Gender Inequality: Understanding the She-Cession and Social Structures
Understanding Gender Equality: Origins and Maintenance
The "She-Cession" and its Revelations
The focus of this week's discussion is to understand how gender inequality exists, where it originates, and what factors perpetuate it. The textbook introduces the term "She-Cession" to describe a significant economic recession, particularly during COVID-19, that disproportionately impacted working women, especially women of color. Headlines during this period highlighted the severity of the situation, such as "Why has COVID been extremely harmful for working women?", "Working women of color were making progress, then the coronavirus hit," and "COVID childcare crisis reversing decades of women's economic progress." This phenomenon revealed two crucial aspects about society:
Gender matters: The economic impacts of the pandemic affected working women, particularly women of color, more severely than men or white women.
Gender inequality often goes unnoticed: It took a global crisis for society to recognize existing disparities, particularly concerning women's roles in the workforce and family responsibilities. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a "social experiment," offering an unprecedented opportunity to analyze societal issues that might otherwise remain unexamined in everyday life.
The Social Constructionist Approach to Social Problems
Returning to an idea from Chapter , the social constructionist approach posits that social problems are socially created. Our society constructs these problems and defines what constitutes a problem. This approach emphasizes how social problems emerge from the ideologies, norms, and belief systems established in our society over time. Furthermore, social problems are dynamic, evolving across different times and contexts.
An example of this evolution is women's suffrage. Prior to , women in most U.S. states lacked the right to vote. The women's suffrage movement, including figures like Jane Addams, actively defined this lack of voting rights as a social problem. Through advocacy, rallies, and marches, they raised awareness, leading to women securing the right to vote. Consequently, suffrage ceased to be a social problem. Today, issues like women's underrepresentation in politics or high CEO positions are frequently identified as social problems, demonstrating how our understanding of such issues changes with social and historical context.
Distinguishing Sex and Gender
In sociology, it's crucial to differentiate between sex and gender, terms often used interchangeably in common parlance:
Sex: A biological concept referring to the physical and sexual characteristics of a person. It describes bodies as female, male, or intersex, and relates to one's sexuality. Sex is largely determined at birth.
Gender: A social rather than a biological concept. It is not inherent at birth but is socially constructed and learned through socialization within specific cultures. Gender varies across cultures, time, and geographical locations. As sociologists West and Zimmerman (1987) argue in their influential paper "Doing Gender," gender is something we do, not something we innately are. This social construction involves creating understandings of what it means to be a woman, a man, or to hold non-binary identities within a given society. These understandings and norms can differ significantly from one society to another.
Agents of Gender Socialization
Gender is learned through various agents of gender socialization throughout an individual's life:
Family: Often the primary agent, especially during childhood, where basic gender norms are learned from parents and guardians.
Peers: As children grow, classmates and friends significantly influence the learning and reinforcement of gender expectations.
Media: Plays a substantial role in shaping perceptions of gender through various forms of content.
Religion: Religious institutions and beliefs often convey specific gender roles and expectations.
Sports: Sports environments can reinforce or challenge traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity.
Our ideas about masculinity and femininity, and the ways we "do" gender, evolve over time. What is considered masculine or feminine changes historically.
Historical Example: Gendered Clothing and Colors
A video clip illustrates the historically fluid nature of gender expectations through clothing and colors:
Early History (pre- century): Most babies in the U.S. and Europe wore unisex white gowns and dresses. This was for practicality, as dresses facilitated diaper changes, and white clothing could be easily cleaned with strong soaps or bleach without color fading. Young boys commonly wore dresses until about or years old, often until their first haircut. Gender-specific clothing was not an issue; all children wore similar outfits.
Mid- Century: Colors began to be introduced into baby clothing, but not consistently aligned with gender.
Post-World War I: Colors started to be associated with gender, but often the opposite of today's common associations. A New York Times article advised "always give pink to a boy and blue to a girl." A June Earnshaw's Infants' Department publication stated, "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being the more decided and strong color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." Other sources suggested blue for blonde/blue-eyed children and pink for brown-eyed babies/brunettes. A Time magazine chart also suggested pink for boys, a trend supported by department stores like Filene's, Best & Co, Hale's, and Marshall Field.
s: Manufacturers began to standardize color assignments (blue for boys, pink for girls) based on perceived public preferences and marketability. This period saw the current gender-color codes become widely accepted. There was no inherent logical reason for these specific assignments; it was largely a marketing choice.
Impact of Ultrasound: The invention of ultrasound, which allowed parents to know a baby's sex pre-birth, significantly boosted gender-specific consumer culture, leading to increased shopping for gendered clothes, nursery decorations, and baby shower themes.
This historical shift demonstrates how gender expression within specific cultures is profoundly shaped and altered by different social and historical contexts. Each culture has its unique way of "doing gender," based on its gender ideology – the dominant belief system about how gender is organized and practiced.
Gender Ideology and the Gender Binary
In the U.S. and many other cultures, the prevailing gender ideology organizes social life around a gender binary: the idea that there are either female-bodied feminine people or male-bodied masculine people. However, this binary is increasingly challenged, especially by younger generations. They argue that since gender is a social construct, there can be multiple expressions of gender, including identifying as a man, a woman, transgender, nonbinary, gender fluid, gender queer, or agender.
Gender-conforming individuals typically identify with the gender associated with their biological sex.
Gender non-conforming individuals may not perform the gender traditionally associated with their biological sex in their culture and may identify as nonbinary, queer, or agender.
From a sociological perspective, the key takeaway is that while sex is biological, gender is a socially constructed and fluid concept, constantly changing over time, across societies, and throughout an individual's life.
Diverse Gender Cultures and the "Man Box"
Not all cultures adhere to a gender binary or similar gender ideologies:
Zuni Culture: Recognizes five distinct genders: female, male, two-spirit female, two-spirit male, and transgenders.
Kayan (Jayak) People: Their understanding of gender is not based on biology but on an individual's level of knowledge about community practices, such as identifying rice varieties or harvesting methods.
It's important to recognize that rigid gender expectations can harm people of all genders, not just girls or women. For instance, strict gender expectations around masculinity can trap boys and men in what is sometimes called the "man box." This refers to the intense pressure to embody traditionally masculine traits (e.g., being tough, not crying, being in charge, aggressive) and to avoid characteristics associated with femininity (e.g., compassion, empathy, nurturing, caring, gentleness).
Intersectionality and the Matrix of Domination
Intersectionality, a term coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in , explains how various marginalized identities intersect in significant and consequential ways. It emphasizes that an individual's experiences are not solely shaped by their gender identity but by the combined influence of their race, religion, age, ability, and sexuality. For example, women of color face "double marginalization," being disadvantaged both for their race and their gender.
Sociologist Patricia Collins further developed this concept with her idea of the matrix of domination, which posits that race, gender, and class function as interlocking systems of oppression rather than separate forces. The impact of COVID-19 on women of color illustrates this: they were more likely to face unemployment, illness, and death due to the synergistic effects of these social forces. Understanding society through an intersectional lens is crucial to recognizing the complex interplay of these factors.
Levels of Gender Inequality
Gender inequality manifests at multiple levels:
Individual Level: Influences individual behavior, including how we sit, talk, and our manners, often based on gender socialization.
Examples: Women are often socialized to sit "like a lady" (e.g., cross legs, take up minimal physical space), while men tend to occupy more space (e.g., "manspreading"). Communication styles also differ; women may use more apologetic or indirect language in emails, whereas men tend to be more direct. Such behaviors reflect learned gender norms.
Interactional Level: Occurs through social interactions and interpersonal relationships, where individuals conform to or exhibit gender norms in the presence of others.
Example: A young boy wearing a dress to school today would likely be bullied, despite such attire being common for boys years ago. This bullying represents the "policing" of gender behavior and a failure to conform to contemporary masculine ideals.
Institutional Level: Gender inequality is embedded in the organization and structure of social institutions.
Examples:
Family: Due to traditional gendered divisions of labor, women often perform twice the amount of housework compared to men in many cultures. This expectation is built into the institution of family.
Political System: The U.S., despite being over years old, has only ever had male presidents, demonstrating how gender is structured into the political and governmental institutions.
Patriarchal Culture and its Manifestations
A patriarchal culture is one in which men hold higher status than women, dominating cultural beliefs, values, and norms. This system not only values men over women but also establishes distinct roles for both genders, thereby maintaining gender inequality.
Three key signs indicate a male-dominated culture:
Male Domination: Men occupy almost all positions of authority across social institutions, including government, family, religion, education, military, and media. For instance, the leadership of many major companies is predominantly male, and there has never been a female U.S. president.
Male-Centeredness: The culture prioritizes and emphasizes the activities and interests of males. This is evident in cultural products marketed to a mass audience, which often cater to male perspectives. For example, male sports receive significantly more primetime television coverage and public attention than female sports.
Male Identification: Core cultural ideas about what is good, desirable, and valuable are associated with men and masculinity. Traits typically associated with men, such as strength, bravery, and aggression, are highly valued, while traits linked to women, like cooperation, sensitivity, and compassion, tend to be devalued. This is even reflected in language, with terms like "mankind," "freshman," or the use of "you guys" to refer to a mixed-gender group, where "male" is often the default.
Ultimately, in a patriarchal culture, "male is the default, and female is the other."
Gender Inequality in the Workplace: The Wage Gap
Despite tremendous progress in education, with women earning more bachelor's degrees than men over the last - years, women consistently do not receive the same returns on their educational investments compared to their male counterparts.
The gender wage gap is defined as the difference between the incomes of women and men who work year-round, full-time. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a complex scenario regarding the wage gap:
Apparent Decrease: During COVID-19, statistics initially suggested that the gender wage gap decreased, meaning the difference between men's and women's earnings shrunk.
Intersectional Reality: This apparent decrease was misleading. It was not because women started earning more, but rather because a disproportionate number of women, especially women of color, were forced to leave the workforce. These women often held low-wage service jobs. The remaining working women were largely white women, who, on average, earned more than women of color. Thus, the pool of working women changed, creating a statistical anomaly rather than genuine progress in closing the wage gap.
This example underscores the critical importance of paying attention to how economic changes affect different demographic groups and interpreting statistics with a nuanced, intersectional lens. Failing to do so can lead to dangerous and incorrect conclusions about societal progress. We must look beyond face-value numbers to understand the underlying social dynamics.