Gender and Families

1
Gender and Families
2
Sex and gender

• Sex biological characteristics that distinguish
  women from men
• Gender social and cultural characteristics that
  distinguish females from males

3
Social construction of gender

• Gender construction starts with the assignment to
  a sex category on the basis of the genitalia at
  (or before) birth.
• Adults respond to infants differently based on
  their assumed gender.

4
Childhood gender socialization

• Parental and societal expectations result in
  behavioral pressure on children to behave
  consistently with norms for gender behavior.
• Girls are encouraged to be nurturing and better
  at maintaining personal relationships.
• Boys are encouraged to be competitive and
  independent.

5
Peer socialization

• Between the ages of 2-3 children begin to sort
  themselves into same-sex peer groups.
• Girls and boys peer groups reinforce
  communication styles.
• Gendered norms and expectations are enforced
  through informal sanctions of inappropriate
  behavior by peers.

6
Doing gender

• Though the seeds of gender are constructed in
  childhood, it is constantly created and
  re-created out of daily human interaction.
• Symbolic interactionist theorists emphasize that
  gender is fluid and in need of constant
  reinforcement throughout adulthood.

7
Gender and stratification

• As a social institution, gender is a process of
  creating distinguishable social statuses for the
  assignment of rights and responsibilities.
• The stratification system ranks these statuses
  unequally.
• Gender is one of the ways in which society is
  stratified into more and less powerful groups.

8
Gender and other social statuses

• Societys other constructed statuses e.g.,
  race, occupational status, and class intersect
  with gender.
• In society, one status is usually considered the
  normal, dominant status and the other statuses
  are different, deviant, and subordinate.
• The relationships of power and inequality that
  hold outside the home also extend within it.

9
Gendered division of domestic labor

• Women do more housework than men.
• The total percent of housework done by men has
  increased, and that done by women has decreased.
• Even though women do much more housework compared
  to men, they perceive this inequality as fair.

10
On an average day Results from the American Time
Use Survey (2005)

• 84 of women and 65 of men spent some time
  doing household activities, such as housework,
  cooking, lawn care, or financial and other
  household management.
• 19 of men reported doing housework - such as
  cleaning or doing laundry - compared with 53 of
  women.
• 37 percent of men did food preparation or
  cleanup versus 66 of women.
• 95 of adults reported some sort of leisure
  activity, such as watching TV, socializing, or
  exercising. Among this group, men spent more time
  (5.7 hrs) than women (5.0 hrs).

11
In summary

• Most evidence favors gender socialization as the
  explanation for gender differences.
• Mens and women's roles in families are socially
  and culturally constructed.
• Gender distinctions reflect differences in power
  between men and women.