Mandating Equality
December 2nd, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Cultural Capital, Culture, Embeddedness, Gender, Institutional Discrimination, Networks, Patriarchy, Public Policy, Sexism, Social Capital, Social Disadvantages, Social Inequalities, Social Institutions, Social Structure
This is interesting:
Needless to say, this is a good idea. At the same time, ideas like these (think affirmative action) are often misunderstood because they examined as if the only existing form of discrimination was interpersonal. Actually, such a program is designed to fight structural / systemic discrimination, that is, the form of discrimination that exists even in the absence of interpersonal sexism. Rather than wait for cultural change to affect social structure, the idea is to change the social structure to change the culture. It is also a recognition that economic relations are embedded in structurally discriminatory relations and practices. Finally, such programs are also designed to progressively make up for the cumulative effect of institutional discrimination: by pushing for a proportion of representation, the idea is to allow a previously disadvantaged category to start accumulating cultural and social capital that it was previously denied.
It is also in this line of thinking that I agree with banning the burqa as part of holding the secular line and it was interesting to see Turkish-born, German sociologist Necla Kelek state the following:
As I see it, a ban on religious practices that contradict established secular values and are directly repressive is part of the same process as mandating quotas of women as seen above. It is fighting inequality and disadvantages.
Posted in Cultural Capital, Culture, Embeddedness, Gender, Networks, Patriarchy, Public Policy, Social Capital, Social Disadvantages, Social Discrimination, Social Inequalities, Social Institutions, Social Structure | No Comments »
