what are the relationships between gender and other inequalities?

1
what are the relationships between gender and
other inequalities?

• lecture 6

2
Other inequalities and gender

• 1. theorizing representing the Other
• 2. feminist critique of class analysis
• (e.g. Acker 19981973 Delphy 1984)
• 3. rethinking class qualitative analysis (e.g.
  Reay 1998)
• 4. inequalities between men?
• all men are not created equal
• (e.g. Espiritu in Kimmel Messner 2001)

3
Other inequalities and gender

• 5. Black feminists and women of colour critique
  of mainstream feminism?
• 6. stereotyped sexual representations of Black
  masculinity and femininity
• 7. Orientalism and exoticisation
• (e.g. Said 1978)
• 8. summary

4
theorizing representing the othersee Kitzinger
Wilkinson in Wilkinson Kitzinger 1996

• 1. issue of Othering
• 2. woman as Other (de Beauvoir 1949)
• 3. do women have a monopoly on Otherness?
• 4. Othering of non-western women?

5
debates within feminism

• 1. primacy of gender over class?
• 2. patriarchy (radical feminists) or capitalism
  (marxist/socialist feminists)
• 3. patriarchy and capitalsim (dual-systems)
• 4. feminist critique of malestream sociological
  research on class

6
feminist critique of class analysis (1)Acker
1998 1973 in Myers et al Abbott et al 2005

• poor at understanding womens class positions
• assumes
• - the family is the unit of analysis in
  stratification
• - the womans status is equal to male head of
  family (based on the mans occupation)
• - are households are always headed by males?
• - independent women determine their own class
  status?
• - these assumptions are often invalid ignores
  the significance of gender inequalities in
  stratification systems

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feminist critique of class analysis (2)Delphy
1984 Bryson 1999

• 1. marriage (not occupation) the main class
  criteria for women
• 2. women as a class
• 3. discrimination in labour market forces women
  to marry

8
rethinking class qualitative analysis e.g. Reay
1998

• 1. class is not just about an objective economic
  position
• 2. need to move beyond labour market
  (structuralist) focus
• 3. discourses are important
• 4. discourse of classlessness blames working
  class for not succeeding
• 5. class and class inequalities are lived in
  gendered ways
• e.g. the way mothers relate to education is
  shaped by class

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inequalities between men?e.g. Espiritu in Kimmel
Messner 2001

• All men are not created equal Asian men in U.S.
  history
• - the material lives of Asian American men do not
  fit white middle class patterns of masculinity
• - pre-second world war forced into feminised
  occupations laundry
• - internment in war robbed Japanese American men
  of breadwinner role
• - currently some Asian men poorly educated and
  unskilled unlike stereotype
• - changes in gender power balance if women
  working

10
Aint I A Woman?
Sojourner Truth
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Black feminists critical of feminism?e.g.
hooks 1992 Mills/Kanneh in Jackson Jones 1998
Mohanty 1997

• 1. history of slavery/colonisation important in
  understanding women of colour
• 2. how to be feminine and black
• - images of proper femininity have been mostly
  on white, middle class western women
• - experiences of black women also invisible in
  ways of thinking about what is black based on
  black men
• 3. black women/women of colour are not a
  homogenous group

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appreciating differencehooks 1992

• 1. feminism originally based largely around white
  middle class women race and class ignored
• 2. decolonisation needed
• - a process of re-presenting colonised
  identities and interests as independent
• - involves both colonised and coloniser
• - need to recognise diversity of and within
  colonised groups
• 3. recognising difference makes generalisations
  about women difficult?

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third world womenMohanty cited in Kemp
Squires 1997

• 1. relation between Woman and women
• 2. assumes that there is a group called women who
  are all oppressed
• 3. based on seeing Western womens experiences as
  the norm and universal.
• 4. this makes third world womens specific
  oppression invisible or represents it as
  homogenous.

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representations of black masculinity e.g. Hall
1997 Staples in Kimmel Messner 2001 hooks 2004

• sexualisation
• - super masculine
• e.g. Linford Christies lunchbox

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representations of black femininity e.g. Hall 1997

• sexualisation
• e.g. Hottentot Venus
• primitivism?
• blackness reduced to a natural essence?

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Orientalism Said 1978 Baldwin et al 1999

• 1. discourse of Orientalism -construction of
  Occident (West best) and Orient (East mysterious)
• 2. dichotomises
• 3. essentialises generalisations
• 4. hierarchical knowledge and power
• 5. East is the Wests Other

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e.g. of characteristics - Orientalism

• WEST
• Sensible
• Unexotic
• Light
• Strong
• Rational
• Fair treatment
• Virtuous
• (Occident - masculine?)

• EAST
• Mystical
• Exotic
• Dark
• Weak
• Irrational
• Cruelty
• Depraved
• (Orient - feminine?)

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e.g. exoticismMills in Jackson Jones 1998

• Orient sexually coded
• sexual fantasy harems
• dominated the representation of the East

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summary

• 1. structuralist accounts of the intersection of
  inequalities focus more on inequality in
  distribution of material resources
• 2. hooks, Hall et al have focused on importance
  of discourses, ideas
• - confronting hegemonic systems of thought
• 3. need to challenge both symbolic and material
  inequalities?