Gender Inequality in the Western Society

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Sociology

Document 1

This paper will demonstrate how gender incorporates different elements in social problems that are associated with males and females. It will also demonstrate the different behaviors and attitudes expected from women and women in the western cultural context. It will also illustrate how gender roles in the society affect gender inequality among men and women. As a result, the essay will demonstrate the manner in which gender roles, attitudes, and behavior in the western culture society influences gender inequality problems in men and women. It is essential to understand the manifestation of gender inequality in the society. Hence, the application of gender as a framing technique in individual associations has various unplanned outcomes. Gendered meanings in the American community are carried far away from areas of life which have direct links with sex or reproduction.

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In the modern western society, the stereotypes and perceptions about men and women have shaped daily individual interactions. The stereotypes have also shaped each day’s gender inequalities in various places such as in workplaces and family. In this case, the family is seen as a form of social institution. Despite the education systems in the United States informing students on egalitarian concepts, the family systems fail in presenting similar ideas to the children. For instance, many parents in the US spent a lot of time on gendered household activities. This is destructive towards the establishment of a non-gender biased society. The main reason for this inference is that children learn about gender attitudes and behaviors through observations on their parents.

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The division of work at the family level by parents further strengthens the negative factor of gender discrimination. This means that sibling is lower when siblings depict larger distinctions in their gender role attitudes and expectations. Marital conflict arises when two partners may disagree on the person who should perform a certain role in the household. At other times, parents may require their children to perform roles which seem not to suit their gender. For instance, a girl may be required by the parents to undertake tasks which are ‘meant’ for boys. Due to the objection that might arise, a parent-child may ensue because of gender-based roles and expectations. Among all other social institutions, the family institution is the most responsible for encouraging gender discrimination.

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Rather than eradicating negative gender issues in the society, family institutions promote adverse gender values and norms. Rosenfeld (618) acknowledges that the traditional family setup does not do much to eliminate the existence of lesbians, gays, bisexual existence, and heterosexism within the social institution. This exists in the presence of a nuclear family setting. Nuclear family settings provide social approvals and advantages to homogeneous couples and act as a limitation to people identified as gays or lesbians (Rosenfeld 624). The gender role approach provides a lot of emphasis on learning behaviors and attitudes that are described as either feminine or masculine. As noted by Howard and Alamilla (368), the gender role approach also gives emphasis on features that people obtain during the process of socialization.

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These include dependent and independent behaviors and the manner in which women and men associate with each other (Howard & Alamilla 372). In addition to this, the gender structure approach provides emphasis on aspects that are external to people. This may relate to social institutions and how power is concentrated, the legal structure, and the organizational restrictions that trigger gender inequality. Rather than presenting the truth on the existence of gender inequalities in the western society, the mass media underrepresents the minority groups. In most cases, the people who are discriminated receive the greater part of the blame. The media houses are tasked with the role of providing information on the gender problems facing the minority groups such as women in the society (Hargittai 7).

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In spite of this form of trust placed upon the media outlets, they frame the information obtained from the suffering parties and present it in biased ways. They also create stereotypes within the society’s reasoning in such a way which hinders the truth about the existence of gender inequality problems. This would be through the exclusion of adverse teachings of the gender role and gender structure approaches. Furthermore, social-based research should be encouraged to unveil additional ways in how to eliminate gender equality problems in families and the workplace. Works Cited Acker, Joan. "Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations. " Gender & society 20. Alamilla. "Gender and Identity. " Gender Mosaics: Social Perspectives (2001): 367-393. Rosenfeld, Dana. "Heteronormativity and Homonormativity as Practical and Moral Resources: The Case of Lesbian and Gay Elders.

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