Download SOC103_WK6_Lecture

STRATIFICATION BY RACE,
ETHNICITY, & GENDER
WEEK SIX
RACE
• Category of people who share biologically
transmitted traits
• No complete or universal way to classify many
biological differences in humans
• In this sense, race is a myth
• Thus, in the sense of one race being
ETHNICITY
• A shared cultural heritage (or national origin)
• Race and ethnicity go ‘hand in hand’
• How do race and ethnicity differ?
• Race refers to inherited biological traits; ethnicity to
cultural ones
• Ethnic groups identify with one another on basis of
common ancestry & cultural heritage
MINORITY GROUP
• People who are singled out for unequal treatment
and who regard themselves as objects of collective
discrimination
• Either physical (racial) or cultural (ethnic)
differences can be the basis of the unequal
treatment
• Does not necessarily mean that a minority group is
a numerical minority
DOMINANT GROUP
• Sociologists refer to those who “do the
discriminating” not as the majority, but as the
dominant group
• Dominant group has greater power, more
privileges, and higher social status
PREJUDICE
• From Latin term, “praejudicium,” which means
“prejudgment”
• Negative & persistent judgment
• Based on scant or incorrect information about
people in a group
• Involves beliefs and attitudes
• Negative or hostile attitude toward a person
because s/he belongs to a particular group
STEREOTYPES
• Prejudice is sustained by stereotypes
• Oversimplified generalized images about members
of a particular group
DISCRIMINATION
• Prejudice and stereotypes involve attitudes and
beliefs
• Discrimination involves behavior
PATTERNS OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS
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Beginning with the least humane, they are:
Genocide: deliberate killing of entire people
Expulsion: “forced relocation”
Amalgamation: A+B+C=D
Assimilation: A+B+C=A
Segregation: physical separation
Pluralism: A+B+C=A+B+C
GENDER STRATIFICATION
• Sex, Gender, and Stratification
• Sex
• A biological term referring to ascribed physical differences
between males and females
• A determination made through the application of socially
accepted physical criteria
• Gender
• Gender: socially constructed notions of masculinity and
femininity
• Gender identity: how individuals form their identity using
gender categories
• Gender roles: commonly assigned tasks or expected
behaviors linked to an individual’s sex-determined statuses
• Transgender: the identity of someone who is challenging or
changing the gender they were assigned at birth
GENDER STRATIFICATION
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Glass ceiling
Sticky floor
Glass escalator
The workplace itself is gendered
SOCIETAL COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES
OF GENDER STRATIFICATION
• Stratification has consequences for all social
institutions worldwide:
• Poor educational achievement of female children
• Loss of talents, resources of half of the population
• Lack of health care impacts women and their
children
• Social divisiveness can lead to alienation, hostility
• In occupations and professions:
• Men “take gender privilege with them”
• Women take disprivilege, which lowers their
positions and wages
GENDERED ORGANIZATIONS AND WORK
• Workplaces have a gender configuration: the ratio
of men to women affects work experiences
• Some workplaces are supportive of workers’ family
responsibilities; others are not
• This impacts women more than men; according to
dominant gender expectations women must
balance work and family needs, while men are
seen primarily as workers
INTERSECTION OF RACE, CLASS, AND
GENDER
• Class, race, and gender intersect in a way that
privileges some women over others, though most
women are still subordinate to most men
• Despite intersections, women are a “minority group”
subject to stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination