Gender inequality Essay Example for Free

Gender inequality Essay This is a theoretical approach which views social institutions as collective tools made to fulfill individual as well as social needs of the larger community. It pays attention to the structure, workings, responsibilities and performance of the society as a whole. Society is therefore seen to consist of subsections of inter-dependent and interrelated people who work together to attain satisfaction and the survival of the whole society. This then calls for the society to be trained in behaviors and roles that benefit the society, with a deep believe that behavior is structural. The first phase in the social sensitization is then adherence to values that outline the general guidelines of the societal roles and norms. Functionalists salute the fact that rules and regulations in the society help to organize and coordinate genuine relationships between different members of the society. The institutions tasked with the above roles include the economy, family, political and educational systems, which all forms the social structure. Within these institutions, there exist interrelated and interconnected norms and roles and thus it is believed to ensure societal conformity. For example, in the family, the interrelated roles are of sons, daughters, husband, mother and wife. (Amartya, 2001, pp. 19) The theory is viewed from different angles and operates on some key concepts. It first views society as a system. A system is a pool of interconnected parts making a move towards same equilibrium. Secondly, for a society to survive, it must satisfy some functional requirements that include reproduction among others. Thirdly, different phenomenon exists because they have to serve a function. Aspects like family, religion, order, media and education have their roles to play for betterment of society. In the social life, production and distribution of goods and services must take place, administrative justice has to occur, political structure must in place and family structure must exist as a means to reproduce and maintain social life. The way these roles are carried out obeys norms and structures of the society. An example of functionalism is gender inequality. Functionalists generally believe that certain degree of inequality is important and functional for the society; the society cannot operate smoothly without a certain inequality degree. In society, functionalists argue that inequalities must exist in the rewards in form of power, prestige, status and income. These disparities will induce each and every individual to perform distinct duties. Social inequalities represent natural inequalities which occur in the division of labour process. Different classes of work produce extra value to the concerned process and therefore require an extra package of reward. In our institutional settings, different subsections have been introduced to solve some functional and special roles. These put pressure on selected areas and groups hence the idea of inequality. Such micro institutions include operative (production), regulatory, legislatory and distributory prerequisites (Ridgeway, 1992, pp. 55). The reality is that each society and individual need to be engaged in solving problems related to control and coordination, production of goods and services and finally best find best and optimal ways of distributing resources. With increasing population worldwide, problems of feeding the individuals have developed thus creating new and more challenging forms and organizations which can coordinate and control various and distinct social units and also develop systems of resource distributions. The only solution to this is introduction of labour specialization and redefinition of assigned duties for fulfillment of specified duties. Ultimately, this results to big man aspect followed by a hierarchical chain with different mandates, duties and privileges. In the societal functioning, the idea of roles is developed into collectivities complementing each other in the functions fulfillment in the society. Most of the roles are bestowed on the social institutions and social structures. The structures perform their roles to assist the society to function. A perfect and equilibrium society is the one where the role and responsibilities are not conflicting, everyone knows and meets his or her role effectively and no discrimination or stratification. A perfect socialization is attained when all societal norms and values are observed and maintained by everybody in the societal settings. However, our today’s institutions no longer value a leveraged socialization environment. This is because individuals in the changing situations are adapting to their responsibilities through a role bargaining process. (Dollar and Gatti,1999, pp. 45) The new and emerging responsibilities are never institutional and conformitive, but are rather geared at building different personalities to perform different roles in the same setting. Because the traditional adaptation process can not respond to sharp shocks and immediate radical changes, structural dissolution and dysfunction has occurred, leading to new system or death of the society. After the society dies, the oneness and status equity spirit dies away and people draw demarcation lines between themselves on the basis of social classes and economic status, hence inequality invades the social system. (Dollar and Gatti, 1999, pp. 89) Functionalist analysis perspective recognizes the society to be composed of various components, the institutions which are functional. Within them there must be institutional roles to be played such that social coherency and mutuality is an objective within many of them. The social structure is therefore bound to attain wide range of goal, a sense which can’t allow them to concentrate primarily on societal affairs. This classifies the institutions with respect to time into either functional or dysfunctional. In this case only only power and coercion can be used to attain functionalism. This drive makes such institutions to develop other alternatives to fulfill the societal functions. Such alternatives are mostly made to help attainment of the institutional goals regardless of whether functionalism is attained or not. When functionalism dies, the institutions are never society friendly and therefore the tendency of status quo is approved and then inequalities rise up. Functionalists maintain their stand on the societal solidarity, without underrating the stratification issue, which is prevalence of hierarchical arrangement of different social classes. Functional prerequisites also include basic needs such as food, shelter, money and clothing. It is believed that social stratification is necessary in stabilization process of the society. This strategy comes along with inaccessibility of resources and the lack of social mobility due to the decay of functionalism. Stratification means that people at the working class have lower chances to advance socioeconomically, at the same time the wealthy continue exploiting proletariat generation, one after the other (Amartya, 2001, pp. 106). Functionalists have also found out that social classes are based on the power over the production process. In this case where function of common goodness is dead, the ruling class is the bourgeoisie and the working class is known as proletariats. These groups hijack and take control of not only production process but also its intermediary means of production. They then strengthen their relationships based on exploiting the rest of the mass in the society. At this stage the society undergoes disintegration and all former social patterns are dropped to give room to the emerging trend of living. This social stratification does not only manifest economic inequality but also power and status differentials. (Lorber, 2001, pp. 67) Functionalist theory says that there exist four classes in stratification that betray societal togetherness and common equilibrium. These classes are propertied upper class, the propertied-less or white collar workers, petty bourgeoisie and working class. Functionalism is a field of thought that puts attention to values and norms of the society. As a matter of diversity, it is the time to think in other terms that would release the society from the inapplicable chores that have been bypassed by time. The theory creates gender roles throughout ones life, permeating from childhood to adulthood. According to the thought, this helps in structuring parenting and marriage patterns. In the mean time, the theory has been outdated because everyone has the sponbsilbility of responding to economic challenges of the family as well as family chores. Studies have tried to compare the way functionalistic theory assigns different duties with respect to gender, and the real life situation given the dynamicity with time. Revelation has been made that women are currently taxed with both work, majority of home chores and child care. On the other hand men are no longer the sole breadwinners of the family (Lorber, 2001, pp. 76). Despite economic contribution, it has been noticed that women have maintained the care giving responsibility in their familial context. As a result, functionalists view family as one of the components of social structure which its goals should be compatible and aimed at and common goal for mutual benefit. If the family is characterized by the above injustices in the allocation of family chores, then the theory flops in performing its duties as a societal conformer. By critically looking at functionalism, it existed and considered lightly the suppression of women in the family, which was considered the most vital institution. Even if the functionalists failed to articulate the conflicts and tensions in the family, they really existed if they were not about to. If that is not the case then functionalist oversimplified their analysis of women concerning work and family and only concentrated on the positive impacts of the family to the society at the cost of women. The mystery in this theory is contributed by lack of the realization that a change can occur in the society that can lead to rebellion or innovation. Some changes build up rebellious atmosphere and thus the society undergoes dissolution. There was also the necessity to consider the effect of both manifest and latent functions in relation to functionalism. Manifest functions are conscious intentions of the actors, whereas latent functions are objective results of their actions and that are unintended. To validate this theory from a personal point of view, a more comprehensive study into the gender inequality in both economic and the social arrangements in our contemporary world is necessary. In day to day life, women collaborate with men in ambiqous and complex ways, with different deprivations and rewards. I think that gender equity sensitive indicators should be developed to enable the functionalism, theory to gain meaningful momentum and focus on common good, an environment without deprivation and stratum. (Ridgeway, 1992, pp. 34) It would be relevant to explore why women’s contributions and efforts do not receive commensurate returns. To excel in this analysis, these indicators should be developed and used, they should be formulated and utilized and identify unrecognized women efforts that go uncompensated. When inequalities hit a society, disparities are witnessed in such as men and women, social classes, racial groups and regional population. In terms of education all possible efforts should be made ensure equality in providing equal opportunity and realization of equal results to each student depending on personal aptitudes, interests and abilities regardless of gender. Discrimination on gender basis is usually demonstrated by factors such as examination result, response of teachers, enrolment levels, interaction of teachers with various topics, students and topics in the school environment. (Amartya, 2001, pp. 31) Functionalists did not consider these kinds of disparities that were covered within the society. School is one of the social institutions that these thinkers believed contributed to social harmony. They could as well consider harmonization issues within the school that are inhuman. If every aspect of humanity was to be put into consideration, then it could not apply to the larger society at the same time ignoring the oneness in the institutions themselves. If school was seen a good centre for transmitting and instilling those values, it should serve as the best example in exercising and applying them in every day life situation. The functionalists should rise to the reality and accept that women are not objects in any setup; they can and do deliver vital and basic responsibilities that should be recognized, appreciated and rewarded. In the working environment the sense of humanity and gender equity must also prevail to pave way for justice. In some institutions, there is no subjection and objection to state or federal laws that guard gender biasness. Instead, discrimination has featured in areas of training, firing, placing, selecting and evaluating employees. When it comes to training, some training programes are made specifically for men, especially in the top management section. The reality is that women can even deliver more than or equally as men in these areas and therefore equal opportunities should be availed to all, keeping in mind work force is made to utilize the capabilities of all employees for betterment of the institution or organization. (Lorber, 2001, pp. 134) From a personal view point, the labour market should not reflect lingering, pervasive and systemic inequality of sexes in society. I therefore advocate for policy for policy reforms at provincial and federal government to encourage change. Affirmative action through quota policies should be introduced to regard childcare as of paramount importance. Government policies should also address the demands of childbearing. In the working environment, it is believed that; women work in part-time or in fields that are not self-directed which pay less, few women work for foreign firms which pay better and the believe that women work for wages tied to performance and therefore earn less. The policy reforms I recommend should address all these injustices. To conclude, functionalism theory can best deliver if it applies the strategies right from the micro institutions themselves then stretch to the entire society. This is because if the social institutions are weak or insufficiently apply these values, the entire society is bound to fail. Reference Dollar, D. and Gatti, R. (1999): Gender Inequality, Income and Growth: Are good times good for women? London, Routledge Amartya (2001): The Many faces of gender Inequality. Journal of gender and gender inequality, Vol. 43 Lorber, J. (2001) Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics. New York, Roxbury Publishers Ridgeway, C. (1992) Gender, Interaction, and Inequality. London, Springer