Gender Inequality and Family Structure

The roots of gender inequality throughout the modern world are firmly tethered to religion and its tribal arbitrations over the role of male and female. To this extent gender inequality has found its way into the 21st century by way of traditions that have their behavioral antecedents in gender theology. The striking aspects to this condition are that it has altered considerably over the centuries, weakened and attenuated by 20th-century feminist movements, however still the disposition of gender inequality retains the dictates of the ancient world. Because this process accompanied economic and social development, gender imbalance became a recognized economic norm in the western world and a prevalent and largely unchallenged social psychology. To the extent that the contemporary family structure is a reflection of religious gender distinctions cemented through centuries of tradition, the subject demands scrutiny and challenge.

In the twentieth century, organized movements began to challenge established gender inequality as a potent form of bigotry and misogynistic thinking. Because these rigidly maintained roles were bedrocked in religious teaching the movements necessarily became associated with anarchy and atheism. The precise societal force of gender inequality and the pervasive attitudes that kept it in place owing to the degree that it went unchallenged for centuries. Females were raised and inculcated in an environment where their choices in life were perilously limited to securing a good provider and consigning themselves to the traditional role of mother and homemaker. Any deviation in this design was frowned upon by established culture. The prevailing economic arrangements reinforced the gender roles that were handed down as God’s laws. Women were barred from education and any viable means of self-sufficiency through the culture. In this respect, both social and economic spheres merged, and the barriers created around gender were for the most part inescapable (Gilman, 2012).

By exploring the depictions of the female in western religious literature it becomes apparent that male dominance is the most salient feature. Women were regarded as hopelessly dependent, quirky, given to irrational mood swings, sexual objects and inconsequential in any vocation beyond the role of mother and domestic servant. The feeling that one might receive from reading the biblical depictions of the female is that men perceived them as a threat and that the conspicuous power of female sexuality was interpreted as coercive and superstitious. The inherent male fear of female sexual dominance spawned a confused revulsion that sought to exercises complete control over the life and primary function of female identity and reassign it as no more than an obedient appendage of the male provider. Feminist theory of the late 19th and early twentieth century argued for the dismantling of this prevalent psychology and the establishment of social and economic alternatives for women for the purpose of gender integration. Casting off the binds of so one-dimensional a role was certainly no easy task. Generations of males were raised to embrace these imbalanced gender roles insomuch as they ceded enormous advantages to men in a general sense ( Lorber, 2011 ).

The common notion that women are more suited to domestic servitude played upon their ‘nurturing’ demeanor and temperament. The designation as the ‘softer sex” seemed to reinforce this distinction and was translated through male culture as a rigid societal assignment. Women were made to believe that their place was rooted in the theological designs handed down through Christian teaching and the normative family structures. This simplistic oppositional dualism created binding partitions between what was expected of men and what was expected of women. Along with this idea, there was the popular notion that a woman was not possessed of rational thought or competent decision-making abilities, and therefore should rely upon the infinitely more rational and commanding male for guidance and grounding. As provincial and even laughable as these ideas may sound in the twenty-first century, they formed the psychological basis for gender navigation for centuries. Resistance or organized opposition to gender roles was interpreted as an attack upon not only the hallowed tradition of culture and society but an offense against God himself (Adams, 1935). These attitudes are hardly in decline today. Quite a bit of the conservative rhetoric that accompanies the politics of the reactionary is the complaint that women have collectively strayed from their traditional role as mother and homemaker, adding to a broadening liberal culture whose motives and aspirations are coupled with an ineffable loss of traditional identity.

Because traditional gender roles are suffused in an implacable religiosity the question of imbalance or inequality is perplexing. The effect of religious tradition is to remove these issues from debate to the extent that one is then wrestling with the dictates of the almighty. However, to fully understand the evolution of gender dynamics it is unavoidable to consult the Bible and its impact on gender. Biblical depictions of women posit an outlaw, a creature of vanity largely viewed with devout suspicion and angst by the otherwise rational male, an inviolable temptress whose admonishments frame here symbolically as requiring control and adherence. Where these simplistic and pejorative depictions give way to a more complex and disassociated identity the male is threatened with a substantial loss of authority. By impugning the value and assignment of female identity cultural recognition becomes more narrow and constricting. The woman is defined by the male, and this has been the case for centuries. The scale and impact of emerging feminist movements of the twentieth century have radically revised the way that women are viewed and understood. Today the female is multidimensional, sexually autonomous and fiercely complex. The old roles still retain significant currency, however, the collective identity of the female has greatly expanded from it was even one-hundred years ago.

Gilman argues that this design established a gender stratification the impact of which could be seen in economic, social and even religious spheres. The assigned roles were guarded by religious strictures and to question their authority was perceived as tantamount to questioning God himself. At each stage of the gender relationship, there is a hierarchy that is removed from scrutiny and alteration. Gilman explored the underpinning of this economic arrangement and correctly called it a male ruling class and a subjugated female class however the details of the subjugation virtually extended to every aspect of the culture. In a sense, this was a form of coherent gender apartheid understood as an immutable tradition. Because of the radical changes to this gender model that took place in the late twentieth century, the pattern of subjugation now appears less dramatic than it actually was (Ridgeway, 2011). In the space of a half-century, the feminist movement made a series of important strides in what was up until that point considered a male-dominated sphere. More women dismissed the role of wife and mother, choosing instead to attend college and establish autonomy.

The established state of gender inequality did not fall away overnight, embedded in minute and often overt behavioral triggers and cues, sexual objectification and in many instances ownership perception. Women have struggled for centuries to cast off the one-dimensional caricatures of dependence and inconsequence that have defined them historically. There was a popular idea that women’s nurturing nature made them inadequate in the business world or comparable male-dominated areas of professional life. Today these ideas seem terribly naïve and even funny, and perhaps at some future point, the stubborn remnants of inequality in gender will also appear silly and antiquated. In the twenty-first century, women still earn less than their male counterparts for the same job, sexual harassment and other forms of gender prejudice persevere and sometimes overlap (Ore, 2008).

Still, the twentieth century witnessed the most radical and far-reaching changes in gender inequality and stratification. For the most part, the societal changes were gradual and took decades before attitudes changed significantly. Today women occupy all the elite professions, every responsible position once only reserved for men. Where one-hundred years ago the majority of females were married by their mid-twenties, today women are not opting for motherhood and child-rearing at the same rate of conformity. Social constructs (brilliantly depicted in the film, Thelma & Louise) built around gender have fallen away with the onset of modernization, access to education and a revolution in communications technology and social media. A significant part of this trend occurred during the sexual revolution of the late sixties and seventies when many women rejected the sexual restrictions placed on them by the church and male culture (Ore, 2008). Casting off the old gender roles women became sexually autonomous and independent, making life choices for themselves instead of relying on men.

Additionally, there are remnants of the masculinization of employment. Males still retain the perception that they are more aggressive and results-oriented in certain professions such as law, sales, policing, administrative positions and a spate of comparable professions. Gender inequality in America entailed psychological navigation that over time became a reliable network of social and cultural cues. To the extent that Gender stratification went unchallenged for so long the dismantling of it requires a similar time commitment. Even over the last fifty years the changes have been remarkable, and women are now viewed as complex, multidimensional beings, not merely ordained sexual objects to be assigned roles in a social arena largely regulated by males. The precise factors that fomented these changes are not immediately apparent, although it is assumed that the engine was socioeconomics and the irreducible impact of the cultural revolution of the nineteen sixties.

References

Adams, J. ( 2011 ) 20 Years at Hull-House. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform.

Gilman, C. P. ( 2012 ) The Man-Made World, or Andocentric Culture. [ Kindle Edition ]

Lorber, J. ( 2011 ) Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, 5th edition. Oxford University Press.

Ore, T. ( 2008 ) The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality, 4th edition. McGraw-Hill. New York.

Ridgeway, C. L. ( 2011 ) Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World, 1st edition. Oxford University Press.