Sexism Pays!
September 23rd, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Economy, Gender, Labor, Patriarchy, Sexism, Social Inequalities, Social Privilege, Social Stratification, Structural Violence
Be sure to check out this Scatterplot post as well.
There may be different explanations for this, of course (and as usual):
- The one mentioned above: traditional (i.e. sexist) men wield power around (translation: behave like big jerks).
- Traditional men are the one who are given promotions because it’s assumed (by other men in higher positions) they have wives at home who will take care of all the domestic stuff.
- Traditional men with housewives have more time to devote themselves to their careers and are therefore more likely to look good when promotion time comes.
- All three.
Posted in Economy, Gender, Labor, Patriarchy, Sexism, Social Inequalities, Social Privilege, Social Stratification, Structural Violence | 3 Comments »
September 24th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Infuriating.
To point one I’ll add that traditionally masculine take charge behaviour often elicits respect — or something like repect (as men pretend to have all of the answers, for instance).
September 24th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
“Infuriating” is an understatement. I find this very frustrating.
Men who don’t buy in to the status quo gender and sex arrangements basically are, in some ways, punished for that.
September 24th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Definitely, my colleague VeganProf is writing her dissertation on men in the animal rights movement. Most of them are vegan, of course, that’s where you realize how much masculinity is invested in things like hunting and eating meat.
Not eating meat = not real men (Levi-Strauss would have fun with that one!)… also the assumption that meat is what makes one muscular and strong and therefore, masculine.
See also Michael Kimmel’s extensive work on masculinity.
The deal seems to be that men in the AR movement have to adopt strategies to counter the potential damage to their masculinity attached to not eating meat and being pro-AR.
I’m sure you’ve seen Jackson Katz’s documentary “Tough Guise” on the topic of how gender norms are enforced and reinforced.