By: Dr. VladislavB Sotirovic
The text has aim to investigate the situation of female representation in politics in the industrialized contemporary Western democracies. Though women are more and more visible in politics, we can not yet say they have taken an equal position compared to men. Of course, they have had to take a long road and there is certainly a positive evolution, but there are still some mechanisms that lead to different kinds and levels of political discrimination.
The focal goal of this text is then, trying to find out what the factor processes are that lead to these discriminations, and which solutions there can be put forward.
In this text, I will try to explain firstly what gender is. We will see the difference between sex and gender. While sex is about the biological differences between men and women and their consequences, gender is much more of a social phenomenon. It is about how people are socialized based simply on the fact that they are a man or a woman. It is about the differences in treatment and their consequences. We will try to find where those differences in treatment come from, and which things maintain the existence of this different treatment.
Further, I will focus on the gender problems, or the problems with which women have to deal with simply because they are women. My focus will not be on the poor situation of women in the less developed countries of the south – which would also be interesting, but on the problems that women still have today in the industrialized Western democracies, where the history of women’s rights already covers a long road.
What is gender?
What is it to be a man? What is it to be a woman? You might think that being a man or woman is ultimately associated with the sex of the physical body we are born with. However, the nature of maleness and femaleness is not so easily classified, explained, and understood.
Historically, the study of gender has its roots in the anthropology of women and, therefore, is very often mistaken to be only about women. Gender studies are concerned with the cultural construction of embodied human beings, both women and men. They examine the differences and similarities as experienced and interpreted in various contexts, taking this to mean all relationships whether they involve subjects of the same or different genders. Gender has often implied and/or been contrasted to sex, the biologically defined categories of male and female.
Before explaining what gender is, we need to make some important distinctions, between sex and gender. In general, sociologists use the term sex to refer to the anatomical and physiological differences that define male and female bodies. A person’s sex is determined based on primary sex characteristics essential to reproduction. Sex is thus a biological concept for the biological distinction between men and women.
Gender, by contrast, concerns the psychological, social, and cultural differences between males and females. Gender is a social distinction based on culturally conceived and learned ideas about appropriate appearance, behavior, and mental and emotional characteristics for males and females, linked to socially constructed notions of masculinity and femininity. It is not necessarily a direct product of an individual’s biological sex. The terms ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are gender terms that signify the ideal physical, behavioral, mental, and emotional traits believed to be characteristic of males and females. The distinction between sex and gender is a fundamental one since many differences between males and females are not biological in origin. Individuals who are born as biological males or females are usually expected to develop ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ character traits and behave in ways that are appropriate to their gender.
Most sociologists argue that gender roles are entirely learned. Such an opinion takes us to a second view about gender. Gender can be explained by understanding the origins of gender differences through the study of gender socialization, and the learning of gender roles with the help of social agencies such as the family and the media. Through contact with various agencies of socialization, both primary and secondary, children gradually internalize the social norms and expectations which are seen to correspond with their sex. Gender differences are not biologically determined, they are culturally produced. According to this view, gender inequalities result because men and women are socialized into different roles.
Clearly, gender socialization is very powerful, and challenges to it can be upsetting. Once gender is “assigned”, society expects individuals to act like “females” and “males”. It is in the practices of everyday life that these expectations are fulfilled and reproduced.
According to Joseph F. Healey, gender is a source of differentiation, such as race, ethnicity, and class. Like race, gender has both a biological and a social component and can be a highly visible and convenient way of judging and sorting people. J. F. Healey speaks of gender roles, which highly resemble A. Giddens’ sex roles. From birth, the biological differences between the sexes form the basis for different gender roles or, in other words, societal expectations about proper behavior, attitudes, personal traits, and proper ethical behavior based on gender background.[9] In virtually all societies, including those at the advanced (post)industrial stage, adult work roles tend to be separated by gender, and boys and girls are socialized differently in preparation for these adult roles.
General problems concerning gender inequality
We have seen that gender is a socially created concept that attributes differing social roles and identities to men and women. Yet, gender differences are rarely neutral – in almost all societies, gender is a significant form of social stratification.[12] Gender is a critical factor in structuring the types of opportunities and life chances individuals and groups face and strongly influences the roles they play within social institutions from the household to the state. Gender roles and relationships vary across time and from society to society, but gender and inequality have usually been closely related, and men typically claim more property, prestige, and power.
Women’s gender problems are situated in everyday life, in differences in health and aging, in the family, in their lower places in the class structure, in organizations, in the labor market, in their educational outcomes, and so on. Some theories worked out negatively for the position of women, like a functionalist theory that says it is perfectly logical and desirable to divide the tasks in outside work for men and inside work for women; or the theory of maternal deprivation which says that a child who isn’t socialized by its mother, by her absence, would possibly have serious social and psychological difficulties later in life.
As a matter of very fact, the gender problem is a very complicated one, and in practice, it is very hard to change it as processes of prejudice and stereotyping are playing still a significant role in gender stratification and throughout history are rooted in the social system.
Women face stigmatization on a number of fronts and the practical consequence of an individual being stigmatized can include the reduction of the person’s social acceptability, a blocking of important social and economic opportunities, and a diminishing of the overall life chances. This person may come to see even himself as inferior when there is an absence of validation by others and this person is socialized to accept the beliefs and values on which the stigma is grounded. In this way, women even can get caught in a web of self-defeating behavior.[C-Counter Currents)
Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic, Ex-University Professor, Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies
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