Gender Exam 2

Starting in 1980

women began voting more for Democrats while men voted more for Republicans.

From 1920-1980 men voted

more often than did women.

Men and Women have Fairly Similar Voting Views On

the environment and women's rights (and all other topics---remember, there's more overlap than not)

Spectator activities

require minimal effort like wearing a tshirt or putting a bumper sticker on your car

Transitional activities

moderate effort like writing to public officials, making contributions, or attending rallys

Gladiator activities

lots of effort, like working on a campaign or running for office

Working class women and women of color

have been very active at the grassroots level (e.g., protests, rent strikes, school curriculum reforms, etc.)

Socialization

women learn that politics is a masculine activity; there are fewer role models and mentors for young women who want to enter politics

Domestic responsibilities

women are still seen as responsible for most of the work at home. A demanding political life is hard to balance with having a family; most women enter politics after their children are grown, and powerful political women are more likely to be single, widowed, or divorced than powerful political men

Human capital

women used to be less likely to have the educational or work experience necessary for political office. This isn't true today, but most women who consider politics believe that they have to be MORE qualified than men who run for office

Prejudice and discrimination

sexism has declined over time (today, 63% of people hope to see a female President in their lifetimes, 60% feel the country is ready for a female President, and 88% were happy to see a serious female candidate for President) but it does still exist; the higher the office, the less likely people are to support a woman in that role

Media

male and female candidates are often covered differently. The amount and slant positive or negative of coverage is similar, but there are more articles about women's clothes, marital statuses, and roles and mothers (or not)

Party Leadership

men are more likely to be targeted and mentored

Incumbency

because fewer women are in power, the more often run as challengers who are more likely to lose anyway

Political Action Committees

tend to give smaller amounts to female candidates than white male candidates and say women are less likely to ask for funds

Famulus

the Latin word from which "family" stems. It means "household servant or slave." Historically, a man's wife and children were considered his property.

Chosen Family

your family is who you believe your family to be.

Functionalist theorists

assumed that the isolated nuclear family was the "normal" family. They thought that the family had two roles

Instrumental Role

leadership, decision making, economic provision

Expressive Role

housework, childcare, emotional needs

Criticisms of functionalist theory

in most non-Western societies, the isolated nuclear family is pretty rare. In fact, in many Western societies, even if we live separately, we still turn to our families for support. More importantly, the assumption that you can split the public and private spheres for families is just false.

Two-earner families

(recall that most people worked in the past, but on the homestead)- the majority of married couple households with children (62% as of 2008) were headed by two parents who worked for pay. More women report that they would like to work, but can't afford day care.

Single parent households

(by choice, not widowhood)- most are female headed and have higher odds of living in poverty than either two parent or male-headed single-parent households. Why?

Tender years presumption

an early to mid 19th century idea the courts had that a young child needs to be with his mother. Today, nearly all states forbid using the sex of a parent in determining whether or not to award custody to an adult. Most aim for joint legal and/or joint physical custody

Domestic partnerships

gay and lesbian couples or straight cohabiting couples (around 40% of which include the presence of children of one or both partners.)

Blended families

remarriage that includes one or more children from before the marriage (and perhaps children of the new couples)

Accordion households

households which expand and contract according to the needs of the members. These may include adult children who move in and out, caring for grandkids intermittently, or even ex-spouses and partners moving in on occasion. This allows lower income and working class families to share resources when needed.

Power

the ability to recognize your will

Manifest Power

you tell someone to do something and they do it

Latent Power

the ability to shut down a conversation or keep it from being raised

Hidden Power

you do something because it seems "natural" or "inevitable" as a result of your/their sex

Cycle of Violence

honey moon period then walking on eggshells then the violent act then honeymoon period

Why do men abuse women?

Power...rape or violence is a means of sexual control that influences how women dress what neighborhoods they work in and shifts they work for fear of being raped

Rape culture

sexual assault is minimized or trivialized or made to seem like the woman's fault in some way

Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)

allows for 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick relative, self, or new baby. Only applies to companies with more than 50 workers and employees who have been there 1 year or more (so half of all workers don't qualify)

Violence Against Women Act of 1994

VAWA wasn't actually very controversial at the time (drafted by Biden) and had lots of bipartisan support. In 2012 there was significant debate over protections for illegal immigrant women, American Indian women who want to be able to take non-native abusers to tribal courts, and whether LGBT persons qualify for services.

Worldwide Ways to Reduce Violence

The least abused women worldwide are those who have the greatest sense of support from their communities (like selling crops at the marketplace or walking to the water source together or men encouraging one another to behave more positively toward their families)

When patriarchy is strongest

abuse of women is as well

A low sense of control and domestic violence

at work for men, seems to be related to domestic violence, as does a lack of policies to address the problem

Countries with the highest rates of domestic violence right now

tend to be westernizing in terms of their economies.

Premarital Sex

Most young adults engage in premarital sex.

Reproductive Freedom

the ability to freely choose whether or not to have a child

Griswold v Connecticut (1971)

the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a right to contraception through their right to privacy. A year later this right was extended to singles. In 1977 this was extended to minors (their parents can deny them contraception, but the state can't.)

Government Sponsored Birth Control

The gov't spent 2.37 billion on family planning supplies and services in 2010 (mostly through Medicaid). For every dollar spent, $7.09 were saved on pregnancy, delivery, and early childhood care alone (2010 dollars.)

Roe v Wade (1973)

This is the U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled that women have a constitutional right to choose abortion. However, that right isn't unlimited. Roe v Wade had different rulings for each trimester. First trimester- the decision to abort is strictly a private one between a woman and her physician and the state cannot interfere with this. Second trimester- the state may impose some restrictions but only to safeguard women's health since abortion is somewhat more risky in this trimester. Third trimester- the state may prohibit unless the woman's life or health is in danger due to the viability of the fetus

Doe v Bolton

said that any restrictions a state puts in place must be reasonable and cannot prohibit a physician's duty to his or her patient

Dobbs v Whole Women's Health

made abortion a decision individual states could rule on

Abortion facts

most women use contraception at some point in their lives (89%) nearly half of all women will still face an unintended pregnancy (people are surprisingly honest about this) Half of them will have an abortion One in 3 American women have an abortion at some point in their lives (before age 45)

Who has abortions?

6 in 10 are already mothers- Most common age group is 20-24, then 25-29 About 1/3 are married More common among those living below the poverty line Fairly uncommon among white women (White women not living near poverty line very frequently) 48% have had at least one previous abortion 8 in 10 report being either Protestant or Catholic 62% of abortions performed during the first 8 weeks; 89% have the procedure before 12 weeks gestation; only 5% performed after 16 weeks

Why do women have abortions?

74% have responsibilities toward other individuals 73% can't afford to have (more) children 69% wouldn't be able to meet other responsibilities to work/school/kids 48% would be a single parent/having relationship problems 38% have completed childbearing

Worldwide what's the connection with abortion and legality?

Abortion rates are higher where abortion is illegal than where it is legal. Why? Birth control not readily available

Pre-Industrialization, gender, and work

Prior to industrialization, both men and women were working on the family farm, often doing very similar jobs.

The Industrialization Era, gender, and work

After industrialization, more men than women went into the factory, but many low income and working class women went to work as well. In 1900, about 30% of urban women were working outside of the home in textile mills, as seamstresses, rolling cigars, folding books, etc. White women held these industrial jobs while women of color worked agricultural, domestic, and laundry work. The work for men and women was often dirty and dangerous. The upper-middle class model of white womanhood said that she did NOT work. However, nursing, teaching, and social work weren't seen as a threat to womanhood since they made use of women's "natural" talents. As more service workers were needed, secretarial work was added to the list of "acceptable" professions because women were thought to be more compliant and dexterous. Still, it was expected that these jobs were temporary until marriage or secondary to their husbands.

The Great Depression, gender, and work

Men were at a disadvantage during the Great Depression. They lost jobs and women gained them (going to work when their husbands could not find it.) These women were accused of "stealing" men's jobs, but since men and women were doing such different jobs to begin with, it wasn't true. Just like today, service and clerical work is more recession-proof than blue collar and manufacturing jobs. Still, some states, cities, and school boards passed laws prohibiting or limiting married women's employment. What happened? Families went hungry or men had to leave their families.

WWII, gender, and work

More equal jobs became available for men and women of color (in the service as service people or nurses, for example), and the model of womanhood now said that she should go to work to help support "the boys overseas." The government urged employers to pay women the same wages that men had received and sponsored public daycare centers. After the war, women were told to return home to their "normal" lives and these public daycare centers were closed. However, about 80% of the working women wanted to keep their jobs. Many simply moved into the service sector (for lower pay.)

Since 1965 in the workplace

Overall, women's employment levels have been steadily on the rise. Why? The feminist movement, birth control, and longer (and healthier) life spans. Men's employment levels have fluctuated, though. Why? Calls to service and male type jobs fluctuate more with the economy.

Occupational Sex Segregation

the degree to which men and women are concentrated in occupations in which workers of one sex predominate

Dissimilarity Index

the measure of occupational segregation

Dual Labor Market

The idea that there are really two sets of jobs- one primarily for men and one primarily for women

Occupational Resegregation

a job that was segregated and tipped toward one sex desegregates, then the other sex takes over. This often happens when a male-dominated field needs a lot more workers so they hire women and/or men leave a field because they perceive it is declining in prestige and salary (as often happens when women enter it en masse.) Examples: law enforcement, computer science, law?

Industry Sex Segregation

when women and men hold the same job title, but do different jobs or jobs in different places, with women often earning less and having less prestige (e.g., male bakers tend to work in fancy restaurants and bakeries while female

Establishment Sex Segregation

when men and women hold the same job title at a particular company but still do different jobs. Again, women's jobs are usually lower paying and less prestigious (e.g., selling electronics vs selling clothing or different law fields)

When men enter a job what happens to pay and prestige?

it tends to increase in pay and prestige. The opposite happens when women enter a job.

Sticky floor

The majority of the world's women are concentrated in very low wage jobs with little hope for advancement

Social Security and gender

women are more likely to receive SSI which is for the poor because their Social Security is lower, they are less likely to have pensions, and they live longer than do men

Intersectionality theory

examine gender, race, and class together to get a more complete picture of a person's social location e.g., Older Hispanic women living alone are the most likely group to be poor (49.2% are)

Women's Soc Security payments

are significantly lower than men's but make up a greater share of their household income

The Wage Gap

Women earn about 78 cents/dollar men earn (for women 25-34, the figure is 85 cents. Why?) but compose 47% of the paid labor force

Human Capital Explanation

The perspective views the gender wage gap as resulting from differences in human capital between men and women. Human capital is defined as the education, experience and skills that workers possess. To the extent that men and women differ in human capital, they will earn different wages. Sex differences in human capital are primarily limited to work experience and on-the-job training, as educational attainment between men and women is very similar.

Family Accommodation Argument

This view asserts that women prefer jobs that can accommodate their family responsibilities at home, leading them to chose jobs with flexible scheduling, little business travel or overtime work. Women are the majority in most of these jobs. Because these jobs have low wages, women, as a group, earn less than men, as a group.

Sex-Role Socialization Argument

This view argues that men and women have preferences for different types of work, skills and working conditions that primarily result from childhood or adult sex socialization. Consequently, there is different representation of men and women in jobs requiring either "female" skills and working conditions (such as physical dexterity, clerical perception, nurturing skills or subservient tasks) or "male" skills (such as heavy physical labor, extreme environmental conditions, mathematical skills and status-superior interactions).

Taste for Discrimination Argument

This preeminent view argues that employers, workers or customers can have a "taste for discrimination" where they prefer to hire or interact only with men or only women. Further, competition should eventually eliminate discrimination. If employers pay women lower wages, there should be greater competition for women as workers, which will in turn run discriminating employers out of business or force them to hire women as well, in order to compete.

Organizational Structures Argument

This perspective asserts that a company's internal organizational structure can increase or decrease the gender wage gap. Organizational structures can decrease the gender wage gap through standardizing and bureaucratizing the organization of a company by reducing the discretion and subjectivity of managers in decision-making. Without a standard, bureaucratized procedure in place for hiring, paying and promoting workers, managers are less able to pay women less than men. Thus, as bureaucracy in organizations increases, the opportunity to discriminate in pay decreases. Or organizational structures could increase the gender wage gap. Bureaucracy, because it increases specialization and differentiation of jobs, may make it easier for employers to act on their "taste for discrimination" by segregating workers by sex into different jobs that have different wages. For example, a company specializes the job of clerk into stock clerk (composed of men) and clerical clerk (composed of women). The job of stock clerk has higher wages than the job of clerical clerk.

Stereotyping and Queuing Explanation

This approach emphasizes how employers use sex as an inexpensive screening device when hiring for jobs, in the belief that certain tasks or skills are labeled as "appropriate" or "inappropriate" for men or women. Employers rank workers in a queue (a line) based on how appropriate an employers feels the worker is for the job available. Individual workers are stereotyped as qualified or not qualified for a job, with more attention given to their sex and less attention paid to their personal qualifications. For example, an employer may feel that a woman is more "appropriate" for the job of day-care worker (or dental technician, flight attendant, housekeeper, hair dresser) and, thus, will rank her above a man (even though he is qualified). Similarly, an employer may feel that a man is more "appropriate" for the job of machinist (or garbage collector, pilot, police detective, computer operator) and thus, will rank him above a woman (though she may be qualified). The higher the prestige and pay of the job, the more likely men are to be seen as "appropriate" and women as "inappropriate" for the job.

Equal Pay Act 1963

male and female workers should be paid the same for doing the same jobs under similar conditions

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

fobids discrimination in hiring, benefits, and other personnel decisions (like promotions and layoffs) on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, or religion by employers with 15 or more employees. There are very few exceptions to this law.

Executive Order 11246 (Affirmative Action) 1968

those contractors who contract with the federal government may have their contracts terminated or never get future contracts if they discriminate against protected classes. Further, employers were required to take affirmative actions to recruit, train, and promote women and minorities. (E.g., men can't be denied the right to be flight attendants, even if passengers prefer female flight attendants.)

Title IX of the Education Amendments of the Civil Rights Act 1972

prohibits gender discrimination in schools that receive federal funds

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act 2009

the first bill President Obama signed into law. Says that the 180 day time period for filing and equal-pay lawsuit resets with each paycheck (instead of beginning at the first paycheck.)

Height and Weight and Marital Status Restrictions

One of the most noteworthy legal changes resulting from this legislation has been the removal of formal height and weight restrictions as employment criteria if the requirements were irrelevant to performing the job.

Sex-Plus Considerations

Later on the U.S. Supreme Court would go on to rule during the 1970s that employers could not refuse to hire women because they had young children (unless they also refused to hire men who had young children) - sex plus parenting employers could not force women to quit their jobs when they became pregnant - sex plus pregnancy. employers could not fire women or refuse to hire women who were married - sex plus marital status, etc.

The Bona Fide Occupational Qualification

A practice that distinguishes between individuals on the basis of sex will not subject the employer to liability where the distinguishing factor can be shown to be a "bona fide occupational qualification." The BFOQ exception is interpreted quite strictly. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the exception is limited to those situations where sex is an absolutely necessary qualification for the job in question. For example,a men's clothing catalog could refuse to hire female models on the basis that being male is a BFOQ for a model of men's clothing. Some courts have also held that privacy concerns can sometimes justify a gender-based BFOQ (for example, using women as attendants in women's rest rooms and vice versa).

Who's Doing the Housework?

More educated men and those who are more egalitarian tend to do a larger share of the housework. More educated women are more likely to do less and/or to hire out some of the work. Among gay and lesbian couples, both partners tend to work for pay and split domestic chores more equally and flexibly than in straight households

What happens when wives go to work?

When women enter workforce they cut down on work done inside the home. Husbands gradually increase what they do. Less dependency and more power. The more money the wife makes the more money that is spend on substitutes for housework and child care

Responsive workplace

A work setting in which job conditions are designed to allow employees to meet their family responsibilities more easily

Flextime

Policy allows employees to be flexible with hours within limits

Parental Leave

Time off from work to care for child

Telecommuting

Dialing in to do work from home using VPN

Consequences of responsive workplaces

Flextime means less face time - risk being passed up for promotions. Job sharing may be possible but does not always provide benefits. If women are more likely to take these accommodations, then in the end we are not creating a more equal division of labor in wages and housework - we're just finding new ways for women to manage their greater burden of work + home responsibilities

Socialization

the process by which society's values and norms, including those about gender, are taught and learned

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud believed that children passed through a number of stages in their development. Boys and girls are the same in the first two stages (oral and anal) but differentiate in the third (phallic) when they identify with their same sex parent and model their behaviors. When boys see a naked girl, they are no longer jealous of girls and develop castration anxiety. He worries that if he tries to compete with his father (the Oedipus complex) the same thing will happen to him. They identify with their dads and try to be like them.

Psychoanalytic Theory Revisited

Some feminists have reexamined this theory to view it differently. They say women are actually jealous just of what having a penis conveys to men- power and higher social status

Social Learning Theory

Based on behaviorism and how we learn.

Reinforcement

Children develop their gender identities by being rewarded for appropriate behavior and punished for inappropriate behavior. Generally, boys get more sanctions for deviating from masculine norms than girls do for deviating from feminine norms.

Modeling

Children imitate those around them, particularly those who positively reinforce their behavior and who they perceive to be warm, friendly, and powerful. These models tend to be same sex.

Cognitive Developmental Theory

Children learn gender through their efforts to mentally organize the world (i.e., create schemas.) From about 18m to 7y, kids are very concrete (black and white) thinkers. Things are good or bad, for boys or girls. They tend to have very rigid ideas about gender. After 8 or so their ideas get more fluid. Much of the ideas of what fits into which schema comes from the world around them.

Bem's Enculturated Lens Theory

a combination of social learning and cognitive developmental theories. Children learn from society about gender, but they are ripe for the message because they are pattern-seekers.

Assumption lenses

society is composed of a set of hidden assumptions about how we should look, act, and feel. In the U.S. these are:

Gender polarization

men and women are fundamentally different and society is organized around these differences

Androcentrism

men are superior to women and male standards are the standards by which women should be judged