Two Theories of Gender Inequality - Assignment Example

EVALUATE AT LEAST TWO THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND EXPLAIN THEIR USEFULNESS IN HELPING TO PROVIDE ANSWERS TO WHY WOMEN REMAIN DISADVANTAGED IN THE WORKPLACE? Student’s Name: Class/Course: Professor’s Name: Institution: Date: EVALUATE AT LEAST TWO THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND EXPLAIN THEIR USEFULNESS IN HELPING TO PROVIDE ANSWERS TO WHY WOMEN REMAIN DISADVANTAGED IN THE WORKPLACE? Gender inequality is not a new phenomenon in the contemporary global society. Individual and social perceptions of women vary from place to another, but the common denominator is that men’s dominance over women is evident. The dominance and perceived superiority of males over females is captured by the hegemonic masculinity theory of gender inequality (Roberts, 2014, pp. 30). This theory maintains that the definition of manhood seeks to treat women as subordinate parties in the society. It is important to point out that gender is the construction of the society. Members of the society determine what becomes of males and females in the society. In the process, men become the dominant figures of the society while women take the subordinate roles. The social definition of males and females, therefore, play a significant role in the actualization of hegemonic masculinity theory. On the same note, the society shapes behaviours, attitudes, characteristics, and activities that allow males to dominate females under this theory. In order to understand the full extent of the hegemonic masculinity theory, it is important to examine its influence in the workplace. Social constructions in regards to gender find their way into the workplace, thereby affecting the interaction and welfare of women in the workplace. In light of the hegemonic masculinity theory, men are perceived superior to women in the workplace, an aspect that explains discriminatory practices directed towards employed women across the globe. The characteristics embedded in the hegemonic masculinity theory best explain why women are a disadvantaged lot in the workplace. Males and their subsequent dominance in society are engraved in characteristics such as aggression, courage, competitiveness, success, achievements, violence, toughness, stoicism, and risk-taking (Howson, 2006, pp. 98). In light of these characteristics, women are treated as weak, inferior, or submissive because they do not exhibit the outlined traits. When it comes to the workplace, discrimination against women takes a route that is best explained by the aforementioned characteristics. Hegemonic masculinity presents all things that feminism lacks. For example, male’s dominance in the society is an act of courage and aggression towards achieving a given goal. In contrary, hegemonic masculinity perceives women as weak and submissive, thus establishing a scenario where men are superior to women. In the workplace, the situation is not different. Women are not accorded the seriousness they deserve as far as their work duties and responsibilities are concerned. Women appear as if they are not courageous enough to do as much as men can do. Away from courage and aggression, competition is another critical factor to consider in the hegemonic masculinity context. This theory does not consider women as competitive as men. As a result, it accords men more privileges in the workplace. From better pay to constant career advancements, men enjoy a better employment environment than women in the society (Williams & Dellinger, 2010, pp. 126). Even though women could be just as good as, if not better than, men, hegemonic masculinity continues to promote discriminatory practices against women. Social constructions maintain that men are more violent than women are. The society adopts and holds onto this notion because it associates femininity with one or more weaknesses. In other words, individual women are not tough or violent as their male counterparts. In this respect, the benefits of being violent and tough are uncommon among women. In addition, toughness and violence is not an automatic positive trait. Physical and mental toughness or violence among men informs subsequent perceptions about women and the disadvantage in the workplace. Emotions constitute another important factor that influences the practice of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity theory holds that men have more emotional restraint than women do (Williams & Dellinger, 2010, pp. 287). The fact women are more emotional than men in the context of hegemonic masculinity could explain the actual experiences women go through in the workplace. Emotional gives men their toughness, aggression, and violence. On the other hand, the perceived lack of emotional restraint among women seemingly makes them good homemakers. The effects of stoicism are evident in the workplace. Employers associate women with some duties and responsibilities, and at the same alienate them with others. For example, studies have shown than men have a higher chance of being promoted to top management than women (Collier, 2010, pp. 27). Holding all other factors constant, women are perceived not tough enough for the top management jobs. However, the truth of the matter is that these perceptions are masculine and feminine constructions of the society. Risk-taking is an on-going process in the workplace. Even though risk-taking is both masculine and feminine in nature, the society holds a different view as far as hegemonic masculinity is concerned. Based on social constructions of gender, women are more conservative than men are. What this means is that men are willing to go an extra mile to pursue a given level of change, while women seemingly prefer the status quo. Whether this observation is real or fiction, the common denominator is that workplace settings associate risk-taking with masculinity and the opposite with femininity. Success and achievements are perhaps the primary driving forces in the workplace. Pursuing success, however, is subject to the influence of diverse and dynamic factors. Both men and women are part of the success and achievement process, but their approaches differ altogether. This is because people define success and achievement differently. Social, family, and workplace examples will demonstrate how success and achievement take a masculine or feminine direction. Ryle (2014) argues that society holds men as breadwinners and women as homemakers. Based on these observations, hegemonic masculinity comes in handy to explain why women are significantly disadvantaged in the society. Breadwinning carries enormous responsibilities at individual, family, and societal levels. Treating men as providers puts women in a position where they are expected to be the beneficiaries of men’s hard work. When workplace experiences take the same direction, it becomes apparent that women are simply subordinates to men. With providers at hand, women stand to enjoy resources men accumulate. On the same note, providing marks the end of the story for men. Women become the icons of successful homes in terms of raising children and taking care of masculine partners. This socially defined behaviour finds its way into the workplace, thereby affecting the welfare of employed women. Employed women are perceived as challengers to men, an aspect that subsequently jeopardizes their progress and advancement in the workplace. In essence, men and women have their respective associations of achievement and success. While men are better workers, providers, and breadwinners, women are better home models. With a mentality of ‘men provide for women’, the society moves forward to discriminate among women in one way or another. In other words, masculinity shapes what becomes of the feminine. Typical work environments affected by socially constructed gender roles discriminate against women in terms of wage, income, capital, investment, sex, and the glass ceiling practice among others (Howson, 2006, pp. 46). Hegemonic masculinity theory essentially accounts for these disadvantages among women. Gender roles of masculinity and femininity explain higher wages for men over women. Differences in wages create another problem, income disparity. When women are paid less than women are, income disparities emerge even when both men and women are in the same job group. Capital and investment resources are tailored towards men than women. In real world scenarios, women’s access to capital and investments is empowered by laws and not the society. At some point, women could not even own property because men are the dominant parties in the society. Such situations occasioned the formulation and implementation of affirmative action, a move that seeks to negate the provisions of hegemonic masculinity (Collier, 2010, pp. 165). Additionally, women face workplace advancement simply because they are women. Their sex and the underlying gender roles stand to influence their position in the larger society. Hegemonic masculinity capitalizes on socially defined gender roles. This theory upholds men’s dominance over women, an aspect that is easy to observe in the workplace. The subordination of women further complicates their position, advancement, and welfare in the society, and more so in the workplace. Based on the insights presented in this paper, hegemonic masculinity theory comes in handy in explaining why women remain disadvantaged in the workplace. Patriarchy is a social definition where the males in the society are the dominant and superior figures while the females are subordinates and they take orders and obey the authority of the male figures. Fathers hold the authority over their wives and daughters, their property and even children. Brothers also hold the same authority over their sisters in case of the absence of the father. Women without any choice have been made to be dependent on the male figure and are simply seem as inadequate without them and their guidance. Patriarchy reigns in political, social, legal, economic and even religious systems in society. As a theory however, the definition expands to include not only the social definition but also the cultural and biological definitions and meaning. The biological definition involves the hormones possessed by male and female and other biological factors all of which fall under the name of biological determinism. Culturally, the definition addresses the specific cultural definitions of male and female and their roles specified by the culture. Each culture is different but they have similarities in as far as patriarchy is concerned. The sociological explanation is almost similar with the sociological definition of patriarchy. Sociologists are specifically concerned with the social structures and how patriarchy has affected them. Males from a biological point of view have testosterone while females have oestrogen. The testosterone allows for the male to adopt risky behaviour, be able to balance and deal well with losses including those in business, death or other potential losses in the society. The hormone therefore makes the male to be more success-driven than the women. The women’s hormone and biological makeup makes women become fit for roles that pertains to home, child rearing and becoming a homemaker (Wood and Eagly, 2002, pp. 702). When it comes to anything to do with making decisions and becoming leaders, they are not cut-out to perform well compared to the male. The fact that they cannot be able to take risks disqualifies them from any jobs others than the home-making chores. Sexual roles also hold women back from becoming avid producer and hence good employees. These roles include that of motherhood when women reach a certain age. They have to constantly take time off during their pregnancy period to go to doctor’s appointments, when they are feeling sick or are simply too tired to be even productive in their work. In addition to the above, they have to take a minimum of three months for maternity leave and after this there is constant off days for doctor’s appointments, the baby may be sick and sometimes they even bring the children to work. All these are very disruptive in a work place and are deemed to reduce the overall job performance in the workplace. Employers therefore tend to prefer male employees to work for them as they will not be hindered in any way by the sexual roles and they will put in extra work and after hours. With this sexual division, patriarchy is by all means supported and given higher mandate to excel (Parpat, Connelly and Barriteau, 2000, pp. 54). These biological definitions and explanations are not only stereotypical but are by no means truthful. Not all women undergo the sexual role of childbearing and hence they work similarly to the men if not even harder. There are also a group of women who juggle the sexual roles their work roles quite efficiently and effectively and hence it is an insult to indicate otherwise. Biology is something that cannot be changed and hence by discriminating women in the work place due to something they cannot change is not only unfair but hypocritical of the male employers who also have wives in similar positions. The sociological perspective focuses different perspectives which serve to explain how women are discriminated in the work place. As mentioned earlier, women are considered by society to be less superior compared to the men in terms of physical strength among other ways. This notion of physical strength is deeply examined by employers and especially in work places that requires manual labour to be performed. Women are considered physically weaker than the men and hence given the “softer” positions. These positions include secretaries, cooks, cleaners, nurses, social workers and even stewardesses among other roles. These roles are gendered as the men are given jobs such as engineers, pilots, doctors, masons, architects among other roles. There are several things wrong with this categorization. First is that there are some women who are physically stronger than the men. They can therefore be able to perform even better than the men in a similar job position yet because it is a woman, she is automatically dismissed. The other thing wrong is that the jobs and roles women are subjected to be lowly paid compared to the roles of men. This means that they are economically disadvantaged and hence remain a step lower than the men (Brizendine, 2006, pp. 78). There are those women who are very highly educated more than the men or at the same level. In the workplace however, the women are discriminated and paid less than the men even though they are both qualified and performing the same duties. They claim that the men have more responsibilities or that their egos will be hurt if they earn less than a woman. This is not avenged in any way because even the majority of the law makers and enforcers are men and hence will not side with a woman. Women are left to continue being disadvantaged in the workplace. The other social disadvantage women face is that when they get employment where they are lucky enough to climb up the promotion ladder and excel in the workplace, they face violence from the men. The violence serves the purpose of making them quit their positions, step down from their positions or stop challenging and competing with their male counterparts as they are the superior and women inferior and subordinates. The violence is in different forms and it ranges from physical violence to sexual violence and even verbal violence. The verbal violence is the beginning and meant to scare away the targeted woman or threaten them to step down or quit. Such women face verbal abuse and sometimes even written abuses and threats face to face, through phone calls or messages in the office or outside. If this does not work, the next step is sexual violence. This ranges from sexual innuendos to sexual violence through touching of the private areas. If this does not work, they resort to physical violence which is common in political offices where hooligans are hired to physically attack the woman and harm them as well as rob them. The women eventually step down from the position and some quit their job completely and the goal for the men is achieved. This discourages women from pursuing managerial positions or climb up work ladder for fear of the discrimination in the workplace in all sectors. Culture indicates education and media among others. Women have for so long been fighting for equal education with the men. This has eventually been bearing fruits and the women are in even science-based courses such as medicine, computer sciences, engineering among others. The biggest challenge however comes with the fact that culture still dictates women to be lower than the men and hence they are given lower positions than the men despite their qualifications as mentioned above (Smith, 2005, pp. 109). The greatest cultural area that still remains to be addressed and which still discriminates women in the work place is the media. Media has the notion that women are simply sexual objects and remain so despite of their education qualifications or religious stand. Men therefore take advantage of this media misinformation and become sexists in the workplace. They expect women to dress a certain way else they are fired or their promotions delayed or cancelled (Walby, 1990, pp. 90). An example is that of a male boss with a female personal assistant. The boss because of the sexual image from the media expects the assistant to be dressed in short dresses or skirts and revealing tops and blouses. Failure to comply leads to them being fired from their jobs with flimsy excuses. For the women seeking promotions or to be included in certain assignments, their male bosses and leaders expect them to repay them with sexual favours. They seek dates and romantic weekend getaways with them despite their marital status or their ethical standards. This makes many stagnate in one position and salary, seek other employments, lose their jobs or simply compromise their moral standards. References Brizendine, L. (2006). The Female Brain. New York: Morgan Road Books. Collier, R. (2010). Essays on Law, Men and Masculinities: Essays on the ‘Man’ of Law, London: Routledge. Howson, R. (2006). Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity, London: Routledge. Parpat, J., Connelly, P. and Barriteau, E. (2000). Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development. New York: IDRC. Roberts, S. (2014). Debating Modern Masculinities: Change, Continuity, Crisis? London: Palgrave Macmillan. Ryle, R. (2014). Questioning Gender: A Sociological Exploration, Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Smith, G. (2005). Womens history in global perspective. Illinois: University of Illinois Press. Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing Patriarchy. Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Inc. Williams, C. L. & Dellinger, K. (2010). Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace, Bingley, West Yorkshire: Emerald Group Publishing. Wood, W. and Eagly, A. (September, 2002). A cross-cultural analysis of the behaviour of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin, 128(5), 699-727. Read More