Sexism is a form of prejudice.

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Liam Carr        Sexism Coursework

Sexism is a form of prejudice when people dislike someone because of their sex and they don’t know the person that well. Sexism is also a form of bullying; it could be a boy bullying a girl because they don’t like the girls. The prejudice then turns into discrimination, which is when the sexism starts to become physical.

        The history of sexism is that women were delicate and had to stay at home to do the cooking, cleaning etc. But during World War 1 and 2 women had to do men’s jobs.

        Then in the 1960’s the Women’s Liberation Movement came to order and men and women had to be treated equally.

        1984, the Equal Opportunities Act said that men and women had to be treated and paid equally so that there was no discrimination.

        Also in Medieval times men had to be loyal to women, for example they had to put their coats on the floor so that women didn’t get wet. This was known as chivalry.

        One other thing is that in the 1930’s women got the right to vote.

        In this investigation I am going to study Division of Labour in the home. I chose this because I think it’ll be important to know about sexism in the home between men and women.

        I am going to study schools. I chose this because I think it’ll be interesting to find out what schools were like 20 years ago and find out just how sexist they were.

        I also chose media. I chose this because I think it’ll be an easy topic to cover, as I will be able to get a lot of information from different sources.

        In this investigation I hope to prove that sexism has decreased in 20 years. I think this because men and women like to have ago at things and don’t stand for not being able to do things that the other sex can.

First, I am going to look at Division of Labour in the home. This means who does what in a household. I will compare a survey (appendix 1) from 1984 to one from this year. I am going to try and prove that sexism in Division of Labour has decreased, in the way that more jobs are shared.

        In 1984 there was 1 man out of every 100 that did the washing and ironing, now the job is mainly shared, there aren’t any men who do the job alone and it hasn’t changed all that much for women.

        There were a lot more women that cooked the meals to men in 1984, but today the job of cooking the meals is a lot more shared at 35%.

        Cleaning has increased for men by 2% since 1984 and it has decreased for women by 14%, this is because the job is a lot more shared out now.

        The job of shopping was reasonably shared out in 1984, and this figure has now increased by 2%, which makes it fairer. There were only 6% of men that done the shopping in 1984, and it has now increased, the figure for women has decreased since 1984.

        The job of washing up has decreased by 2% for women and 1% for men. The percentage has stayed the same for both men and women sharing the job.

        The job of taking care of money was at 32% for men in 1984 but has decreased rapidly since then and now is only 5%. For women this is the complete opposite, in 1984 there were 38% of women taking care of money and now there are 82%. Now there are more women doing this job the percentage of it being shared has dropped from 28% to 11%.

        For men and women sharing the job of DIY (repairs) it has increased by 21%, there are still more men doing this job at 70% than women who only have 5% doing this job.

        The job of taking care of the children has gone up by 13% for women but has decreased by for the job being shared by 18%. For men taking care of the children it has increased by 10%.

        In 1984 there were 10% of men who disciplined the children, 77% shared the job and 12% of women done this. This year the job of discipline has increased for men at 11% and women at 56%. The job is shared by 29% of people.

        In just 16 years the jobs around the house increased to more people sharing them instead of just the man or women doing them. I think the results are accurate enough to show what it was like in the home in 1984 compared to what it’s like now.

        For example, the chore of cooking the meals, the percentage of just of just women cooking has decreased but it has risen for the job now being shared.

        In the future I think that all the jobs, excluding taking care of the children and disciplining them will all be shared. Most of the jobs are reasonably shared out now, so if this is now what will it be like in 10 years.

        I think the jobs taking care of children and disciplining them will still have a higher percentage of women doing these, because since 1984 these jobs have decreased in percentage for the jobs being shared but increased for women.

I have found two articles, one frown ‘The Evening Mail’ and one from a book called ‘Fawcett Society’. They both discuss Division of Labour in the home and I am going to discuss them.

        The article from ‘The Evening Mail’ is called ‘Healthy Drama over the kitchen sink’. It is about whether women are healthier and fitter because they do more housework, and by doing this they live longer. The people that were asked in the article seemed to disagree with what it was saying, but two of them were men and they said that they help with the housework and they go out to work themselves. I think they are trying to suggest that housework is shared out a lot more and women get more help with it.

        This article is unreliable, there were only 5 people asked and three of them disagreed so that means every one must. More people need to be asked to give a more accurate result.

        This fits in with what I have already found out, it shows that more jobs are shared and this is what I found.

        The article from the book suggests that both men and women’s attitudes to Division of Labour in the home is that the jobs should be shared. It also says that this attitude is strongest with young people, but even if women work full time they still do most of the cooking and ironing but they share the job of washing up with men. It says that men do all the housework in some households, as there are no women.

        It talks about old couples, and how the women still have to do all the housework even if they are retired.

        The article mentions how young couples share the housework to a greater extent even if they both work full time.

        All this fits into my work as it shows that in most cases the jobs are shared in most households with young and old couples.

        

Next I am going to look at sexism in Media. Media is lots of different things such as films, adverts, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, pop music etc. Media can be very sexist, for example in adverts in magazines it can show women advertising moisturising cream or they can be used as sex symbols in a picture, but you wouldn’t see a man doing that, they advertise the rough tough things like they could be seen as a cowboy with a gun advertising a car. Sexism was like this 20 years ago but much worse.

        Media is very important and is in every ones everyday life. Media can be dangerous; it can expose secrets about people’s lives, which they might not want anyone to know about. It can cause a lot of trouble between people if they get hold of the wrong story. Then again media can also be very enjoyable, pop music, people like listening to it, singing to it, and even dancing to it, they enjoy it.

        Adverts of models can influence young girls, they want to be skinny like the models, and they can stop eating and become anorexic. This is another thing that makes media dangerous.

        Media can also be good in a way. The news, it tells you what is going on in your country and other countries around the world, it keeps you informed about things that are happening around you.

        In will be looking at every area in media and discussing whether or not sexism in media has increased or decreased.

        By carrying out this investigation I hope to prove that sexism in media has decreased and that the 1984 Equal Opportunities Act has an impact on this important area.

        I will begin with films.

        20 years ago films were very sexist. It was always the women that were seen as the sex symbols and men were seen as the rough and tough ones.

        A film advert for ‘The Landlords getting just about everything but the rent’ from 20 years ago is very sexist. It shows the landlord and the women’s legs. It is implying that the landlord is sleeping with all his tenants instead of them paying the rent. Once again it shows women being used as sex symbols.

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        James Bond is good example of sexism in films. James is seen as the rough tough guy who goes round using women for sex. In every film there is of James Bond he must sleep with at least 2 or 3 different women. The women are always seen as the sex symbols even in the James Bond films now days, for example ‘The World is not enough’.

        An advert from a James Bond film from 20 years ago is using a woman as a sex symbol yet again. She is barley wearing anything and is described as James Bonds ...

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