AICE Sociology #17

Gender binary

The classification of sex and gender into two distinct, opposite and disconnected forms of masculine and feminine.

Malestream

concept feminist theorists use to describe the situation when male sociologists carry out research which either ignores or neglects women’s experience and/or focuses on a masculine perspective and then assumes that the findings can be applied to women as well

Canalisation

A component of gender role socialisation where parents lead or channel their children’s interests and activities to gender-appropriate area.

Institutional sexism

Ideas and practices that may be consciously or unconsciously embedded in the regulations and actions of an organization such as a school or police force.

Genderquake

A radical change in attitudes compared with previous generations, so radical that it symbolizes a seismic upheaval.

Cultural Hegemony

Domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means

Baby Strike

A call by radical feminists for women to refuse to have babies, claiming that motherhood is the biggest obstacle to women’s progress and that it reinforces patriarchy.

Triple Systems Theory

A feminist theory of patriarchy associated with Walby which argues that there are three crucial influences on a woman’s experience of inequality and oppression.

Private patriarchy

A type of male domination found exclusively in the home, family and in personal relationships.

Public Patriarchy

Institutionalised forms of sexual prejudice and discrimination found across a range of social institutions, including government, education and the law.

Glass Ceiling

The unseen, yet unbreachable, barrier that prevents women and minorities from advancing in the workplace despite their qualifications.

Symmetrical family

a type of nuclear family identified by Young and Willmott in which husband and wife supposedly share domestic labour, decision-making and leisure time.

Partnership Penalty

An idea associated with Craig. She claims that the decision of a couple to live together or marry benefits the male but penalises the female, in that she ends up responsible for the bulk of domestic labour.

Motherhood penalty

Craig claims that motherhood often means that women have more responsibility for domestic labour and less time for leisure.

Chore Wars

The conflict that results between a couple about who should be responsible for domestic labour.

Second shift

idea that married women have two shifts; at work and at home

Emotion Work

idea that women are responsible for the emotional health and wellbeing of family members

Triple Shift

idea that women have three pressures on their time- paid work, unpaid domestic labour and emotion work.

Gender Bound

idea that men and women are culturally obligated to perform tasks based on their gender roles.

Gender Scripts

idea that male and female behaviour is performed according to cultural expectations about masculinity and femininity.

Ethnographic

sociological research which studies social groups in their own environment going about their everyday business.

Femicide

the murder of females

Honor-related murders

murder of a girl or woman by a family member for an actual or assumed sexual or behavioural transgression, including adultery, sexual intercourse or pregnancy outside marriage, or even for being raped.

Crisis of masculinity

idea that men are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression because their traditional roles as breadwinner and head of household are fast disappearing.

Radical psychiatry

A school of psychiatric thought that believes psychiatric problems are caused by alienation brought about by the intensity of family relationships.