Why do some people think that
drinking black coffee is manly, while ordering
a pumpkin spice latte is “girly?”
Don’t let them fool you.
Pumpkin spice has no gender.
Pumpkin spice is for everyone.
The gendering of inanimate objects is a
super-common practice,
and it’s a good example of how societies
create markers of gender that have nothing
to do with anything biological.
Gender, as you’ll recall, refers to the personal
and social characteristics – but not the biological
traits – that we associate with different sexes.
That’s why sociologists say that gender
is a social construct, something that we as
a society create and enforce.
Now, those social constructs may be totally
made up, but their effects on how we interact
with each other are very real.
Indeed, gender influences how we organize
all of society, and how we distribute power.
Trust me: the identity-politics of your morning
coffee are only the beginning.
[Theme Music]
When I say that gender affects the organization
of society and the distribution of power,
what I mean is that our society is largely
stratified by gender.
Gender stratification refers to the unequal
distribution of wealth, power, and privilege
across genders.
Take, for example, the right to vote.
Denying women the vote has been one way
that many societies have kept political power
in the hands of men.
It was less than a century ago, in 1920, that
women in the United States gained the right to vote.
Saudi Arabia didn’t allow women to vote
until the 2015 election.
This kind of disenfranchisement is an example
of patriarchy at work.
Patriarchy is a form of social organization
in which men have more power and dominate
other genders.
Matriarchal, or female dominated, societies
exist, too.
But most societies throughout human history
have been patriarchies.
And patriarchal societies are maintained through a
careful cultivation of attitudes, behaviors, and systems
that favor men and encourage society to believe
that one gender is innately better than others.
Also known as sexism.
For example, little girls may sometimes be
encouraged to be tomboys.
But young boys are often shamed for liking
toys that are considered stereotypically feminine,
or even, say, the color pink.
Societies often define, and celebrate, certain
sets of characteristics as being masculine.
Sociologist Raewyn Connell describes this
process as ‘hegemonic masculinity’.
Think of the type of guy who’s the lead
of every action movie –
tall, broad shouldered, strong, able-bodied,
heterosexual, usually wealthy… probably named Chris –
that’s hegemonic masculinity.
But it goes beyond mere appearance.
Hegemonic masculinities are linked to power
within society, too.
Fitting into the archetype of masculinity
pays off in the form of societal approval.
But ultimately, in a patriarchal society,
all men share in patriarchal dividends.
This is a fancy way of saying that there are
benefits that accrue to men simply because
they are men.
But before we get too deep into what those benefits
are, let’s take a step back and look at how different
gender expectations are taught in our society.
As you might remember from our episode on
socialization, the first people who teach us about
gender are our parents.
If daughters are given dolls to play with and sons are
given toy hammers, kids learn that caring behaviors are
feminine and building things is masculine.
This type of anticipatory socialization is reinforced by the societal assumption that men are the breadwinners in families and women will take care of the home and children.
Even as more women have become equal
earners outside the home, they still tend to do
more work in the household as well.
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild called this
phenomenon the ‘second shift’, in which women
come home from work to more work –
cooking, laundry, childcare – whereas men are
more likely to spend their time in leisure after work.
According to a survey on time use from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2015,
full time working moms spend about 9 more hours
per week on household chores and caring for family
members than full time working dads.
These gender dynamics are helped along by
corporate and governmental policies that set
aside parental leave only for women.
And by less formal influences, too, like commercials
or TV shows that depict fathers who can’t do the
laundry or take care of their own kids for a weekend.
The media play a big part in teaching kids
about gendered ideals.
Unfortunately, their depictions of what the
typical woman or man looks like tend to be
a bit skewed.
Women in particular are exposed to messages that
encourage them to value youth, beauty, and thinness.
These media messages – which
encourage women to be desirable to men –
contribute to what Raewyn Connell has
referred to as emphasized femininities.
This is the flip side of the hegemonic masculinities.
Emphasized femininities are forms of femininity
that conform to what the ideal female is in men’s eyes.
The social reality is that femininities come in many
different forms and may or may not be constructed in
ways that emphasize stereotypical notions of gender.
But media are only one source of gender socialization.
The gender constructions that kids see outside
of the home also tend to reinforce the dynamic of
women in caring roles and men in leadership roles.
Take school, for example.
While three-quarters of K through 12 teachers
are women, about half of school principals and
only 14% of school superintendents are women.
Female principals are more likely to work in
elementary schools, which is less likely to lead to
promotions to higher positions in the district.
And who you see at the front of the
classroom isn’t the only way that schools
influence gender socialization.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble to talk about how sports
ended up as part of the landmark United States law
about gender discrimination in schools: Title IX.
Passed in 1972, Title IX is a law that prohibits
discrimination on the basis of sex in public schools.
It was originally developed in response to discrimination
in higher education, such as enrollment quotas, or
refusing to hire female academics with children.
But the law became most well-known for its
effects on sports.
Prior to 1970, most schools only had official
teams for boys – and if a girl wanted to join the team,
she could be turned away without question.
As a result, only about 4% of girls played
sports.
By tying schools’ funding to equal opportunities for
boys and girls, Title IX required that schools offer girls
just as many opportunities to play sports as boys.
This increased the number of high school girls
playing sports from 295,000 in 1970 to over
3 million nowadays.
But more importantly, it also forced colleges
to increase their funding for female sports
scholarships,
which was one of the factors in the increase
in women pursuing higher education.
One person for whom it made difference?
Sally Ride.
Thanks to Title IX, she was able to get a
tennis scholarship to college –
which led  to her studying physics and eventually becoming America’s first female astronaut.
Thanks Thought Bubble.
Since the 1970s, the number of women pursuing
higher education has skyrocketed, with women now
making up the majority of all college graduates.
But different majors attract different genders,
with men being heavily represented in fields like
computer science, economics, and engineering,
while women are more likely to cluster in
biology, psychology, or sociology.
Moving past education, the jobs that women
work tend to be in service or care positions,
such as food service, education, health care,
and administrative roles.
Sometimes known as “pink collar jobs”, these
jobs with the highest concentrations of women tend
to come with both lower prestige and lower pay.
You’ve probably also heard of the glass ceiling:
a term used by sociologists to describe the
invisible barrier that stops women’s advancement
to the top levels of an organization.
Women are particularly underrepresented in
leadership positions across all major institutions.
Of the Fortune 500 companies, only 32 CEOs
are women.
In politics, only 19% of the US House of Representatives
and 21% of the US Senate are female.
The US has never had a female president
or vice president and did not have its first
female supreme court justice until 1981.
Why does the glass ceiling persist?
While the US and many other countries have
laws in place to prevent explicit discrimination
on the basis of sex and gender,
women are often held back through less
explicit kinds of sexism.
For example, men who are assertive in
salary negotiations are more successful in
getting a higher salary,
but women who do the same tend to be
seen negatively.
Which is a Catch 22 for women – do you
negotiate and get labelled as too aggressive
or do you settle for lower pay?
One of the results of gender stratification
is gender wage gap.
According to a survey done in 2016 by the
Pew Research Center, white women earn about
80 cents for every dollar that white men make.
This gap is wider for non-white women, with
Black women earning 65 cents and Hispanic women
earning 58 cents for every dollar that white men make.
Now, there’s a lot to unpack from the gender
pay gap.
That 20 cent gap isn’t all due to gender
discrimination.
Much of it can be explained by differences
in education, choices of careers, differences in
the hours worked, and differences in experience.
But those last two factors – hours worked
and career experience –
are often related to the decision to leave the
workforce to care for children, which is way more
normative for women than for men.
So, some people argue that, if we can explain
the gender gap by looking at people’s choices,
then it must the people alone who are responsible
for the gap being there.
But the fact is, society has a tremendous influence
on what choices people make, as well as what type of
person is considered the right “fit” for a given job.
Yes, the gender gap is smaller if you compare
female CEOs with 30 years of work experience to
male CEOS with 30 years of work experience.
But, there are fewer women who are offered
those positions.
Gender socialization is also part of why
women might choose to opt out of the workforce,
to care for children.
And society also informs the educational choices
that women and men make that contribute to the gap.
For example, until the 1980s, the number of women
who majored in computer science was increasing at a
pace similar to other fields, like medicine.
But around 1985, that rate began to drop, roughly around the time that personal computers and video games came on the market and were marketed as gadgets for boys and men.
Gendered marketing strikes again!
And patriarchal norms about masculinities
can affect men as well as women.
For example, men have higher rates of suicide
than women.
Studies of suicide among men have found that
it’s often linked to financial troubles or divorce,
two crises of masculinity that may be
related to men’s identity as a breadwinner.
Men are also more likely to be incarcerated.
They’re more likely to engage in criminal
behavior, yes, but holding all else equal,
men are more likely to be tried for a crime
and more likely to be found guilty.
This stems from the stereotype that
women are more moral and innocent,
an example of benevolent sexism that makes
women less likely to be seen as criminal types.
But benevolent or not, sexism and the
patriarchy have real impacts that make it harder
for all genders to be on even footing in our society.
Today we learned about some of those impacts,
starting with discussing patriarchy and sexism
and Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic
masculinities and emphasized femininities.
Then, we discussed gender socialization in
the home, media, and schools.
Finally, we talked about how gender stratification
results in different outcomes by gender in education,
occupations, earnings, and criminal activity.
Crash Course Sociology is filmed in the Dr.
Cheryl C. Kinney Studio in Missoula, MT, and
it’s made with the help of all of these
nice people.
Our animation team is Thought Cafe and Crash
Course is made with Adobe Creative Cloud.
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