Gender: Who Really Decides?
CANADIAN TRENDS OF GENDER NORMS
Societal Expectations of Gender Norms
- are Gender norms still prevalent today?
Starting from the moment babies are born, they are thrown into the world of gender norms.
Newborn girls are dressed up in pink dresses and headbands, while little boys are clothed in overalls and dump truck patterned shirts.
Would you have guessed that this is actually a little girl?
An OECD report (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) shows that Canadian WOMAN on average spend 254 minutes cooking, cleaning, and caring for individuals (most of the time, children) While MALES only spend about 160 minutes doing the same tasks.
Important
Theoretical Perspectives
Another OECD study states that men spend more
time at work than Woman (about 141 minutes more)
Robert Mead's Play Stage
As Robert Mead explains in his Theory of Self, during the Play Stage, from ages 3 to 5, children begin to use their imagination to become whoever they choose. Gender roles inflicted on children up until this point have a significant impact during this stage. Often, girls will choose to be princesses or ballerinas, while boys often choose to be superheroes or monsters.
Kevin Milligan: Professor at UBC's Vancouver School of Economics
22.9% decrease in male earnings, while females increased a total of 22.9%
- Many men and women don't realize that gender roles exist all around them
- The picture to the right is showing the Bath and Body Works in our own mall. The entire store other than one tiny section at the back is supposed to be "for women"
Important Definitions
to Consider...
Role Conflict in the Modern Day
Functionalist View - Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales
In 2014, according to Statistics Canada, 82% of women were in the work force. That is 65% more than in 1953!
Men are also taking on more housework and helping with the children.
Many women struggle with trying to become career oriented individuals, while still meeting society's expectation of what a woman should be.
Men also experience this as they are more focused to with helping with children, while striving to excel in their workplace.
Conflict Response - Karl Marx
STATISTICS U.S.A 2014:
Female-dominated Jobs Occupied by Males
Employment Rates of Men and Women, aged 25-54, from 1953-2014
Social Workers - 18.1 %
Librarians - 15.2 %
Therapists - 20.1 %
Flight attendants - 24.2 %
Kindergarten Teacher - 3.8 %
Dental Hygienists - 2.9%
Hairdressers - 4.4 %
Registered Nurses - 10%
- For a family to function most effectively, it is important that each adult-figure must specialize in a particular role.
- Role division is the most beneficial and functional way to survive in the family unit
- Expressiveness - denotes concern for the maintenance of harmony and the internal emotional affairs of the family.
- Women are anchored as wives, mothers, and household managers
- Women tend to take on a expressive, emotionally supportive role
- Instrumentality - refers to emphasis on tasks, and a focus on more distant goals, as well as the external relationship between the family and other social institutions.
- Men are anchored in the occupational world
- Men tend to work outside of the home and are the money-makers of the family institute
• The functionalist perspective hides an inequality between men and women’s roles
• Men’s work is uniformly valued, meanwhile, women’s work is devalued
• Men are powerful because their size, physical strength, and freedom from bearing children
• Looking at Karl Marx’s analysis, it is evident that men are considered the ‘bourgeoisie’ and control most of society’s wealth, meanwhile, women are the 'proletariats' and can only acquire valuable resources by following the order of their “bosses”
• Idiom - “Behind every great man is a woman”
• No social structure is ultimately
desirable if it is maintained by oppressing a
majority of its citizens
STATISTICS U.S.A 2014:
Male-dominated Jobs Occupied by Females
Construction Laborers - 2.5 %
Firefighters - 5.7 %
Computer Net worker - 12.4 %
Mechanical Engineer - 8.8 %
Police Officer - 12.4 %
Taxi Driver - 12.7 %
Dishwasher - 21.2 %
Welder - 4.8%
In 60 years, the gap has decreased by almost 65%!
Conclusion
NOT ONLY ADULTS BUT ALSO CHILDREN?
As you can see, gender norms are affected throughout our entire lives, and often times, we don't even notice.
- Segregation of toys and assigned colours
• Focuses more on a micro-level of everyday behaviour
• Looking at how gender is socially constructed in everyday interactions
• Understands that we reinforce traditional “masculine” and “feminine” actions, but recognize that we still challenge these traditional gender roles
• Reinforcing - man pays for dinner and woman accepts that it is his job to pay
• Redoing – man stays home on paternity leave to help with housework and new baby
When individuals do not meet these norms, they are perceived as different, and often don't fit into society as well as others, who follow the general guidelines of what is "right".
- Toys in the 1950s - 1960 were focused heavily on gender specificity
• Belief that women are undervalued, subordinated, underrepresented, and excluded in male-dominated societies (most of the world, especially middle-east)
• Liberal feminists - Advocate for women’s equality and that it can be attained through minor adjustments to key institutions (public, education, family etc…) and create opportunities for women to advance in society’s public sphere
• Marxist feminists – looking at capitalism, private ownership of resources can cause an oppression of women because they do not have to go by certain guidelines and tend to exploit women
• Socialist feminists – look at how capitalism and patriarchy are responsible for women’s subjugation
• Radical feminists – see the root cause of women’s oppression as being embedded in the patriarchy that exists in all societies, whether they are capitalist, communist, or socialist
Ex. Girl mop set
Ex. Boy tool kit
What is a Gender Norm?
- Infants are supposed to wear either pretty pink dresses or tough football shirts.
- Some kids are supposed to dress as fairies and princesses, while others should be superheroes.
- Some teens should be baby sitting for some extra earnings, while others should be working in construction.
- Some adults should be seeking employment in nursing, or in a daycare, while others should be working in construction or as machine operators.
- Some parents should be at home with the kids, while the other works.
- An extension of the term "social norm..."
- Rules of behaviour that are considered acceptable in
a group or society.
- In this case, the set of rules or ideas of how women and men should look or act.
- As a result, these gender norms are what have become the "usual" or "standard" of gender roles.
What is a Gender Role?
- Expectations regarding the proper behaviour, attitudes, and activities of males (men) and females (women).
- In the 1970s gender specific toys were risky to produce so production slowed
- Women were entering the workforce, having less babies.
- A negative attitude toward an entire category of people, such as racial or an ethnic minorities, as a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or any actual evidence.
- For example, with gender, we are considering the preconceptions of women, typically in the workplace, that suggests they cannot perform tasks as well as a man because of the way they look or the notion that women are "weak"
- Catalogs had much less boy/girl specific toys
What does the term Gender refer to?
What is Gender Discrimination?
- Culturally and socially constructed identity as a man or woman.
What side of the store are you on???
- An extension of the basic term "discrimination..."
- Process of denying opportunities and equal rights to individuals
and groups because of prejudice for arbitrary (random) reasons.
- In this case, gender discrimination would be based upon an individual's sex.
- Gender discrimination tends to happen to women, especially in the workplace.
- If you calculate women’s lifetime earnings compared to men’s. Based on a gender wage gap of 31.5% in Ontario, a woman would have to work 14 additional years to earn the same pay that a man earns by age 65.
"When I am assertive, I'm a B!&#$... But when a man is assertive, he's a BOSS!... He's bossed-up! No negative connotation behind being bossed-up, but lots of negative connotation behind being a B!&#$."
- Nicki Minaj
WAS NO MORE
N
What is a Double Standard?
- By 1984 shows were segregated once again
A Brief History...
- A rule or principle that is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups.
- In regards to gender norms, it is the notion that men and women could act the same way, but their actions be perceived differently.
- The ideology that one sex is superior to the other.
- In most cases, it refers to men who believe that they are more dominant than women.
- Toys returned to gender specific marketing and production
What does the term Sex refer to?
establish distinctions between
"male" and "female."
- During both World Wars women were recruited into factories and other jobs that had been vacated by men who were over seas fighting in the War.
- New jobs were also created for women to help the war effort.
- Provincially, women were given the vote in 1916 in the four western provinces, in 1917 in Ontario, in 1918 in Nova Scotia, in 1919 in New Brunswick, in 1922 in Prince Edward Island, and in 1940 in Quebec.
- Unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences of each person
- In this case, society faces an overall idea that all women are inferior to men
- A traditional stereotype, still used today, is that women are perceived to be stay-at-home moms and wives that cook and clean all day, while men are hard at work bringing in all the money
- A more present-day stereotype, with both men and women in the workforce, is that some people feel that they cannot occupy certain jobs because a specific gender dominates that field
Gender Roles and Norms in Early Canadian History
- Gender roles and norms are among one of the most progressive areas in canadian history
- Beyond physical differences, men and women have separate sets of socially determined behaviors, identities, and norms
- The primary role of most adult women living in the first half of the 20th century was to care for their family and home.
- Men more often worked outside the home for pay and assumed the role of the household head