2 Gender Roles, Power & Inequalities

Sayani Das

INTRODUCTION

Gender roles are formed through socialization process that begins at birth and and is extended in our lifetime. Do you know how? Through: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. These are the agents of gender socialization, which continuously teaches and reminds us our socially accepted and appropriate gender roles, according to the norms or standards created by our society.

Almost in all world societies, man’s gender roles (known as ‘masculine roles’) are recognized as power, control, and dominance. On the contrary, woman’s gender roles (known as ‘feminine roles’) are recognized as passive, nurturer, and subordinate. These are binary opposite gender roles between men and women. These gender role differences certainly lead to inequalities among sexes in society.

In some societies, the gender roles between men and women are markedly different! Such societies are more gender unequal. In other societies, men and women share similar kinds of gender roles. Such societies are more or less gender equal.

But no society is absolutely equal – giving equal opportunity to men and women at the same time. Therefore inequality exists in some form or other. The global aim is to eradicate gender inequalities by all means and make every society gender equal.

According to Subhasini Mahapatra in her book on the Status of Women: Towards Empowerment, “equality is proclaimed in principle but inequality reigns supreme in practice”.

LEARNING OUTCOME / OBJECTIVE

The objective and learning outcome of this module is:

1.To introduce gender roles, which originate from gender-based division of labour.

2.To point out male domination, power and control on women and society. This is popularly known as ‘patriarchy’.

3.To develop the understanding of how sexual inequality leads to social inequality.

GENDER ROLES

Role is the socially expected behaviour from individuals like us in society. Roles are performed by all of us, according to the accepted social norms and shared rules found in each of our society. Roles guide our behaviours in a specific social situation or setting. Roles give us ‘social status’ and determine what social privileges and responsibilities we have under our individual social status.

Social status is an individual’s position in the society – how he or she is defined or treated in the society and by the society. Social roles and statuses are always gender-based. For example: as female and male, mother and father, daughter and son; we have different social statuses, dependent on different normative roles required from each of us in our society. The role and status of woman, wife, mother, and daughter is socially ascribed or expected as loving, caring, nurturing, self-sacrificing, home-making, and peaceful. The role and status of man, husband,father, son is socially ascribed or expected as head of the household, breadwinner, disciplinarian, home technology expert, ultimate decision maker in family and society.

However, society sometimes allows us some flexibility in performing our social or gender-based roles. But in most cases, gender roles are rigid and conservative and the society hesitates to allow us to exchange our given gender-based roles. During the times of rapid state of social change (like revolution, civil war, social movement, etc.), we are confused of the socially acceptable role limits that create uncertainty in our minds about what appropriate role behaviour is accepted by the changing society.

Do we need any change in our status or position in society as ‘women’? To change our status we need to change our gender-based roles or adopt ‘other’ gender-based roles (or men’s roles). Changing gender roles are difficult in both ways – to initiate and to achieve in society. Since socially appropriate roles of male and female are formed within us through the process of socialization and division of labour, we see widely in our family and society.

GENDER ROLE SOCIALIZATION

We find striking dualistic difference in male to female gender roles in family, in schools/colleges/institutions, in workplaces, in governmental and non-governmental organizations, in political agencies, in public places, in private places, and we can go on……….

We socialize gender-based roles from childhood to adolescence, so that we can adapt easily the socially accepted behaviours permitted under the norms and customs of our society and culture.

In almost every cultural, religious, ethnic, class, caste, and other social groups, ‘gender’ is an important dimension of socialization. Parents and family members are the main people responsible for gender role socialization. They provide their boy and girl child different kinds of dresses, toys, games, skills, training, education, experiences, and environmental surroundings. All this is to ensure that socially appropriate and accepted gender-based roles are socialized firmly within every child at family level.

Parents and family members may or may not treat son and daughter differently. But consciously or unconsciously, family teaches boys and girls different approaches for problems solving, to challenge themselves, and towards their life decisions. Researchers argue that differential behaviour by parents towards children may create gender differences in their thinking patterns and problem solving skills. (EXAMPLE in PPT)

This process of gender-role socialization in childhood is extended from parents to family members to teachers to peers. Gender-role socialization in childhood focuses on – looking up to ‘role-models’. During childhood socialization, we can see boys behaving more aggressively than girls, because they learn it is socially accepted. (EXAMPLE in PPT)

While in adolescence, gender-role socialization focuses on two major issues: ‘vocational decisions’ and ‘sexuality’. During adolescence socialization, we see girls act more like adult women, making more compromises between work and family relationships than adult men.

Jo Freeman in her book Women: A Feminist Perspective, says that ‘minor’ differences in childhood can lead to larger differences in adolescence and greatest differences in later life.

GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR

We have to understand that gender roles are actually reproduced from gender-based division of labour between men and women in society. Every society and culture has division of labour by gender, differing from men to women. It is rooted in man’s and woman’s socio-sexual needs and positions in the society. Gender division of labour occurs from gender discrimination in household responsibilities and tasks, between unpaid and paid work, within paid work, in public and private domain.

According to the International Labour Organization, the way work is divided between men and women according to their gender roles is usually referred to as the ‘gender division of labour’. According to the gender division of labour, men do specialized, skilled and paid work outside home. Women tend to do non-specialized, unskilled, unpaid work inside home. Gender division of labour determines work, tasks, and responsibilities assigned to men and women in their daily lives and gender division of labour is even extended to the labour market. Sociologists and feminists often argue that gender roles and gender division of labour are ‘sexist’ in nature and are the result of biological traits and differences between men and women. Division of labour is regarded in society as traditionally appropriate for both sexes.

In most cultures and societies, women are solely responsible for house-keeping chores, like –cleaning, cooking, washing, fetching water and fuel, and small-scale agriculture. Women are also solely responsible for family care, like – food, health, child/adult/elderly care, and value-education. On the other hand, men are responsible for only technical household jobs, like – electrical and mechanical works. Gender division of labour in household leads to ‘occupational segregation’ in the labour market. It also leads to vocational education and training imparted along the gender-line.

Women participate in service sectors, sectors related to care-giving, sectors that requirelesser skills and lower ranks/wages/salary, and sectors that lack  decision making and career advancement. While men hold hierarchical and superior position in society and therefore participate in manufacturing sectors, sectors related to socio-economic-political control, sectors that require more skills and higher ranks/wages/salary, and sectors that promise decision making and career advancement.

However, gender division of labour is never permanent. It changes with social, economic, and political changes in wider society, state, nation, region, or global level. But traditional gender division of labour is not usually found among migrant men and women. They may performnon-traditional gender roles in the society, may take-up non-traditional jobs in the labour market, and/or may even do non-traditional tasks in the household.

Gender role socialization and gender division of labour are founded on the patriarchal power structures of society – which give socially ascribed or credited or recognized hierarchical status to men over women.

POWER OR PATRIARCHY

The word ‘Patriarchy’ stands for power and authority. ‘Patria’ symbolizes possession, control, and belonging. Women are the majority to be oppressed by patriarchy. But patriarchy also oppresses all marginalized categories: like- gender, age, caste, class, colour, ethnicity, religion, language, and whatever else caught in its web of authority.

Patriarchy can be extended to almost every direction – philosophy, law, governance, economy, society, and family. The roots of patriarchy lie in the myths of every religion, as if the Almighty or Creator or God has created the world revolving around ‘the power of man and the subordination of woman’. It is the myth that men hold power of protection and control of society; and women hold power of reproduction and motherhood. Thus nobody should question patriarchy, since it will then critique religion, human society, and our wellbeing!

Patriarchs are thought as men who are wise and strong, who are stern and unforgiving in nature, who conserve their energies and their wealth, including their women. Patriarch symbolizes ‘Master’ and ‘Father Right’. They have the right of ownership over the ‘other’, those who are ‘powerless’. Patriarchy has constructed the social belief that men are physically powerful; perfect human beings; have right to authority, respect, and dignity in society. He is not a person but an institution, a mindset, a hegemony, an absolute superiority; and thus not only a protector but also an oppressor. (EXAMPLE in PPT)

Patriarchy in India has become more powerful through the historical journey of human development and progress. As a result women’s space in society has shrunk more and more with time. The relationship between Indian men and women works only across polarities, binaries or opposites, like – men-inside / women-outside, men-old / women-young, men-rich / women-poor, men-physical / women-emotional, men-abuse / women-love, men-powerful / women-vulnerable, and more like that. The patriarchal or male-centred view of human life gives privilege to one gender over another. This has led to inability for men and women to co-work towards holistic development of our society. (EXAMPLE in PPT)

This conflict and opposition against ‘other gender’ are rooted in the basic concept of one-sided ‘power’ of man which does not respect women’s perspectives and needs. This notion dominates over all areas of human life: myth and culture, history and religious practices, language and art, socio-economic-political constructs, and above all family and society. Therefore, patriarchy leads to widespread gender-based violence and discrimination and inequality against women in all aspects of life. Patriarchal oppression may differ in degree, kinds may also differ from society to society, but gender discrimination and inequality persists in all societies.

GENDER INEQUALITY

Let us best understand inequality in opposite to equality. Equality means greater freedom, visibility, and voice. It means more space for women in private sphere like- home and public sphere like- society or world. The dreams of women may differ, their struggles may differ, but all women need equal space in society to protect their human rights.

Women have been excluded from human rights, from its perceptions, and from its practices; since time immemorial. Social discourses have always been mindless and ignorant of gender issues. Political thinking and institutions have been based on the legitimate discrimination and degradation of women. These social, economic, and political paradigms have denied and excluded women from all its affairs. In the words of Simone de Beauvoir, “woman is not regarded in society as an autonomous being”.

Cultural fundamentalism constructs femininity; woman’s virginity, virtue and morality; restrict her social roles; prescribe dress codes; and control her body. Throughout history, there is an over concern with female body. And male members of society are equally attracted and threatened by female body. Thus, society practices sexual to social exclusion, segregation, division, ‘purdah’, and other avoidable circumstances. Female menstrual blood is socially treated as impure, her choice and role in procreation underplayed, her strength in domestic chores are overplayed.

Education, which is an agency of social change, is also in the hands of patriarchal power, controlled by the rich and mighty men. Gender dimensions of subordination and inequality are extensive and act as a vicious-circle in society. In all social patterns – birth, education, relationships, marriage, wifehood, motherhood, and citizenship – women are caught in the power struggles under men-dominated social structures. According to Virginia Woolf, society has blocked its own potential for progress by depriving women of equal participation in socio-economic-political affairs, and by depriving them of equal opportunities of growth.

GENDER INEQUALITY/EQUALITY TABLES/FIGURES/EXAMPLES

It is now clear from the tables, figures and examples of gender inequality and equality present in India – that in our society ‘gender equality’ is a promise that is merely expressed in more words than needed. Gender equality is a fact, but not necessarily perceived as a legal right of women. Women have therefore continued to be invisible, silenced, and submerged. The social institutions and structures, as well as the cultural milieu, continue to be apparently dominated throughout by patriarchy. Patriarchal ethos reinforces the discrimination and inequality against women. This discrimination in India begins before birth and the very right to take birth as a girl child against cultural trend of ‘son preference’. As a result skewed sex-ratio, unequal gender power and realities prevail in society.

In spite of these unequal experiences in their lives, women individually or collectively work toward visibility and cohesion. Women as producers of goods, of knowledge, of prosperity, as carriers of tradition, and as agents of change refuse to be passive objects of desire and subordination. Women have raised voices, agitated, faced social exclusion, and also died in protest. Women are still at work, still hope to create harmony and equality out of this confrontation, and wish to change the definition and function of gender roles and power.

At this juncture, let us make our own voice against dominance of social power and inequality. It means raising one’s own feminist or gender consciousness towards means of ‘equity’ and ends of ‘equality’ in society.

SUMMARY

This module has addressed gender based division of labour, the power of patriarchy, and the extension of sexual to social inequality.

‘Sex/gender system’ revolves around a hierarchy that advantages men over women by giving them higher status, wider opportunities, greater and more consistent material and psychological benefits.

Hierarchy is a social structure that levels people or groups so that some have more and others have less in the way of opportunities and benefits. Such system of inequality is known as ‘social stratification’.

Domination is a hierarchical reality in relation to some individuals or groups, who are socially constructed to routinely exercise their rights to regulate other people’s actions, opportunities, and outcomes; leading to social exploitation, social injustice, and social problems.

Oppression is an experiential notion of domination, concerning how people in the lower ranks of social hierarchies – those who are more dominated than being dominating – react over time by way of their identities, emotions, and social actions.

Patriarchy is a social organization marked by the supremacy of male head of the clan or father in the family, the legal dependence and control of women and children, the recognition of descent and inheritance in the male-line, and having a disproportionately large share of power in society.

Gender role is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behaviour are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived sex in a given culture or society. Gender roles are the behaviours, attitudes, and activities expected or common for male versus female in society.

Sexual or gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their sex or gender. It arises from biologically inherited differences to socially constructed gender roles. Sexual or gender inequality is the dominant part of social inequality that violates human rights and social justice.

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