In the quest for equality, the law is often seen the most powerful tool which can be used to support women's causes. The law has been used to tackle various issues and various Acts have been passed to reflect this. However, there is some doubt now as to how effective the law is. It would therefore seem that the law is not quite the dangerous weapon it is thought to be and some other alternative may be needed.
The perfect example of the lack of the law in this topic relates specifically to employment and the lack of the anti-discrimination at work legislation.
Even with the fact that women are now able to participate more in the public world and get paid employment, they still face inequality in the work place.
There are major occupational differences, where women are often found employed in low paid, low status jobs with few chances of promotion. Women are also more likely to be employed in part time work. This reflects the minor position of women within the business ladder. Two reasons can be given for this imbalance in the workplace, firstly because women are the focus to gender discrimination and secondly, women's role in the private sphere is to be the primary carer.
The first significant piece of legislation in the UK was the Equal Pay Act 1970 which aimed to promote equality at work between men and women. The Act provides that a female employee is to be treated no less favourably than a male employee who is occupied on 'like work' or on 'work rated as equivalent'.
Despite these requirements, women still experience large pay differences between what they earn and what their male counterpart earns in the same job.
My research shows that women in full time work earned on average 82% of the average hourly pay of males in full time employment and earned on average 60 % of the average hourly rate of pay to males in part time work.
Such mathematical data and findings from many other studies on pay differences are evidence of the fact that the law has been ineffective in realistic terms with regard to equal pay for men and women.
Yet women still find they are stuck working in low paid jobs with poor job security, poor salary and little opportunity for promotion.
Research shows that often employers will directly discriminate against women by not offering them jobs or passing them over in promotion, but few will actually admit that their decision is based on the woman's sex.
Therefore, now discrimination is happening secretly. However, in comparing her treatment to someone of the opposite sex, it is not required that the other candidates were in fact treated more favourably than she was.
Indirect discrimination occurs where an employee requires a condition or requirement equally to all employees. However, that condition or requirement has the effect that it disadvantages a larger amount of one sex than the other. Again proof lies with the applicant.
The law applies the idea of equality in the work arena but must also do so in other areas. The current blanket approach of the law is ineffective and even devastating.
Cultural and social limitations are largely responsible for the minor position of women in society and we must look to social, political and economic issues to make any significant changes.
However, the law is not completely useless. It has been a useful supporter in bringing issues into the public arena and bringing changes even if they didn’t gain any large benefit at least it has given formal equality.
The world has changed now and the modern woman has nearly as many rights as men. But there is still a lot of discrimination going on around the world, it happens both openly and discreetly.
Gender Roles in the home
You play with dolls, you learn manners, you obey your parents, you never talk back, you marry, you give birth, and you stay at home. Your husband goes out to work and you take care of the children. You are the obedient one; you are a woman.
Is this really true?
I have researched on gender responsibilities in the home to distinguish any changes from the past. I will be using 3 different homes in different age groups to see if the household is more old fashioned or the other way round. I will place my observations onto a table so it will be easier for me to analyse the results.
M = Male and F = Female.
1st Household
As you can see the 1st household is quite a contemporary, modern household as most chores are being shared by both male and female. The male and female in the house are in their early 40’s.
2nd Household
In the 2nd household we can spot out that there is a traditional house wife. The woman does all the housework and the man does the earning. The male and female in this house are in their late 40’s. So not much difference in age as in the 1st household but they still use the old fashioned system.
3rd Household
And in the 3rd household it is a traditional old fashioned house wife. The woman does all the housework and the male does hardly anything. The male and female in this house are in their early 70’s. So they are quite old and they stick to the old fashioned system by which they were brought up with, but in this case the woman earned a good salary as well as the man.
I carried out this survey as I required to find out if the gender roles are being challenged or reinforced in the 21st century in the home.
My survey results illustrate, that in my house the gender roles have transformed, but it was not so likely in the other households.
In the past domestic work was mostly carried out entirely by the women in the lower social classes and by male and female servants in the higher social classes. This means more men worked than women as they were brought up with traditional values.
I think housework is much more equally shared out today as men are less sexist than before and there are more women working now so sometimes men have to overlook what people say and look after the children or even be the “house husband” for sometime or maybe always.
If I had more time I would have done a survey of a lot more houses to obtain more accurate information, and then I could target a similar age group or I could see if specific cultures play big parts in gender roles in the home.
Gender Socialisation
A person acquires his/her gender through a process called gender socialisation. This is the learning of a particular social role according to an individual’s sex. It has a major effect on how men and women act in society. Through this process, a person learns what is masculine and feminine and learns to act accordingly. The period in a person's life when this process begins and ends is controversial. In fact, I think that it begins at infancy, whereas some think that it takes place later in a child's life. But it has been scientifically proven that it takes place from birth to the age of 5.
A child’s imagination is a huge way of learning social and language. A child will mimic the behaviour of those around them, so if a child has a number of people around them to learn from it may take different pieces of information from each person, or may focus on one person. This will usually be a caretaker of sum sort weather it is a parent, guardian or any other.
These are stereotypical male and female differences
I did this to show you the male/female stereotypical differences.
Gender Roles in the Media
In TV advertisements, gender stereotyping is very strong. In adverts, men are described as more independent. They are shown in more prestigious occupations than women; they are very likely to be advertising a car or a brand company whereas women are shown mainly as housewives and mothers. They would be advertising something like kitchen rolls and other domestic appliances. Men are more likely to be shown outdoors in a suit and in business settings while women wearing aprons in household settings.
I will now analyse 4 different adverts and observe if they manage to discriminate an individual sex in any way.
There is a general compromise that the mass media act as important agents of socialization, together with the family and peers, contributing to the moulding of gender roles.
Surely we learn to be male or female; it doesn't come 'naturally' and the mass media plays a part to making such roles seem 'natural'. And there is no doubt that TV presents powerful, attention-grabbing images of gender.
I think that the most “gender related” advert would have to be the Bounty adverts for the kitchen rolls where they have two men dressed up as women pretending to be housewives testing out the kitchen rolls. This could either show that they are challenging the gender roles by showing males also are now associated with the kitchen or they are mocking the women. But if they had two real women we would start arguing about it saying they were gender stereotyping and discriminating against women. So either way it is the most gender related advert I have come across.
In most modern children TV ads feature both girls and boys, but boys tend to be the dominant ones. Ads aimed at boys show far more activity and aggressive behaviour like jumping around, running, shouting whereas the ads for girls are likely to be quieter. Boy’s ads contain active toys, and loud, dramatic music and sounds. Girl’s ads tend to have frequent fades, dissolves, and gentle background music.
Sport on television is dominated only by men and it stays that way as men can express sports their way, however recently I was viewing the Chelsea vs. Barcelona match on ITV 1 and I saw a woman with Terry Venables explaining everything in half time. She had the same amount of football knowledge as Gary Linekar and the rest of them. I’m sure she went through a lot of discrimination and she is now climbing up the job ladder.
Whereas most women are dominating the cooking channels as women are adapted for the kitchen and are more likely to cook better then men. And the majority of viewers would also be women. However these days there are quite a few number of really famous male chefs who women can’t get enough of. Some of them having their own show for an hour or so. The male chef that comes to mind out of the top of my head would be Jamie Oliver and his show “The Naked Chef” which is quite a hit for both male and female audiences.
However nowadays there are quite a generous amount of movies that hit the big screen which challenge the old sexual stereotyping rather than making the same old dry movies. I will only give an example of 2 movies which are “Taxi” (1998) and “Daddy Day Care” (2003). I will analyse both briefly just so that you get a taste of how these films are challenging the ordinary gender roles.
Taxi
This is a movie about 2 ordinary cops about to catch the robbers of a big crime. There was said to be three robbers; which were extremely dangerous and ruthless. They have already robbed the most secured banks of America. Which big tough guys would these 3 robbers be? The robbers are a bunch of six foot supermodels, led by Gisele Bundchen, Leonardo Di Caprio's erstwhile girlfriend, who here makes her screen debut. Which is not normal as every single person on this earth would expect these robbers to be men.
Daddy Day Care
This movie is about two hopelessly inept fathers running a pre-school day care facility. They are seriously taking a massive risk as Eddie Murphy’s wife (in the movie) thinks the job of nurturing kids is only up to women and no one else.
So these two movies are challenging the original gender roles from the past in two different but similar ways. Both taking the position of their opposite gender.
Gender Roles in Education
During colonial times, girls and boys were educated differently. Girls went to "dame" schools where they were taught how to read and write. The "master" schools; similar to today's high schools; were for boys. Girls could attend the master schools, generally during the summer when boys worked and only if space was available.
In the 1800s, prospects for women in education began to improve. High schools and colleges for girls were established. Some colleges and universities that accepted only young men began to accept young women. In 1833, Oberlin College became the first higher education institution for young women and men. At the beginning of the 20th century, more than one third of all college students were women.
The females are now dominating the world in education. The females have always been getting better results than boys after the Educational Equity Act. The women of the past were never educated due to the tyrannical belief that men were superior to women in many ways. They considered the females rightful place was at home.
However despite this women have shown us that they are equal maybe even better than men. This has been shown from long time ago when great; great women have changed the world by their exceptional discoveries and leadership.
National figures for pupils gaining 5+ A*-C GCSE grades
Percentage of pupils aged 15 on roll in all English
Schools gaining five or more GCSE grades A* - C
Year All pupils Boys Girls
% % %
2004 53.3 48.4 58.4
2003 52.9 47.9 58.2
2002 51.6 46.4 57.0
2001 50.0 44.8 55.4
2000 49.2 44.0 54.6
1999 47.9 42.8 53.4
1998 46.3 41.3 51.5
1997 45.1 40.5 50.0
1996 44.5 39.9 49.4
1995 43.5 39.0 48.1
1994 43.3 39.1 47.8
1993 41.2 36.8 45.8
1992 38.3 34.1 42.7
1991 36.8 33.3 40.3
1990 34.5 30.8 38.4
As you can see the results of girls compared to boys there is a huge difference. The girls have got higher grades from 1990 and are still rocketing high up the educational ladder and are still achieving more than boys. This reflects the world’s attitude to women succeeding rather than failing now. Everyone expects girls to do better, so moving on girls will be having better jobs in high positions and everyone will be hiring women now as they are more capable than men. A long time ago society had pushed and in a hypothetical way bullied woman to become house wives or do minor low paying jobs if they were lucky. So this shows us that the gender roles of previous centuries are being challenged rather than reinforced, so the gender discrimination has changed in the likes of education.
Interview
Are Gender Roles still applicable in Modern Times?
Interview: Mrs Hussain 42 yrs old Tax Inspector, married with 2 children
Interviewer: Zakir Hussain 10TR
Date: 6 March 2005
Q1: Describe your role in the family and society in general please.
A: Well I am a wife and mother of two sons; I have been married for 19 years. I have had a career since graduating and I am a daughter, sister, Aunty etc.
Q2: How has the gender role changed for you over the years?
A: My role has changed slightly as our lives have changed.
My husband used to help me a lot more on housework when we first married but as he has become busier he helps a lot less, he helped 50% with housework and bringing up children and now it is 30% because he has taken on more work earning money.
I am lucky in that my husband is the modern man, he helps with everything, and we are a good partnership.
Q3: How did your gender role vary at home, school and work?
A: As a child my gender role was no different to my brothers as my father was an advocate of equality amongst the sexes, we both carried the same amount of shopping home, I was taught to change a fuse wire, wire a plug etc. Because in those days’ lots of immigrant en worked night shifts and my father did not want me unprepared in the future.
As my brother was older and went to work, he did less housework and we adopted traditional gender roles but due to my father’s views of equality my brother still had to help a little.
At school we were very traditional except my history teacher who was a staunch feminist, we were given skipping when the boys played football in primary school, and the secondary school taught home economics instead of Technical Drawing. I campaigned and won the first football magazine in a girl’s school. At university we were treated as equals.
At work there is definite bias towards men, towards friendly attractive females, and people who go drinking in pubs. I overcome such barriers all the time by having a thick skin, positive attitude and hard work, and have got promotion sometimes over men in the 16 years I have worked for the Inland Revenue as a Tax Inspector.
There is a lot of stereotyping and being a small sized female people underestimate me, for example in meetings my older male staff is looked at as the boss, only to be told with a smile that the little lady is the boss!
Q4: How is your role different from your mothers?
A: My mother is 63 years old, she also had a family and career, my father helped very little, she was a teacher and she did more traditional female roles at say 90% compared to my 50%, so the roles are slowly changing. It depends on the woman’s career. Women are taking on more challenging roles, especially the traditional male jobs are more demanding and these women do less of the traditional female roles because they earn more and demand the man do more to help in the house.
Q5: If you were a housewife would your role be different?
A: I think my husband would do less and probably I would do the more traditional roles, but being a modern woman I would still expect him to help more on housework than my father did because times have changed and attitudes to traditional roles have changed, thank god.
Q6: How do you see your role develop as you get older?
A: As I retire, I will probably do more of the housework if I am at home, but he will always help because we are set in our habits. It will depend on health more than anything, who is capable of doing what rather than gender role.
Women’s Hall of Fame
Some of the women who had shown the world that they were as powerful and as capable as men, they overcame traditional gender roles due to their passion for their vocations:
Clara Barton (1821 - 1912)
Founder of the American Red Cross, Barton ministered to injured soldiers during the Civil War and became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." Devoted to the organization, she later took to the field, providing relief in the Spanish American War at the age of 77.
Amelia Bloomer (1818 - 1894)
First woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women, The Lily. First published in 1849 in Seneca Falls, New York, it became a recognized forum for women's rights issues. She often wore full-cut pantaloons under a short skirt, giving birth to the term "bloomers."
(1831 - 1894)
America's first woman lawyer. When denied permission to practice law in Illinois (despite passing the bar examination) because of her gender, she began publishing The Chicago Legal News, a very successful legal journal. When the laws changed in 1892, Bradwell was admitted to practice in Illinois and in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mother Teresa (1949)
She dedicated every day of her adult life caring for "The dying, the cripple, the mentally ill, the unwanted, and the unloved" and she loved every minute of it because she was loving, she was cleaning, feeding. They found men, women, and children dying on the streets who were rejected by local hospitals. The group rented a room so they could care for helpless people otherwise condemned to die in the gutter. In 1950, the group was established by the Church as a Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese. It was known as the Missionaries of Charity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think that gender roles of previous centuries still play a huge part in modern society, although they are being challenged immensely and the attitudes have gone a long way to changing in many spheres, the legislation has helped to bring equality amongst men and women with more women challenging the implementation of the legislation. For example pay amongst top city workers, a hugely male dominated profession which has been challenged publicly to bring into line the equal rights issues of the genders.
Better and more available higher education, media and female role models with high flying careers, better and easily available contraception has led to a falling birth rate in many European countries. Followed by a change in attitude in society to the traditional role of men and women in a nuclear family, and with the presence of more one parent families where the need for women to work is a necessity rather than desire, has all led to women seeking careers and now the second generation of emancipated women are looking to better their mother’s careers and are aiming for the higher and challenging careers traditionally dominated by men.
Poverty and lack of education in certain class and cultures still mean in parts of society gender roles of previous centuries are still being reinforced in the 21st century, for example there is still the existence of honour killings and domestic violence where women are the victims.
Better education has led to wealth and equal opportunity in certain class and cultures like IT jobs in India and Indonesia where the gender roles are being challenged and as skills are gained by both genders equality is being obtained challenging gender roles of previous centuries.
Although more gender roles are being challenged in the 21st century, it will be a long time before all societies can be challenged for a better and equal role for both genders, wherever there is poverty or no education traditional gender roles will be reinforced.
Emancipation of all women of the world can only come as part of a social revolution when the need arises out of desperation, for example with a lot of dead men in the war now there are a lot more women politicians in Iraq. In Turkey the rights of women are being challenged to gain acceptance into the European Union.
Evaluation
I enjoyed this project as I really looked into the real facts about gender discrimination and to find out how females were discriminated in the past. I enjoyed doing the gender roles in education as I could easily see that girls always did better than boys. I didn’t have enough time to visit any old peoples homes, so if I had more time I would interview an old man and an old woman from this country and an old woman and man from another country, and compare if they had the same experiences and beliefs or if their beliefs have changed from the past. My strengths were when I could research about Gender Roles in the home as I used both my nuclear and atomic families’ household so it was easy and fast. My weaknesses was that I interviewed only one person, if I had more time it would be better to have interviewed both genders and of differing generations to get a real feel for the changes in society with time.
I published my work on computer as it looks much neater and organised rather than my own handwriting and it also has introduced me to a lot of new vocabulary and phrases which I am now confident with using, I learnt a lot of new skills, as I am now capable of putting together information into a structured piece of work. I didn’t do any graphs showing women’s jobs changing through the years which I could’ve done if I had more time for research. I also wrote a letter to one of the channels of my choosing asking them why their advert was discriminating against a specific gender and I could’ve sent if I had more time
(Attached to page 16).
This study also has highlighted to me the need to analyse my personal views on gender roles and to be aware of my need to challenge traditional roles for a better life in modern society where equality of the genders must become reality because there is a need and not just for the sake of challenging the roles, men could be made to carry a baby but is this necessary given their bodies are not made for this purpose. It would be better if men learn to nurture the baby once it is born and take equal part in upbringing which is needed if the woman is to have a career. This will benefit both genders and lead to a better society.
Bibliography
I got some information from the articles in ‘The Economist’
I used a search engine for all of my research and that was
www.google.com
I typed in several things, several times. I wrote:
Gender Roles
Gender Discrimination
Stereotypes
GCSE Results
Gender in the Media
Women’s Hall of Fame
The other support I received was from my teacher.