead the National Women’s Party. The party picketed the White House for 6 months were then arrested and treated very badly.

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1.      Radical branch: that wanted to reform all the institutions of society and conservative branch whole concern was to win the vote for women. The conservative branch dominated and after the right to vote was one the radical branch dissolved.

2.       Janet Chafetz (1990): shows the second wave of feminism began in 1960 when, as more women took jobs and began to regard them as careers they began to compare their working conditions with those of men. This changed the way women viewed their conditions at work, resulting in a second wave of protests against gender inequalities. The goals were broad, ranging from raising women’s pay to changing policies on violence against women

3. The third wave is emerging. Three main aspects are

 a). greater focus on the problem of women in the Least Industrialized Nations

       b). a criticism of the values that dominate work and society.

       c). the removal of impediments to women’s love an sexual please

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Degrees tend to follow gender, which reinforces male-female distinctions. Because gender socializations give men and women different orientations to life, they enter college with gender linked aspirations. It is their socialization –not some presume innate characteristics –that channels men and women in to different educational paths eg. men earn 94% of AA degrees in Masculine field of construction trades and women 89% of “feminine” field of library science.  A study shows that there is gender stratification in rank and pay for those who earn doctoral degrees to their teaching careers

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1.      General devaluation of femininity in U.S

2.      Male dominance of conversation (men more likely to interrupt conversations)

Samuel Stouffer (1949): “The American Soldier” to motivate their men, officers used feminine terms as insults

Douglas Foley (1990): football coaches insult boys who won’t play well by saying that they are “wearing skirts”

These insults represent a devaluation of females and there is no comparable phenomenon among women, for young frills do not insult each other by calling each other “man”

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Greater difference in pay: More women now (one in two) work outside the home and women who work full time average only 70% of what men are paid. The pay gap occurs in all industrialized nations.  Tall men also earn more as do taller women.

Half of gender gap is due to women choosing lower- paying jobs such as teaching while men choose better- paying jobs such as business and engineering.

Child Penalty: is also a factor. Women missing out on work experience and opportunities while they care for children

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What is the Glass Ceiling and according to whom?

The Glass Ceiling: the mostly invisible barrier that keeps women from advancing to the top levels at work.

Why is the glass ceiling so powerful?

a) Men are viewed as leader whilst women are viewed as “good support”

b). women lack mentors ie. successful executives who take an interest in them and teach them the ropes.  Mentors can provide opportunities to develop leader skill that open the door to the executive suite

Christine Williams (1995): interviewed men and women who worked in traditionally females, jobs- nurses, elementary school teacher, librarian and social workers. Instead of bumping their heads on the Glass Ceiling, the men, in these occupations found themselves aboard a Glass Escalator

The Glass Escalator: the mostly invisible accelerators that push men into higher-level positions, more desirable work assignments and higher salaries. Men are given higher level-paying positions, more desirable work assignments and higher salaries. The motor that drives the glass escalator is gender-the stereotype that because someone is male he more capable.

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What do Conflict Theorists say about Capitalist’s exploitation of gender divisions in the work place in order to control them?

According to Conflict Theorists, capitalists exploit gender division among workers in order to control them. Owner and manager divide workers in subtle ways.eg Silicon Valley manufacturing firm specified the colour of smocks that it require its worker to wear. The colour of the men’s smocks, depend on the particular job they do but all of the women wear the same colour regardless of their jobs.  The subtle message is No matter what your job is you are primarily a women .They also they have a “Ladies’ Corner” in its newsletter but it doesn’t have a “Men’s Corner”. The subtle message is it’s the men’s newsletter with a little corner devoted to the women.  ie.  men are the real workers, but women are there too.

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What is sexual harassment and what is it according to Symbolic Interactionists?

Sexual Harassment: the abuse of one’s position of authority to force unwanted sexual demands on someone. Central to sexual harassment is the abuse of power.

Symbolic Interactionists:  labels affect our perception and because we have the term sexual harassment, we perceive actions in a different light than did our predecessors.

Blue

What is a consistent characteristic of violence in the US?

Gender inequality.

About one of 3 rapes is committed by a stranger. Date rape (acquaintance rape) is common.

When women are murdered, about eight or nine times out of ten the killer is a man. Although women are much less likely to kill, when they do kill, judges tend to be more lenient with them.

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What are the Conflict V Symbolic Theories regarding Feminism and Gender Violence?

Violence against women: Conflict Theorists: argue that men are losing power and that some men turn violently against women as a way to reassert their declining power and status

Violence against women: Symbolic Interactionist: to associate strength and virility with violence – as is done in so many cultures- is to promote violence.

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What could be a solution to gender violence?

To break the connection between violence and masculinity

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Why are women underrepresented in politics?

a).They are underrepresented in law and business, the careers from which most politicians emerge.

b).Most women find that irregular hours kept by those who run for office are incompatible with their role as mother

c). Women are also not as likely to have a supportive spouse who is willing to play an unassuming background role while providing solace, encouragement, child care, and voter appeal.

d).Men prefer to hold on to their position of power, men have been reluctant to incorporate women into center of decision making or to represent them as viable candidates

Nancy Pelosi was elected in 2002 as the first women minority leader and in 2007 as the first woman Speaker of the House, making her the most powerful woman ever in the House of Representatives.

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What is social class?

A large group of people who rank closely to one another in property, prestige and power.

All aspects of life are touched by social class

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What did Karl Marx/ Max Weber say about it?

Marx: saw only 2 social classes, capitalist (those who own the means for production) and working (those who don’t).

Weber: saw more to social class than just a person’s relationship to the means of production.  He defined social class as the above definition

Blue

How do sociologists measure the three components, property, Prestige, Power?

Property: Buildings, land animal, machines, stocks businesses, bank accounts, cars etc.

Wealth: a person’s net worth- the value of a person’s property added to together minus the person’s debt

Blue

What is the difference between wealth and Income?

Wealth: a person’s net worth-

Income: a flow of money which can come from numerous sources; usually business or wages but also from rent, interest or royalties, alimony allowance or gambling.

Some people have much wealth and little income.  One may own a lot of land and a farm (wealth) but if the crop fails and one can’t sell your produce you have no income

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What is the distribution of Income in the US?

Paul Samuelson: if in a pyramid of blocks, each layer portrayed $500 of income, the peak would be far higher than MT Everest, but most people would be within a few feet of the ground.

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What is the average per capital income in the US?

Average per capita income in US is $35,000

Since 1970, the richest 20% of US families have grown richer and the poorest 20% have grown poorer

CEO’s income of the largest companies is 166 time higher than the average pay of the US workers.

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What do divisions of wealth represent?

The difference in wealth between those at the top and those at the bottom of the U.S class structure means that these individual experience vastly different lifestyles. It’s not mere numbers, but, choice that make vital differences in people’s lives,

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What is power?

The ability to carry out your will, even over the resistance of others

Legitimate power: seen as authority

Illegitimate Power: seen as force or coercion

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What did Marx say about power?

We learn an ideology (that we are participants in the nations’ “big” decisions) at an early age that is promoted by the elites to both legitimate and perpetuate their power.

Daniel Hellinger and Dennis Judd (1991) call this the “democratic façade” that conceal the real source of power in the US

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What did C. Wright Mills (1956) say about power?

Said that power was in the hands of a few, this contradicted the dominant ideology of equality.  Mills coined the term Power Elite (those who make the big decisions in the U. S society)Wealth and power coalesce in a group of like minded individual who share ideologies and values.  They belong to THE same private clubs, vacation resorts etc.  Their shared back ground and interests reinforce their view of the world and their special place in it.  These elite have extraordinary power in the U.S society and most US president come from this group.

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What does William Domhoff (1990) say about the Power Elite?

Domhoff said that the group is so powerful that no major decision of the US government is made without its approval. This group works behind the scenes with elected officials to determine the nation’s foreign and domestic policy.  Concluding that wealth brings power and extreme wealth brings extreme power

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What is Prestige?

Respect or regard.

Why do people give more prestige to some jobs than to others/what are the 4 features that give a job prestige?

Jobs with more prestige-White Collar

1.      They pay more

2.      They require more education

3.      They entail more abstract thought

4.      They offer greater autonomy (independence or self-direction)

Jobs with less prestige-Blue Collar

Jobs with the opposite characteristics give less prestige.

1.      They re low-paying,

2.      They demand more physical labour

3.      They are more closely supervised

 These rankings whether White Collar or Blue Collar are consistent across countries and over time

BLUE

What are Status, Status Consistency, and Status Inconsistency?

Status: the position that someone occupies in society or social groups

Status Consistency: Ranking high or low on all three dimensions of social class

Status Inconsistency: Ranking high on Some dimensions of social class and low on other, also call status discrepancy

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What Did Gerhard Lenski (1994) say about status inconsistency?

He analyzed how people try to maximize their status, their position in a social group.  People want to be judged on the highest dimension of their social status. Others, who are trying to maximize their own position, may respond to status inconsistent individualS according to their lowest ranking.

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Give examples of status inconsistency according to Ray Gold (1952)

After apartment janitors unionized they earned more than the tenants whose rubbish they carried out. The tenant were upset because

 The janitors now having better cars than them.

Individual with status inconstancy are likely to confront many frustrating situations. Such people tend to be more politically radical.  College Profs Status is very high but their income relatively low.

Instant wealth can also cause Status Inconsistency

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What ca status inconsistencyt lead to?

What are Erik Mills' Contradictory Class Locations?

people are members of more than one class at the same time

position in the class structure that generates contradictory interests

What are Erik Wrights 4 social Classes?

Capitalists: business owners who employ many workers

Petty bourgeoisie: small business owners

Manager: who sell their own labour but also exercise authority over other employees

Workers: who sell their labour to others.

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According to Joseph Kahl and Dennis Gilbery (1998) what are the 6 social classes?

 Capitalist 1% (worth more than the entire bottom 90% of the country)

Consist of “old” (blue bloods”) and “new money” (“nouveau riche”). The longer wealth has been in a family the more it adds to the family prestige.  Unlike blue bloods nouveau riche have not attended the “right” school and don’t share the social networks that come with “old” money

Upper Middle 15% is the one most shaped by education (have at least BA degree)

Lower Middle 34% have jobs that require them to follow orders from upper middle. The distinction between them and working class is the most blurred

Working 30% Blue Collar, most only have high school diploma

Working Poor 16% work at unskilled low paying temp or seasonal jobs.  They believe that no matter what part is elected, their situation won’t change

Underclass 4% next to no chance of climbing anywhere. Inner city living, unemployed or low paying jobs, on social welfare, homeless (the fallout from our post industrial economy)

A primary sociological principal is that: people’s views are shaped by their social location. May people from the middle and upper classes can’t understand how anyone can work and still be poor.

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Looking at social class in the Ford industry:

Capitalists: Ford Family

Upper middle class: own a Ford agency

Lower Middle Class: sales person

Working Class: mechanics

Working Poor: those who “detail” used cars

Under Class: not represents in the car industry

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What are the effects of Social Class on health Mental Health, Family Life, Education, Religion Politics, Crime and Criminal Justice, the Changing Economy?

 Health: the lower a person’s SC the more likely the individual is to die before expected age.

Why?

SC opens and closes the door to medical care: In the US medical care is a commodity for sale not a citizen’s right.

Lifestyles which are shaped by SC:  People in lower social class are more likely to smoke art badly abuse drugs, get no exercise etc.

Life I share on the poor: Persistent stress in their lives, cause their bodies to ward out faster.

1.      Mental Health: mental health of lower class is worse than that of higher classes (Faris and Dunham 1939). Mental problems are part of the higher stress that accompanies poverty

2.      Family Life: SC affects

 Our choice of partner: Capitalist place strong emphasis on family tradition. A family ancestors, is very important and marring outside of their class is looked down upon

Chance of divorce: the more difficult of lower SC leads to higher marital friction and divorce. Children of lower class more likely to grow u on broken homes

Child rearing: Child rearing depends on the SC.  Lower class use more physical punishment and focus on the kids following rules on obeying authority. Middle class focus on development of the kids creative and leadership skills

3.      Education: edu increase as one goes up in the Social Ladder

4.      Religion: Classes tend to cluster in different denominations eg. Episcopalians attract middle and upper classes, Baptist attract lower classes

5.      Politics:  Symbolic Interactionist says that people perceive event form their own perspective. The higher the social class the more likely they are to vote republican. Working class more likely to vote democratic ( more liberal on economic issues more conservative on social issues)

6.        Crime and Criminal Justice:  White Collar crimes of upper class more likely to be dealt with outside the criminal justice system. Lower class more likely to end up in prison

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What are the two major forces in today’s world?

Globalization of capitalism and rapidly changing technology.

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How do changes in Capitalism and Technology effect people’s lives?

The upheaval in the economy doesn’t affect all SC in the same way.  

Capitalist: are able to move factories to power countries and avail of cheap labour.

Upper Middle class: are able to take advantage of this in getting managerial jobs using the new technology to advance their professions.

Lower Middle Class: become out dated. Those who work at specialized crafts are no longer needed

Working Class:  are hit the hard, factories and plants close and they have little opportunity to get other work.

Working Poor:  even more affected there is no need of unskilled labour

Underclass: are bypassed they are no of value to the new technological society competing on a global level.  Their social belonging and self-esteem tied into work and paychecks has been eliminated.

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What are the 3 types of Social Mobility?

1.      Intergenerational: 2. Structural: 3.  Exchange:

1.      Intergenerational: a change that occurs between generations-grown up children ends up on a different rung of the social ladder from that of their parents. Movement up the social ladder is called Upward Social Mobility and movement down called Downward Social Mobility. (1/2 of sons passed their father on the social class ladder, 1/3 stared at the same level and 1.6 moved down).

Influences such as hard work and effect can help a person’s upward mobility and drugs, indolence etc aid in downward social mobility but there is a crucial factor known as Structural Mobility

2.      Structural Mobility: movement up or down the social clad ladder because of changed in the structure of society, not to individual efforts eg. when computers were invented. People learned new skills and new job opportunities arose allowing them to get better jobs. Similarly, when jobs disappear during an economic depression, people can experience a structural downward mobility.

3.      Exchange Mobility:  occurs when large numbers of people move up and down the social class ladder but on balance, the proportions of the social classes remain about the same.

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What did Elizabeth Higginbotham and Lynn Weber conclude about women and Social Mobility?

Higginbotham and Lynn Weber studied 200 women from working class backgrounds who became professional, managers err.  They found that most of the women’s parents had encouraged them whilst still little to postpone marriage and get an education. 

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What did Steph Lawlor (1999) say?

Both climbing and going down the social ladder can cause disturbance. People who climb the social ladder can be ostracizes by there still lower ranked friends and family.

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What did Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb (1972)?

Children who climb the social ladder can grow aloof from their still lower class parents, now not sharing much in common with them.

Social class separates people into world so distinct that communication and mutual understanding become difficult.  Some never become comfortable with their new higher social class.

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What is the poverty line?

The official measure of poverty: calculated to include incomes that are less than three times a low-cost budget. This measurement was set in the 60s when it was estimated that people spend about 1/3 of their incomes on food. However, people actually spend about 20% income on food so the food budget should be x by 5 not 3 to get a correct estimation of the poor in the U.S. Cost of living in different areas is also not taken into account.

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What is stratification?

The division of nations, as well as layering of groups of people within a nation.

 It is a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according their relative property, prestige and power. It does not refer to individuals. It is a way of ranking large groups of people in to hierarchy according their relative privileges. It applies to both nations and to people within a nation, society, or other group.

It is a division of society into layer bases on certain criteria. Achieved status, ascribed status, ownership (slavery), SES, Religion, race, gender.

Stratification are the characteristics of society, it persists over generations.

It is an ideology. It is created by an ideology in the last 500 years it has changed radically

It profoundly affects our life chances-from access to material possessions to our opportunity for education and even the likely age at which we will die.

Life Chances: Shaped by our social class and status. Opportunities we have in our life. The qualities of life we have

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