GLOBAL DISCOURSE OF
GENDER AS A CONCEPT
Week 3-5
Women, half the human race, have been invisible
within churches and religions dominated by men.
Women’s modes of practice and organisation may
be, as with other minorities, invisible and ignored
(Boyle & Shenn, 1997, p. 1).
INEQUALITY AND GENDER
Gender: personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being male or female
Gender Stratification: the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women
Men and women are differentiated into two asymmetric relations due physical ability differences and social
stereotypes
Consider the following findings (United Nations Development Programme, 2002
Women constitute 64% of all illiterate adults.
Women’s income is 75% that of men for comparable hours of paid employment.
The proportion of men in national parliaments is 86%.
Every year, approximately 500,000 women die in childbirth.
GENDER AND LITERACY RATE
GENDERED SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Working men and women
In 1901, women made up 13% of workforce
In 2000, 70% of women are in the workforce.
Women dominate sales work and service occupations, and men dominate most
senior positions and trades.
SEXISM AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALIZATION
• Sexism: belief that one sex is innately superior to the other
• Patriarchy: a form of social organization in which males dominate females
• Matriarchy: a form of social organization in which females dominate males
• Patriarchy exists through the learning of gender roles: attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex
by means of:
Family: treats men as independent and women as passive.
Peer Group: boys have team games of competition and girls have games of communication
and cooperation.
Schooling: in university, women are in humanities and social sciences, and men are in mathematics and
natural sciences.
Mass media: men play more interesting characters than women. Ads traditionally show women in
domestic roles and men in occupational roles.
Advertising also perpetuates “beauty myth”.
GENDER AS A CONCEPT
Gender relations can be studied
as an interdisciplinary study
Although it is mainly associated
with feminism and feminist
theories, it can be described and
explained by other disciplines like
biology, sociology, psychology,
language, literature, anthropology,
political science
Each discipline offers their own
unique analytical tools to explain
why and how they learn about
gender
STUDYING ABOUT
GENDER
• biologically-oriented theories assign
gender differences to the differential
biological roles played by males and
females
• sociological theories focus on the
socio-structural determinants of
gender-role development and
functioning; the social construction of
gender roles at the institutional level
STUDYING ABOUT
GENDER
• Concept 'Gender' was needed to
describe the ways in which men and
women are categories created by
society so that what men and women
are supposed to do, how they are
supposed to behave, and what value is
given to each can be separated
according to one's gender
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL
ANALYSIS
Gender can be employed as a means to reorganize social
structure
“Modern societies relax gender roles to release talent”
Talcott Parsons (1940s-50s): men and women have
complementary traits by socialization:
Instrumental: rational, competitive for boys
Expressive: emotional responsiveness for girls
Critical evaluation: Ignores financial need and costs of
rigid roles, and promotes patriarchy
Feminism
Advocacy of social equality for men and women in
opposition to patriarchy and sexism.
Basic ideas:
Importance of change
Expanding human choice
Eliminating gender stratification
Ending sexual violence
Promoting sexual autonomy
MASCULINISM/
FEMINISM
• Masculinity and femininity are
artificial classes
• Naturalized by the patriarchal
system in order to efface the real
character of sexual difference as
social conflict
• Masculine/feminine, male/female
are the categories that serve to
conceal the fact that social
differences always belong to an
economic, political, ideological
order
• Gender studies development has
FEMINISM
• The feminist philosopher Judith Butler argues that gender
is not something one is born with, but something which is
created through one’s social life and learning.
• Current trend in different societies toward men and
women sharing similar occupations, responsibilities and
jobs suggests that the sex one is born with does not
directly determine one's abilities
DEFINITION OF
FEMINISM
• The Dictionary of Cambridge: “
Feminism is the belief that women
should be allowed the same rights,
power, and opportunities as men
and be treated in the same way, or
the set of activities intended to
achieve this state
• The feminist movement, like any
other social movements is
constantly changing.
TYPES OF FEMINISM
Liberal feminism
Freedom to develop own talents and interests.
Socialist feminism
Pursue collective (male and female) social
revolution with a state-centred economy.
Radical feminism
Revolution for an egalitarian, gender-free society
Other feminisms
HOMEWORK
Feminist movement history in any
country!
THANK YOU
