Page 324 - Essencials of Sociology

Gender Inequality in Global Perspective 297

Discuss the origin of
Gender Inequality in Global Perspective gender discrimination and review
10.2
global aspects of violence against
Around the world, gender is the primary division between people. To catch a glimpse of
women.
how remarkably gender expectations differ with culture, look at the photo essay on the
next two pages. Every society sorts men and women into separate groups and gives them
different access to property, power, and prestige. These divisions always favor men-as-a-
group. After reviewing the historical record, historian and feminist Gerda Lerner (1986)
concluded that “there is not a single society known where women-as-a-group have deci-
patriarchy men-as-a-group domi-
sion-making power over men (as a group).” Consequently, sociologists classify females nating women-as-a-group; authority
as a minority group. Because females outnumber males, you may find this strange. This is vested in males
term applies, however, because minority group refers to people who are discriminated
against on the basis of physical or cultural characteristics, regardless of their numbers
(Hacker 1951).
How Did Females Become a Minority Group? Men’s work? Women’s work?
Customs in other societies can blow
Have females always been a minority group? Some analysts speculate that in hunting and away stereotypes. As is common
throughout India, these women are
gathering societies, women and men were social equals (Leacock 1981; Hendrix 1994)
working on road construction.
and that horticultural societies also had less gender discrimination than is common today
(Collins et al. 1993). In these societies, women may have contributed about 60 percent
of the group’s total food. Yet, around the world, gender is the basis for discrimination.
How, then, did it happen that women became a minority group? The main theory
that has been proposed to explain the origin of patriarchy—men dominating soci-
ety—centers on human reproduction (Lerner 1986; Friedl 1990).
In early human history, life was short. Because people died
young, if the group were to survive, women had to give birth
to many children. This brought severe consequences for
women. To survive, an infant needed a nursing mother.
If there were no woman to nurse the child, it died.
With a child at her breast or in her uterus, or one
carried on her hip or on her back, women were
not able to stay away from camp for as long as
the men could. They also had to move slower.
Around the world, then, women assumed the
tasks that were associated with the home and
child care, while men hunted the large animals
and did other tasks that required both greater
speed and longer absences from the base camp
(Huber 1990).