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Gender: Nature, Nurture, and Social Change

Explore the concept of gender, including its definition, the debate between nature versus nurture, the social construction of gender, gender stratification, diversity, theories of gender, and the impact of gender on social change.

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Gender: Nature, Nurture, and Social Change

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  1. Chapter 13 Gender

  2. Chapter Outline • Defining Sex and Gender • Sex Differences: Nature or Nurture? • The Social Construction of Gender • Gender Stratification • Gender and Diversity • Theories of Gender • Gender and Social Change

  3.  Defining Sex and Gender • Sex refers to biological identity. • Gender refers to learned expectations and behaviors associated with members of each sex. • One is born a male or female, but becoming a man or woman is the result of social and cultural expectations.

  4. Sex Differences: Nature or Nurture • Biology and the social understanding of what it means to be a man or a woman help determine gender identity. • A person may remain genetically one sex, socially the other—or perhaps something in between. • If social differences between women and men were biologically determined, there would be no variation in gender relations across cultures.

  5. Gender Socialization • Teaches expectations associated with each sex and has an effect on: • Self concept • Social and political attitudes • Perceptions about other people • Feelings about relationships with others

  6. Sources of Gender Socialization • Parents • Childhood play and games • Schools • Religion • Media • Popular Culture

  7. Conforming to Gender Expectations Consequences: • Women are denied access to power, influence, achievement, and independence. • Men are denied nurturing, emotional, and other-oriented world.

  8. Gendered Institutions The total pattern of gender relations including: • Stereotypical expectations • Interpersonal relationships • Division of labor along lines of gender • Images and symbols that support these divisions • Different placement of men and women in social, economic, and political hierarchies of institutions

  9. Characteristic of Societies With Gender Equality • Women’s work is central to the economy. • Women have access to education. • Ideological or religious support for gender inequality is weak. • Men contribute to housework and childcare. • Work is not highly sex-segregated. • Women have access to power and authority.

  10. Women’s Worth: Still Unequal • In the 1960s, women earned 59% of what men earned. • Women today earn on average, 74% of what men earn. • Women with college degrees earn the equivalent of men who have some college. • In 2000, income for women working full-time and year round was $26,855, for men, $36,252.

  11. Explaining the Pay Gap • Human capital theory - Age, experience, education, marital status and hours worked influence worth in the labor market. • Dual labor market theory - Women and men earn different amounts because they work in different segments of the labor market.

  12. Explaining the Pay Gap • Gender segregation - Most men and women still work in gender segregated occupations. • Overt discrimination - White men perpetuate their advantage over women and racial minorities, through labor union practices, legislation, harassment, and intimidation.

  13. Gender in Global Perspective • Women provide much of the cheap labor for products made around the world. • Worldwide, women work as much or more than men and own little of the world’s property. • Women are underrepresented in world leadership.

  14. Theories of Gender • Functionalism - socialization into prescribed roles is the major impetus behind inequality. • Conflict theorists - women are disadvantaged by inequalities built into the social structure. • Symbolic interaction theory - gender is produced through interaction and interpretations.

  15.  Feminist Theory • Liberal - gender socialization contributes to inequality because learned customs perpetuate inequality. • Socialist– the capitalist system is the origin of women's oppression.

  16.  Feminist Theory • Radical - patriarchy is the primary cause of women's oppression. • Multiracial- developed new avenues of theory for guiding the study of race, class, and gender.

  17. Contemporary Attitudes About Gender • A small minority of people disapprove of women working while they have young children (16% of women and 20% of men). • Half of all women and men surveyed said the ideal lifestyle was a marriage in which responsibilities were shared. • Less than half of men (47%) believe that it is best for men to hold the provider role, compared with 69% in 1970.

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