Future Trends What is the future of gender-role change in American society? Scanning [1978, p. 156) expects the trend toward sex equality to continue, and most other sociologists would probably agree. It is interesting to note that a century ago, the goal of reformers. socialists, and Utopians was to “liberate” married women from work outside the home so they could give full time to …
Androgyny: Possible or Desirable? IS ANDROGYNY POSSIBLE? Androgynous persons can engage comfortably in both mas priority of the androgynous personality has not been established either. In a three-generational study of over 200 families, Troll found no relationship between women’s happiness and their level of achievement or entrance into nontraditional work roles but found that “happy women seem to remain just as happy whether …
FUTURE SEX ROLES The current trend in modern nations is clearly toward greater sex equality,’ but what form of sex equality? Alice Rossi [1970, pp. 173- 186] suggests three theoretical sex-equality models: (1) a pluralist model in which sex roles are different but equal, with men and women holding different work roles which are equally rewarded and .prestigious; (2) an assimilation model in …
MARXIST ANALYSIS OF SEXISM Marxist, ideology views sex inequality as an aspect of class exploitation and asserts that sexism cannot be ended without a socialist revolution [Ostrander, 1973; Reiter, 1975; Syzmanski, 1976; Eisenstein, 1977J. But the early Marxist revolutionists viewed women’s rights as trivialities which should not divert them from the serious business of revolution. They, were always hostile to the feminist movement, before and after …
Some’ Contrary Evidence The foregoing paragraphs (allow the functionalist disperse. They stress the importance of women’s· work as a determinant of women’s status. Yet.the experience of recent decades does not fully support this analysis. The proportion of all women who are in the labor force nearly doubled between 1940 and 198Q(from 27 to 51 percent), yet the Income g~p’ between employed men and women …
Factors in Sex-Role Change DECLINING SEXIST BELIEFS . The traditional sex-role asap”on in African society assumed a series of innate sex differences in abilities and limitations .which are no longer believed by educated persons. It was handy to attribute one’s discriminatory practices to the will of God or of nature, but this no longer works very well. It is widely recognized …
CHANGING SEX ROLES Women’s roles have shown great change throughout history. If we define women’s status as “high” when women have considerable Independence, power, and choice, then’ women’s status has varied greatly in time fairly high in ancient Egypt, low in early Greece and in the early Roman republic, higher in the later Roman empire, and low again in the Christian era …
SEX DIFFERENCES In most of the higher species, males and females. behave’ differently in some respects. With no culture to explain them these sex differs must be footed in biology. This. -. ‘suggests (but -does not prove) that male female behavior_differences’ among humans . may also be. biologically based. The human sexes are visibly different in some physical .characteristics. 00 they also differ …
Homosexuality Appears Homosexuality appears, at least occasionally, in all or nearly all .human societies. Homosexuality is either absent, rare, or secret in about one-third of the societies studied by lord and Beach. In about two-thirds, some form of homosexual behavior IS considered acceptable and normal for at least some categories of people or stages of life. A number of societies include institutionalized …
The Legal Attack on Sex Discrimination In rapid succession a number of laws and executive orders have outlawed virtually all forms of formal sex discrimination. The Equal Par Act of 1963 requires equal pay for equal work. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination’ on the basis of sex as well as race, color, and religion. Executive Orders and 11375 bar discrimination …
