Blogger: Bolu Ariyo, (Sociology & Criminology)
Gender inequality as an insight is misunderstood based on how society tends to pay less attention to the issue, visualising it as the least important issue within society. Ridgeway’s 2009 emphasises on the importance on how gender shapes social relation and without this, society would not be able to move forward together as a collective. As a society, the need to function together to ensure a better future for younger generations is deemed central to the aspect of life, as what we change or allow within today’s society will affect the future generation. In general, women are excluded from occupations whereby they are likely to be in the position of a supervisory role. Wendy’s 1979 states that in the past, women largely derived their social position from families where they take on the role of being the house caretaker but not the supplier of goods and necessities such as money (Wendy 1979). Men being superior to women acts as a form of power play within society allowing the sexual differences to deteriorate who women are or whom they can be within society. However, the history of women’s suffrage has changed today’s society to the extent that women can now rely on their own work activities as an important mechanism for obtaining power in society. This has also enabled them to become and experience the male role.
Even with Gender inequality progressing towards a level where women are more in charge of a supervisory role, they are still more likely to face other issues such as unequal treatment, perversion, or sexual assault from male co-workers. In this sense women are portrayed more as an object to satisfy the male gaze. This is recognised that gender is a multilevel structure, system or organisation of social practices that entails mutually reinforcing processes at the macro structural/institutional level, the interactional level, and the individual level. My findings on Gender Inequality within the occupational level goes as far as to how history has managed to shape and change what we observe today as functional within our society. The achievements are somewhat up to a satisfying level where women in certain positions have earned their keep to be in that position. This has made society more balanced, as it is now possible for the male to be the caretaker and allow the female to have a dominating position.
Sources
RIDGEWAY, C. L. (2009). FRAMED BEFORE WE KNOW IT: How Gender Shapes Social Relations. Gender and Society, 23(2), 145–160. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20676769
Wolf, W. C., & Fligstein, N. D. (1979). Sex and Authority in the Workplace: The Causes of Sexual Inequality. American Sociological Review, 44(2), 235–252. https://doi.org/10.2307/2094507
If you liked this blog post, make sure to tune into the live discussion of Gender Inequality on our Podcast. With INECO Founder Ama Antwi-Saki, Podcast Host Issac Adeyemi and their two special guests Moeko Isimoto and Yunting Li.