- Published: November 13, 2021
- Updated: November 13, 2021
- University / College: Kingston University, London
- Language: English
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NAME: AMAKA ARINZE SOCIOLOGY ESSSAY PAPER ESSAY TOPIC: GENDER INEQUALITY April 4th, 2012 The purpose of this paper is to outline the issues of gender inequality on society as a whole, these effects are prominent in different segments or fields of the society, such as in working places, homes, education sector and as much as we can think of. Could these inequalities be the reason why women are unlikely to get the same wages/salaries as men? Historically, the domination of men in policymaking, leaderships, and most sectors of the society have been steady. Thus, the resulting segregation of men and women is not exactly surprising. Gender inequality is what causes segregation between men and women; it’s also a highly contested segment in the area of sociology, even though there is a milder occurrence of situations having to do with gender inequality now compared to early days. Its occurrence cannot be over emphasized. Difference in culture, environment, and the social era at the present moment can affect how humans perceive gender inequality? And how it affects them negatively or positively? When we talk about gender inequality, most times our minds are driven towards the fact that men are considered higher than women in all ramifications; this is part of what brings about the inequality. Hence, this brings about patriarchy construct; ‘’which refers to social conditions being thought of or structured in a way that favors men and boys over women and girls’’ Gender inequalities are not biological but socially constructed. Theoretical approach such as the feminist theory broadens our knowledge about gender inequality. somewhat, Gender inequality has some relationship with homosexuality because its all about the perception, not just the sexuality; in cases where a person with the male gender but happens to be gay, in some areas of the society he is somehow treated as that of a female even though he is originally of the male gender, just because he has a sexuality of the female and acts in such a manner as of a woman i. e. dress codes, gestures , relationships wife other people, the gay person is therefore treated with almost the same rank of inequality as of a woman. Examples of such cases can be seen in schools for example; a teenage boy in high school and has a gay sexuality is not exactly considered to be someone with a ‘ high reputation’ in the school settings, he could be often bullied or made to feel so less of himself, this could explain the reason why most men with gay sexuality have more conversant interactions with women than they do with men, thus, even if he is of a male gender just because he portrays acts of a woman in his sexuality he is often treated equally as a woman, but these are only in some sections of the society. Also, in religion there is a strong connection between religion and patriarchy or religion and gender as the case might be, the question ‘ Does God favor males?’ arises Christianity has it that women should always be submissive to men because a woman was made out of the ribs of a man meaning that she is under him. ‘ A man is the e image and glory of God; but women is the glory of man. for man was not made from woman neither was man created for woman, but woman for man’’ (1 Corinthians 14: 33-35) also in the Qur’an it is said that ‘’Men are in charge of woman hence good women are obedient’’ (Qur’an). It is no debate that women are seldom leaders of priestess in churches or congregation, it has been a battle in the last 5o years and it is only in recent times that women are being ordained as pastors and some form of leader. An instance can be seen when dealing with content analysis; which refers to as the ‘’studying of sets of cultural rules, artifacts or events by systematically counting them (to show which ones dominate) and interpret the themes they reflect’’ feminist approaches to content analysis attempts to expose pervasive patriarchal (male -dominated) and misogynist (women-hating). Elaine Hall, in her article ‘ one week for women? The structure of inclusion of gender issues in introductory textbooks (1988), she demonstrated how women’s issues are treated as an afterthought in introductory-level texts, while Judith Dilorio, in a paper presented in the 1980, used content analysis to examine scholarity articles on gender role research and found out that their methods naturalized (made natural or normal seeming) social facts that diminished women and promoted male-oriented conservatism (as analyzed in Reinharz 1992: 147, 361). Today, different categories of feminism and gender roles are being cultivated to promote women. According to the introduction to sociology textbook ‘’Feminism liberalism acknowledges contributions of women in public realm of work place and examines whether women receive fair pay for the work they do. Kachuk explains ‘ identifies women as a class entitled to rights as women’ (kachuk 2003: 81). Liberal feminism helps women to be able to receive benefits not available to other women, basically it concentrates on making women equal to men in terms of employment opportunities and salary. Feminist essentialism is another gender theory which focuses of the thinking strategy foe men and women and argues for equity or female superiority in that difference, this involves social norms that are more or less natural to them, therefore the idea to this is the that morality is negatively valued in a patriarchal society, feminist essentialism speaks constructively about the potential for women’s differences from men to be positively valued. Feminist socialist according to Kaxhuk, have revise their Marxism so as to account for gender, something Marx ignored, they want sexuality and gender relations included in the analyses of the society, and finally postmodernist feminism which takes the strongest social constructionist positions, it refers to women more as subjects than as objects of sociological study, allowimg perspective of the women studied to guide their research, this can be viewed from the stand point theory. Gerda Lerner talked about patriarchal values, she defines it as ’’simply the assumption that the fact of biological sex differences implies a God-given or at least a ‘’natural’’ separation of human activities by sex, and further assumption that this leads to a ‘’natural’’ dominance of male over female.’’ This definition can be seen in many social categories such as the wage gap, pay equity, occupational segregation and many more. Feminists have also laid the impression that in a patriarchal society, men are treated as normal, while women are treated in what is considered as inherently deviant, example of such term could be viewed in the case of the witch hunts waged in Europe and later on, in colonial America from about the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Those who were identified as witches were tried and, if found guilty, executed. This for several reasons makes the witches an intriguing case for the sociological study of deviance Also, through structural functionalism effects of gender inequality can be viewed. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) talked about how people are products of societies and environment, ones behavior is way beyond what they posses in characteristics or traits, and there are social facts that take control over an individual. In his book suicide (1897) one of the things that was mentioned were how suicide could be achieved due to ones weakness in connection to the society. This theory could be an explanation as to how women are most likely considered as the weak gender compared to men, due to the way are they are reduced by the society. In socialization, feminist organizations have come up with some Attaining gender balance among managers, editors, and reviewers: This journal focuses on the gender pay gap in certain occupation, it was found that women being placed in lower pay-grade positions is responsible for the pay gap. Also brown talks about ‘’the perception that an academic career in the scientific field will not result in a permanent job for up to seven years after a bachelor’s degree. Many women consider this an obstacle to their plans to start a family, and are concerned that they will only just be getting a foot on the career ladder when they are considering having children. The irony is, research and editorial work is actually far more flexible than many other professions, meaning that women could more easily balance the demands of a family with those of their career.’’ In the Article: THE EFFECT OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION WITHIN FAMILY OF ORIGIN ON THE PERCEPTION OF GENDER INEQUALITY, ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENDER ROLES AND THE TENDENCY TO DISCRIMINATE BASED ON GENDER. T he effect inequality in gender and gender discrimination was studied in this article, it was found that individuals who passed through some kind of ender discrimination in the society, family or origin would face some sort of injustice and would be emotionally sensitive as the grown up. According to this article ‘’ A national representative sample of 1363 participants reported on their experiences of gender discrimination within their family of origin, their perception of gender inequality in Croatian society, attitudes towards gender roles, hostile sexism, their tendency to discriminate based on gender, and their willingness to engage in affirmative actions aimed to reduce gender inequality in Croatian society. Results show that 50% of women and one third of men were exposed to some form of unequal treatment in their family, both by their mothers and fathers.’’ This shows that gender inequality goes a long way. Another article titled Culture and gender inequality: Psychological consequences of perceiving gender inequality. It was said that different cultures and societies have different beliefs and reactions to how gender inequality should be justified. According to this article ‘’research investigated these differences and their psychological consequences using cross-cultural comparisons. The results show that Hong Kong Chinese women saw gender inequality as less unjust (Study 1) and less unfair (Study 2) and valued gender equality less (Study 2) than European American women did. Gender inequality caused anger (Study 1) and predicted reduced life satisfaction (Study 2) more among European American women than among Hong Kong Chinese women’’ In conclusion, the precious rights of women have been denied and violated, which has causes more harm than good in their lives and society, as it goes from generations to generations there seems to be a trend in the causes and effects of gender inequality, these are such as discrimination, segregation. feminism and patriarchy they show up in some kind of way when dealing with gender inequality. Apparently there are psychological, emotional and physical effect built on victims of gender inequality. Such as torture, threats, bully and so much more. It is imperative to put both genders into consideration and understand the essentiality of both sexes roles power fame and money should be acquired and deserved, if the male gender proves to be deserving whatever role, they should acquire it, also, if the female gender proves to be deserving to a particular role or acquisition due to hard work or some kind of technical skill, they should be given the opportunity to role. Just as the situation seems to get milder as times past, it could be assumed that in another century to come gender inequality might not be of a great sociological problem. Perhaps, there could be an increase in the number of women who are in the political sector or in the decision-making segments BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mar. 2012.
