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CHAPTER EIGHT SEXISM Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Chapter Seven Breakdown • • • • The Meaning of Sexism The Economic Effects of Sexism The Political Effects of Sexism The Feminist Movement Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Even though women constitute around 50% of the U.S. population, they are still considered a ‘minority group’. – What was the definition of minority group? – There are certain costs associated with being born female just as there are costs associated with being born ‘black’ or being of a nonEuropean nationality, in the U.S. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Sexism: a systematic subordination of people on the basis of their sex – Sexism limits females to narrow roles – They are judged based on motherhood and sexuality only – This narrows their identity development based on these two roles, while making everything else about them invisible. In other words, women in the U.S. are socially ‘veiled’ except for narrowly defined roles of mother or sex object. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Sexism where it concerns disadvantaging women is based on the ‘biology is destiny’ construct. Women biologically are the ones that reproduce/carry the offspring therefore that biological function is generalized to their entire character structure: it is then taken to ensure that women themselves believe in it through socialization through the family and later reproduction in male dominated institutions. – Women in sexist societies like the U.S. are considered defective in intelligence, having no leadership skills, emotionally charged etc. In other words the message they get is that their only use in U.S society is as mothers and as sexual objects, and that those roles are best fulfilled when not mixed with any other social interaction. Women are therefore silenced and taught to be submissive. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Institutional Racism and Male Chauvinism – Male Chauvinism is a form of personal racism, it is sexism of the interpersonal nature • Women depicted as animals in everyday slang: chick, fox, bitch • Males refuse to perform routing household tasks they consider derogatory and ‘women’s work’. • The mother (wife) and sex-object role of women carries over to the office/outside work that women do as well. The coffee brewer in an office of equal ranking staff is often a woman. • Being conscious to such chauvinistic tactics has been part of the consciousness raising of the feminist movement. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • The greater harms and implications for women is not in stereotypes that describe male chauvinism but in the effects of Institutional Sexism: where disadvantage for women is built into the workings of social institutions – Gender discrimination becomes a personal trouble for women that is also a public issue because it is linked to social institutions. – Male chauvinism becomes a character defect of individuals that is linked to the workings of social institutions that reinforce such characterization of women. It is a public issue not a personal trouble alone. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Where discrimination against women and minorities is overt, i.e. explicit it is easier to locate the source of it and attack it. However when it is implicit, as in the workings of social institutions, it is much harder to track where it is coming from – Women therefore do not know who their enemy is, a false sense of liberation prevails which is what type of consciousness? • False or class? Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Biology as destiny implies that each sex is biologically (naturally) suited to perform certain roles in society: – Men are the providers while women and children are ‘dependents’ on them. • Remember the dependency relationship when we talked of ‘third world’ underdevelopment. • Dependency implies one is considered inferior and as a result exchange is unequal. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Difference between sex and gender – Sex: genetic or physical characteristics of people that identify them as either male or female – Gender: is a social construct that summarizes the culturally accepted behaviors and expectations required of the sexes, associated with ways of conducting yourself in society. Gender refers to the social meaning behind biological sex. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Gender as social construction is revealed by: – Women have historically been the providers on equal par with men when societies were Hunting Gathering and Horticultural Pastoral – Women do all kinds of back-breaking manual labor work in the ‘Third World’, including construction, agriculture etc – The role of women in a social structure like the US have also varied over time, before and after WW2. – Using gender resources are distributed in a way that disadvantages women, which also reveals the functions behind its social construction. – Gender gets defined through a ‘political process’ where restructuring can either harm or benefit women and alter meanings of gender- ‘Gender formation’ Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Identity development: based on experiences in the family and social meanings attached to group membership: racial, national, sex group etc. – Ascribed status of women in the US based on: motherhood and sexuality, regardless of differences in upbringing of individual women. – Achieved status is always secondary to ascribed status – Ascribed status becomes the master status – When master status is devalued, it leads to seperation based on inferior/superior – When identity other than based on your master status cannot be verified it leads to anxiety and loss of self esteem since you judge yourself based on a devalued master status – The defense mechanism enacted to guard against that is that you bring your perceived identity in tune with the actual identity – Displacing your own identity in favor of the inferior social identity, which reproduces a social structure of inequality. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Indicators of a devalued ‘master status’ of women and girls: – The various indicators of male chauvinism that have the hidden assumption that women are inferior to men and are valued only for their nurturing (motherhood) and sexuality (reproduction) functions. – Insulting boys as if they were girls. – Relocating emotionality and crying, both devalued in the social structure to the domain of women. Heard the expression “don’t cry like a girl’? Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • In the school after parental socialization, the notion of female inferiority is reinforced: – Most accomplishments taught are ‘achievements’ of men. Women’s educational achievements are ignored. – They are tracked into certain fields, away from the hard sciences towards relatively lower status specialization. – Women’s place is supposed to be different to a man’s place, the lesson being that both are not supposed to compete with each other but women are encouraged to compete within their group for men’s sexual favors thereby dividing a class against itself. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Job Opportunities: – In 2001 women on average earned $511 a week compared to men’s $672 a week – Female managers earned $732 a week compared to men’s $1038 a week – A dual labor market exists in the U.S. with women being segregated/overrepresented in certain occupational categories that are mostly low paying and underrepresented in other categories that are relatively high paying. • Even within categories women get paid less than men, have lesser experience and less time in positions held Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Estimates suggest that over half of male-female differences in earnings is due to discrimination – Women’s upward mobility is blocked through a glass ceiling – White men only 29% of the labor force hold 95% of senior management positions – As a group women have the same number of schooling years as men, therefore this discrimination cannot be explained in terms of education, rather it is better explained by being a public issue involving social instituions- institutional sexism. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Economic forces favoring subordination – Men face less competition when women are segregated into low paying service jobs – However men are harmed as well as discrimination against married women and children in the workplace reduces family income potential – Payment of child support – Lower wages depress average wages of men as well Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • However, some men, those that are of the ownership class, also known as the _______, benefit from this arrangement. – Women as a reserve labor pool that can be called when the labor market requires it as during WW2 – Lower average wages – Deflecting blame from class to gender for economic troubles that men might face. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Comparable worth: – Women doing comparable work compared to men being paid less was widespread till the equal pay act of 1963 was established. • How ever dejure amendment does not take care of defacto practice if the government is not serious in implementation. • Main obstacle of equal pay for women is job segment segregation. One third of women workers are clustered in 20 of 503 categories of jobs. The rest are all male dominated. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • The index of segregation: – What would it take to achieve an equal configuration of male/female workers throughout the occupation classifications – 53% of women would have to move to achieve equal male female configurations in the work force Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Home labor: – 39% of married women remain in the home being a ‘housewife’ • Being “just” a housewife sends contradictory messages and devalues household work. It gives the impression that corporate work or work outside the home is to be valued more, since such work carried status- status is defined by the dominant culture, the dominant culture in the U.S. is: ___________? Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Demeaning and lowering the worth of household work means that tens of billions of dollars worth of work (if it were given a dollar value) goes unpaid. This means that employers benefit by the unpaid work of ‘housewives’ or women working a ‘double shift’. If such unpaid work was paid for, employers would have to pay men much more just to maintain their household. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Once women’s identity and self worth are damaged through an inferior ascribed status, and a new identity based on that ascribed status is internalized by them: it results in i) alienation (estrangement from the self) and ii)potential for manipulation in order to achieve self worth. – Manipulation involves selling products that show women how unworthy they are of their newly formed ‘sexuality or motherhood based’ identity. As a result 75% of consumer expenditures annually are accounted for by women. – Emotionality is displaced from its actual markers signifying a change in the outside environment to respond to products by being linked specifically with certain products. A diamond is supposed to signify love that can be ‘bought’ and so on… Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • ERA: equal rights amendment: equality of rights will not be denied on the basis of sex- failed to pass in 1982, yet the cultural view is that women have achieved ‘liberation’ in the U.S. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. • Read the definitions and difference between • 1. liberal feminists • 2. Radical feminists • 3. Socialist feminists Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The Meaning of Sexism • Male Chauvinism versus Institutional Sexism • Is Biology Destiny? • Sex versus Gender • Socialization and Self-Concept Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Institutional Sexism • Subordination of women at the institutional level • Examples Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Male Chauvinism • Attitudes an actions through which individual males display their sense of superiority over women • Examples Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Is Biology Destiny? • Ideology based on assumption that basis biological and psychological differences exist between males and females • The “domestic code” Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Sex versus Gender • Sex: genetic and physical characteristics of persons that identify as male or female • Gender: socially constructed concept referring to the culturally accepted behaviors and ways of relating to others expected of two sexes – Gender as political claims process Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The Economic Effects of Sexism • • • • • Earnings and Job Opportunities Forces Favoring Economic Subordination The Issue of Comparable Worth Laboring in the Home The Consumer Role Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Earnings and Job Opportunities • Gender wage gap • Dual labor market • The “glass ceiling” Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The Political Effects of Sexism • Women’s Rights and the Law • Political Participation Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. The Feminist Movement • The Development of the Feminist Movement • Issues and Goals • The Gains of the Movement • The Question of Men’s Liberation • Hopes for the Future Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Key Branches of Feminism Causes? Issues? Goals? Branches Liberal Feminism Radical Feminism Socialist Feminism Neubeck, Social Problems: A Critical Approach. © 2007 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved.