Ibrahim Sa'adu a.k.a gco (B Sc. Sociology)
INTRODUCTION
Gender is not something we are born with or something
we do (West & Zimmer Man 1987). Gender is something we perform (Butter
1990). Sex refers to the biological distinction between males and females and
gender on the other hand is concerned with the social differences between males
and females. Sex is based on physical differences but gender is based on social
factors ranging from values, perceptions, belief and attitude, morals etc.
Gender
roles are assigned in the society and is relative to culture and societal
belief and acceptance; the society assign duties, responsibilities and sexual
re-enforcement made by the society
through socialization, social orientation etc.
An
understanding of sex and gender can be further be emphasized by Radical Libertarian
and Radical Cultural Feminist interpretation of the sex and gender system.
INTERPRETING THE SEX AND GENDER SYSTEM
Analyzing the oppressive feature of gender i.e.
masculine and feminism; according to the Radical Libertarian Feminist Movement,
sex and gender is the set of arrangement by which a society transforms
biological sexuality into product of human activity e.g. patriarchal society
using certain factors about males and females physiology (chromosomes, anatomy,
hormones) as the basis constructing the set of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ –
identities and behaviours that seeks to empower men and disempowered women. In
going through this process and achieving ideology task, patriarchal societies
manages to convenience itself that its cultural constructors are somehow
natural and therefore, that ones normality depends on one’s ability to display
the gender identity and behaviour; the society culturally links the one’s
biological sex.
Radical Libertarian Feminist
rejects the assumption that there is or should be a necessary connection
between one’s sex (male or female) and one’s gender (masculine or feminine) but
they claimed that gender roles used to give WOMEN PASSIVE (affectionate, obedient, responsive to sympathy &
approval, cheerful, kind and friendly)
and MEN ACTIVE (Tenacious,
aggression, curious, ambitious, planful, responsible, original, competitive
etc)
Therefore, the only way for women
display men’s unjustified power over women is for both sexes to first recognize
that women are not more destined to be passive like men and then to developed
whatever combination of feminine and masculine threats that best replace their
individually unique personality.
Conclusively, new generation
theorist like the one discussed above belief that the society should defined
gender individually based on personal abilities of the person involved.
SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
Social construction of gender is linked to the social
constructionist school of thought. According to this school of thought,
everything we see and know as reality is mostly if not totally socially
situated. It gives answers to question like; is gender a social
construct? How does it function? And what are the ideas behind the
construction? Who benefits from a particular construction?
Looking
beyond gender categories, social constructionist look into the issue of
multiple identities and proposes that there is no inherent truth to gender
performance, behaviour, outlooks and social belief, social agenda and social
expectation.
ASSIGNMENT ONE
Question: Discuss
Vance theory of Construction
Answer:
Carole Vance writes about Social Constructionist theory
versus Essentialist theory in the context of feminism (Vance 29). According to
Vance, Essentialism is a belief that human behaviour is ‘natural’ predetermined
by genetics, biological or physiological mechanism and thus, not subject to
change.
She
then defines Social Construction theory as the thought that humanity’s
characteristics are fluid and changeable, the product of human action and
history rather than the invariant result of the body, biology or an inmate sex
drive.
However,
Vance does not go out of her way to make the point that these cultural
influences affect the society as a whole, not individual on a personal basis.
According
to Adrennen (2012); it appears that Essentialism is the thought that science
rules and determines all, while Social Constructionist theory seems to allow an
environmental factor and society to have an influence on its people’s characteristics.
ASSIGNMENT TWO
Question 1: What is a
Stereotype?
Answer:
A stereotype is used to categorize a group of people.
People don’t understand that type of person so; they put them into
classification thinking that everyone who is that, needs to be like that or
everyone who acts like their classification is one.
Also
the term (stereotype) is used to define all people of a certain belief into
mostly negative categories that may only reflects a selected few of the racial
demographics. All victims of being stereotyped, even those whom have made most
of the stereotypes of other people.
Last
but not the least, a stereotype is a label given to a person, a pre-requisites
judgment. It goes hand in hand with bias, prejudice and discrimination.
Question 2: Define Sexism?
Answer:
Sexism is the belief that the statuses of females are
inferior to the status of male. Males are not immune to the negative
consequences of sexism, but females are more likely to experience it because of
the status sets they occupy are more stigmatized than those occupied by males
GENDER
STEREOTYPE
A stereotype is used to classify and categories people
into group in attempt to attribute features and responsibility to certain type
of people. Gender stereotypes are mostly done in stratified manner and based on
sex (i.e. male and female) and what the expectations are of being in a given
biological role or another. These stereotypes are maintained through media,
general repetition and sanctions applied to those who don’t work straight by
the rule (those who deviate).
GENDER
DISCRIMINATION
Gender biased is an attitude that shows favoritism
towards to one gender over another. Gender Discrimination basically is an
insight that gives one sex recognition and better chances over the other. It
should be noted that, Gender discrimination is also based on race, class,
status and is relative to society and belief system.
SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER ROLES
Every society has its structural pattern that serves
as a foundation of social relations and interactions; one of the important
structures that organize social interaction is status.
Status
can be defined as a category of position a person occupies that is an important
and significant determinants of how he/she is treated and defined. Status can
be achieved or ascribed by being born into them or by attaining them
voluntarily.
We
occupy a number of statuses at the same time; example, be a mother, a daughter,
a wife, a teacher, an employee, a passenger etc. which is referred to as “STATUS SETS”. All societies put its
members in categories first by their status, then their rank resulting into
social stratification. Females and Males, mothers and fathers, sons and
daughters are all statuses that come with role requirement attached to them.
Sociologist
makes use of _______________________________________
_________________________opinions and perspectives of understanding social
reality that explains the place of the individual member in the society.
FUNCTIONALISM
Functionalism also known as structural functionalism
is another sociological view that is based on the premise that society is made
up of inter-related and inter-dependent parts each with a role played in the
society. This perspective seeks to identify the basic elements of society and
how it determines what goes on and how in meeting basic needs in predictable
ways. It seeks to know how each part functions to ensure balance, equilibrium
and social stability. They opined that in the face constructing social change,
society can be stabilized as long as it is built in, mechanism of social
control are effective and that social control and stability are enhanced when
beliefs and values are commonly shared. Values surrounding gender roles,
marriage and having a family are important to functionalist assertion regarding
social stability. They explain gender role further looking at two societies’
i.e. pre-industrial societies and contemporary societies.
In
pre-industrial societies, they believe the social equilibrium was monitored by
assigning different tasks to men and women alike as role specialization
according to them, gender was considered a functional necessity, as such in
assigning roles such as hunting to men, they are frequently away from home for
long period and majorly are saddled with responsibility of bringing food to the
family, it was reasonable an ideal for women because they are limited by
pregnancy, childbirth and nursing as such, they are assigned domestic roles close
to the homes such as care-takers of the children and the household. Therefore,
girls continue these activities and routine while when the boys are of age,
they are to join the men in hunting. Once established, this division of labour
was reproduced in societies around the world. The fact that women dependent on
men for food and protection led to a pattern which men activities came to be
more important, recognized and valued than female’s roles and activities.
Whereas,
in contemporary societies, these principles are similar as harmony is maximized
and destruction is avoided. Families in these societies benefits role
differences as it leads the family to the world outside. In the home, fathers
are expected to provide for the family and mothers to care for homes and kids.
Mothers take expressive roles while the men take instrumental roles. If there
is destruction from these roles, the family system is disposed to a state of
imbalance that can threaten the survival of the family units. Hacker (2003), such a change is a major
factor for the homes.
SYMBOLIC
INTERRACTIONISM
This theory is based on social interaction at the
micro-level. It explains social interaction as the dynamic in which people
change.
According to Herbert Blumer, the
originator of the term symbolic interactionist, he opined that people do not
relates to the world at large but the meaning they bring to them and reality is
what members sees and agrees to be reality. According to this theory, cultural
norms offered general guidelines for role behaviour but most importantly, he
has a uniqueness to the way we acts out our roles and so the context involved
determined role performance and as such, what is appropriate in one culture may
not be in another. And modification occurs when there is an interaction. This
in their own word was referred to as social construction of reality. They
contained that concepts used to categories people collectively such as gender,
ethnicity, race do not exist objectively but are results of socially
constructed processes. People referred to as females or males have certain
traits defined as masculine and feminine. Therefore, concepts such as gender
must be defined in the meaning people bring to them not as an individual
attributes but something gotten in interaction with others.
CONFLICT
THEORY
Max and Engel are of the opinion that the changes in
the society determine what type of family exists and by extension, gender role.
They suggest that the exploiters – exploited, masters – slaves relationship
occurring in society at large between the bourgeois and the proletarian are
transferred into the household. They are
of the view that structural responsibility in the family determines what happen
in every other part of society. Their research demonstrated that household roles
have an effect on occupational location, work experience; all these are linked
to the gender gap in the society.
GENDER AND
SOCIETY
The society before World War II witnessed a lot of feminist movement even though; the
interrelation between development and women was not clearly articulated until
the late 20th Century. The term Women and Development was originally
point by a Washington Base Network of female development professionals in
1970s. Despite movement from 90s till date to re-enforce gender mainstreaming
into the society, developing world still witness a verse number of gender
inequality.
WOMEN IN
DEVELOPMENT
This approach was a result of three major feminist
waves; the FIRST WAVE referred to as
women suffrage movement originated in the late 19th Century in North
America as a result of women’s fight for equal participation in politics.
The SECOND WAVE was very controversial as
its sorts to deal with the remaining social and cultural inequality women faced
in the daily lives – ranging from sexual discrimination to sexual violence.
The THIRD WAVE was basically by the work of
Boserup 1970 in her publication, “Women’s
Role in Economic Development”. It explains why women were being deprived an
equal share among men in social benefits and economic gains. In 1973 the US
congress implemented a bill which requires the USAID to include women in
Development programmes sending a shock-wave through northern development and
humanitarian organizations.
The W.I.D approach is significant
and important to the role of women in development as it helped to ensure the
integration of women into the economic activities and workforce and increase
their level of contribution and productivity thereby improving their lives.
WOMEN AND
DEVELOPMENT
This approach is
Practical and Theoretical in
nature and was introduced in the 2nd half of the 1970 tracing it
back to the 1st World Conference of women in Mexico.
Practical
Approach
This paradigm significantly traces the relationship
between women and their work or the role they perform in the society as an
economic agent in both public and domestic affairs. It also states the
importance of distinctiveness in the nature of roles women play in the
development and maintenance of their society, stating that purely the
integration of women into development movement would serve as a tool to
re-enforce existing structures of inequality present in society that is
patriarchal in nature and interest. The W.I.D is often misinterpreted as W.A.D;
it is important to note that W.A.D focus specifically on the relationship
between capitalism and___________________________.
Theoretical
Approach
W.A.D according to its theorist arose due to shift in
thinking about women’s fate and roles in development and the concern about
explanatory limitations of theory of modernization. According to W.A.D, women
are always been an integral part of development and did not show up on the
scene all of a sudden as a result of exogenous effort geared towards
development in 1970s. It suggests that there should be women’s only development
projects that are specifically theorized to remove women from patriarchal
hegemony that would be a result of poor participation of women and men in
development project in a patriarchal culture. It is notable that this approach
emphasizes the unique nature of women’s privilege to work post as well as
advocate for the recognition of their distinctive uniqueness.
GENDER AND
DEVELOPMENT
This approach originated in the 1980s by social
feminist and serves as the transition point in the way in which feminist
understood development. Its origin can also be traced back to the Development
Alternatives with Women for new era Network (D.A.W.N). The main goal of this
approach is to prove that the unequal relationship between the sexes hinder
development and female participation.
Secondly,
it sorts to change the structure of power into a long term goal in which all
decision making and benefits of development are distributed on equal basis of
gender neutrality that challenge W.I.D focus on women as important target and
untapped resources for development and emphasizes the need to focus on
understanding how women and men are socially constructed and how these
constructors are strongly re-enforced by the social activities that define and
are defined by them. It also focuses on gender division of labour and gender as
the relation on power institutions as a result; two major terms are used in
this approach, namely;
1. Social
Relation Analysis and;
2. Gender
Role.
Social
Relation Analysis
This examines the social dimension of hierarchical
power relations imbedded in social institutions and how it determines the
relative position of men and women in the society.
Gender Role
Gender Role focuses on the construction of identities
with the immediate family and reveals expectations from maleness and femaleness
in reaction to access to resources. This approach is concern with how the
society assigns roles, responsibilities and expectations on both men and women.
MAINSTREAMING
GENDER EQUALITY APPROACH
This is the most recent development approach aimed at
women; it encompasses all gender issues and its integration in all level of
societies. It is a product of 1st U.N conference on women in
Beijing, China. It is of the view that inclusion of both men and women in every
development projects was the only way to progressively succeed in a nation
economic growth and development especially in allocation of funds towards
education, healthcare and employment of both men and women.
BLACK
FEMINISM
Black feminism are of the view that racism, sexism,
class operation are issues that cannot be expressed separately because they are
in-extricable bond together. In their view, womasim is a critical
dis-identification with what black women understood to be the anti-male
sentiment of white feminist and their movement. Alice Walker pointed out that black
women go through different kinds of oppression that is intense from that of the
white woman. According to Shirley Anne and Alice Walker, the word womanist is
preferable to feminist because womanist is anti-separatives actively. According
to black feminist theory, black women are position within structures of power
that is different fundamentally from the white women and are mostly
marginalized in terms of race, sexuality, gender, class etc and so, the
challenges they encounter is quite different from the white feminist.
In the word Kimberley Crenshaw,
black woman are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and policy making in
relation to racism because both are predicted to be a set of experiences that
often does not accurately reflect the interaction of gender and race.
The primary goal of Black Feminist were
the development of integrated analyses and practices based on the fact that
major system of oppression such as sexism, racism, class etc are inter-locking
rejecting all essentialization that focuses on economic analysis or political
analysis of various forms of domination.
The
Black movement grew out of civil right movement in the 1970s from groups such
as Black punters, National Black Feminist Organization etc.
Anne Modey was of the opinion that
“we were told in the same breath to be quite to make us less objectable in the
eyes of the white people and for the sake of being lady-like”
Black Feminist has its historical
youth on both racial and gender discriminating activist or gender
discrimination. Activist such as Harper proposed that the most important
question of race and gender were most importantly raised simultaneously alone
with civil right movement given away for gender movement of black women. This
period spurred the evolution and definition of it as the two movements were in
full force. The inter-sectionality of gender and racial equality movement
formed the Black feminism into its own movement and cost leading to the black
power movement with their principles separating them from the white feminist.
The solidified definition of Black
Feminism formulated during the civil right era is a result of and a respond to
the inter-sectionality of racial and gender inequality.
According to Gerhert (1564), he
says that inter-sectionality is the analysis of the production of identity
through the overlapping mutual reinforcing oppression of gender, race, class,
ethnicity and sexual oppression. Through their own inter-section of this
oppression, black feminist have created their own goals and ideas thereby,
defining themselves as independence and his was possibly because their goals
unlike the former refuse to categorize gender independently of being different
forms of oppressions which they encounter.
GENDER
STEREOTYPES
Gender stereotypes are over-generalizations
about the characteristics of an entire group based on gender. While gender
stereotypes have been popularly perceived as having negative connotations, they
can also have positive ones as well.
What Are Gender Stereotypes?
A man might say women aren't meant for combat,
while a woman might say men do nothing but watch sports. Such expressions
represent gender stereotypes, which are over-generalizations about the
characteristics of an entire group based on gender. While women were barred
from serving in military combat in Western nations until the latter half of the
20th century, in recent times they have served in combat roles as capably as men.
And while many men may watch sports, not all men would necessarily do so.
Gender stereotypes can have negative
connotations, like those above, but they can also have positive connotations,
even though they're often over-generalized. For instance, the notion that women
are better caregivers than men is a positive connotation, but it is a
generalization and not necessarily true in all cases. This is similarly so for
the notion that men are better providers than women, which while positive, can
be disproved by looking at cases where men have abandoned their families and
defaulted on child support.
NOTE: Gender
stereotypes serve a necessary function in the society by reaffirming
traditional roles about men and women
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