Showing papers in "Gender & Society in 1988"
TL;DR: The authors argued that women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which they identify as patriarchal bargains, and that different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct rules of the game and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression.
Abstract: This article argues that systematic comparative analyses of women's strategies and coping mechanisms lead to a more culturally and temporally grounded understanding of patriarchal systems than the unqualified, abstract notion of patriarchy encountered in contemporary feminist theory. Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression. Two systems of male dominance are contrasted: the sub-Saharan African pattern, in which the insecurities of polygyny are matched with areas of relative autonomy for women, and classic patriarchy, which is characteristic of South and East Asia as well as the Muslim Middle East. The article ends with an analysis of the conditions leading to the breakdown and transformation of patriarchal bargain...
2,123 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that neither sex-integrating jobs nor implementing comparable worth will markedly improve women's employment status because men can subvert these mechanisms or even change the rules by which rewards are allocated.
Abstract: To reduce sex differences in employment outcomes, we must examine them in the context of the sex-gender hierarchy. The conventional explanation for wage gap—job segregation—is incorrect because it ignores men's incentive to preserve their advantages and their ability to do so by establishing the rules that distribute rewards. The primary method through which all dominant groups maintain their hegemony is by differentiating the subordinate group and defining it as inferior and hence meriting inferior treatment. My argument implies that neither sex-integrating jobs nor implementing comparable worth will markedly improve women's employment status because men can subvert these mechanisms or even change the rules by which rewards are allocated. As evidence, I show that occupational integration has failed to advance women appreciably, and I argue that comparable worth is not likely to be much more effective. Instead, we must seek political analyses and political solutions.
537 citations
TL;DR: This article examined changes between 1977 and 1985 in women's and men's attitudes toward women's familial roles using National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey data Despite speculation that a backlash against feminism occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and evidence from past studies of a possible slowdown in gender-role attitude change, the data show a significant increase in profeminist views of the wife and mother roles among both women and men.
Abstract: Changes between 1977 and 1985 in women's and men's attitudes toward women's familial roles were examined using National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey data Despite speculation that a backlash against feminism occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and evidence from past studies of a possible slowdown in gender-role attitude change, the data show a significant increase in profeminist views of the wife and mother roles among both women and men More of this change occurred within cohorts than through cohort succession With the exception of college-graduate women, whose support for gender equality was high at both periods, the profeminist trend occurred about equally in all sociodemographic subgroups of the population, although even in 1985, men were less feminist in orientation than women
295 citations
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the race and class background of 200 women who volunteered to participate in an in-depth study of Black and White professional, managerial, and administrative women and found that White women raised in middle-class families who worked in male-dominated occupations were the most likely to volunteer, and White women were more than twice as likely to respond to media solicitations or letters.
Abstract: Exploratory studies employing volunteer subjects are especially vulnerable to race and class bias. This article illustrates how inattention to race and class as critical dimensions in women's lives can produce biased research samples and lead to false conclusions. It analyzes the race and class background of 200 women who volunteered to participate in an in-depth study of Black and White professional, managerial, and administrative women. Despite a multiplicity of methods used to solicit subjects, White women raised in middle-class families who worked in male-dominated occupations were the most likely to volunteer, and White women were more than twice as likely to respond to media solicitations or letters. To recruit most Black subjects and address their concerns about participation required more labor-intensive strategies involving personal contact. The article discusses reasons for differential volunteering and ways to integrate race and class into qualitative research on women.
196 citations
TL;DR: The ways in which husbands and wives interact in the process of constructing their infertility are described, with frustration and lack of communication typical consequences of the confrontation of husbands' and wives' perspectives on infertility.
Abstract: Using qualitative data based on interviews with 22 married infertile couples living in western New York State, we describe the ways in which husbands and wives interact in the process of constructing their infertility. The wives experienced infertility as a cataclysmic role failure. Husbands tended to see infertility as a disconcerting event but not as a tragedy. Couples tended to see infertility as a problem for wives. Frustration and lack of communication were typical consequences of the confrontation of husbands' and wives' perspectives on infertility. Interactions with medical professionals tended to reinforce these consequences. These interactions between wives, husbands, and medical professionals may lead to taking wrong directions in treatment and to ignoring treatment options. Some of the problems we describe could be lessened by adopting a model of couple-centered treatment in a setting that incorporated routine counseling.
183 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a qualitative analysis identifies techniques for socializing readers to the emotional culture of marriage and shows a historical change toward equating love with self-fulfillment and advocating the expression of anger.
Abstract: Throughout the twentieth century, women's magazines in the United States have socialized their readers to the “proper” expression of love and anger in marriage. Our analysis of a random sample of marital advice articles from 1900 to 1979 examines this cultural convergence of gender, marriage, and emotion. A qualitative analysis identifies techniques for socializing readers to the emotional culture of marriage and shows a historical change toward equating love with self-fulfillment and advocating the expression of anger. A quantitative analysis then specifies the timing of changes in emotion norms and showed an oscillation between modern and traditional norms that is related to waves of political liberation versus oppression. We discuss the relation between emotion norms and behavior and explore the effect of group conflict on the production of emotional culture. Emotion norms have become less rigid and more tolerant of diversity; but gender differences persist, and women are still responsible for maintain...
112 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the commonalities and differences in Black and White women's gender-role attitudes, and assessed the applicability to Black women of the investment-in-production and investmentin-reproduction hypothesis, concluding that the exclusion of race and class from our analyses impedes and distorts the development of feminist theory.
Abstract: Theorists have posited that investment in production has a radical impact on women's gender-role attitudes, whereas investment in reproduction exerts a conservative influence. Informed by an interactive approach to understanding the effects of racism and sexism, this article explores the commonalities and differences in Black and White women's gender-role attitudes, and assesses the applicability to Black women of the investment-in-production and investment-in-reproduction hypothesis. The data in part supported the contention that this hypothesis would be more valid for White than Black women. The article concludes that the exclusion of race (and class) from our analyses impedes and distorts the development of feminist theory.
105 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the concept of role taking is used to analyze the perceptions of self and victim held by 79 convicted rapists, who did not experience role-taking emotions, i.e., guilt, shame, or empathy.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to bridge the gap between feminist structural explanations for rape and the social psychological mechanisms that make it possible for some men in patriarchal societies to feel neutral about sexual violence toward women. The concept of role taking is used to analyze the perceptions of self and victim held by 79 convicted rapists. Men who defined their behavior during sexual encounters as rape saw themselves from the perspective of their victim through reflexive role taking, had inferred their victims' experience through synesic role taking, and used this awareness to further their plan of action. Men who did not define their behavior as rape did neither reflexive nor synesic role taking and appeared incapable of understanding the meaning of sexual violence to women. The majority of both groups did not experience role-taking emotions, that is, guilt, shame, or empathy, which symbolic interactionists posit are the mediators of self-control. I argue that the gender imbalance of powe...
95 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that citations to publications written by women constitute a significantly higher proportion of citations in articles written by men than in articles in the same subfields than in men in these subfields, showing that women are doubly disadvantaged in accumulating citations.
Abstract: References to publications written by women constitute a significantly larger proportion of citations in articles written by women than in articles written by men in the same subfields. Further, the difference between citation patterns of men and women authors increases as the proportion of women in the discipline decreases, showing that these women are doubly disadvantaged in accumulating citations. These results suggest that the problems of members of an out-group tend to be most serious when their numbers are small and that they will find it increasingly easier to gain acceptance and recognition as their numbers increase.
83 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that separating and divorced women were better than men or themselves while married at building and maintaining old, and intimate, relationships, and because of the structure of their lives and the opportunities available to them, separated women were not so good at developing new and casual ties.
Abstract: Based on interviews with 104 women and men, this article argues that marriage constrains while divorce liberates men and women to develop relationships, but they do so in different ways with different consequences for each. The separated and divorced women were better than the men or themselves while married at building and maintaining old, and intimate, relationships. In this sense, separation and divorce proved generous; marriage, greedy. However, because of the structure of their lives and the opportunities available to them, separated and divorced women were not so good at developing new and casual ties. It was the structure of the men's lives that provided access to “instant networks.” Developed to alleviate loneliness, these groups provided a place in the wider community that men did not seek while married.
58 citations
TL;DR: The Family Crisis Shelter as mentioned in this paper is a case study of a feminist shelter that is operating with a counter-bureaucratic organizational structure, which makes all policy decisions through consensus, pays all staff the same wages, and imposes minimal regulations and restrictions on residents.
Abstract: Some feminists in the battered women's movement have been striving to develop egalitarian and participatory organizational structures for shelters. The Family Crisis Shelter offers a case study of a feminist shelter that is operating with a counterbureaucratic organizational structure. The shelter has a staff of nonprofessionals, makes all policy decisions through consensus, pays all staff the same wages, and imposes minimal regulations and restrictions on residents, who are encouraged to take initiative and make decisions. The article discusses the successes and limitations of the nonbureaucratic structure for implementing the feminist goals of consensus and empowerment.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conceptualized labor force exits as a parallel option to employer changes in the gender-specific opportunity structure for employed young women and argued that the same working conditions should predict both employment exits and employer changes.
Abstract: This article conceptualizes labor force exits as a parallel option to employer changes in the gender-specific opportunity structure for employed young women. It argues that the same working conditions should predict both employment exits and employer changes. Family characteristics (including pregnancy and presence of preschool children), rather than working conditions, should differentiate between job changers and job leavers. These hypotheses were tested with 1970-1980 data from the National Longitudinal Survey. Results from logit analyses showed that employment conditions do affect young women's decisions to change jobs or exit the labor force, and influence them in similar ways, and that household factors affect labor force exits more strongly than they do job changes. While pregnant women are more likely to leave the labor force, both improved job conditions and existing preschool children (implying prior experience with substitute care) enhance the likelihood of continuous employment for pregnant women.
TL;DR: A sociological analysis of the changing role of women in the Catholic Church over the past twenty years is presented in this article, where the theoretical framework is drawn from The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1967).
Abstract: This article presents a sociological analysis of the changing role of women in the Catholic church over the past twenty years. The theoretical framework is drawn from The Social Construction of Reality by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1967). Data are derived from the documents of Vatican II, the revised Code of Canon Law, research from 1965 to the present, and exploratory interviews with Catholic women recently appointed as church administrators. The article concludes with a discussion of future prospects regarding the new social reality for Catholic women.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of husbands' educational attainment on their attitudes toward their wives' enrollment and on their provision of instrumental support during the first year in a university were investigated.
Abstract: This study used data collected during intensive interviews with 44 returning women students and 33 of their husbands to investigate the effects of husbands' educational attainment on their attitudes toward their wives' enrollment and on their provision of instrumental support during the first year in a university. As hypothesized, well-educated husbands held more positive attitudes toward their wives' enrollment than did less-educated husbands; however, contrary to expectations, well-educated husbands provided their wives with lower levels of instrumental support than did less-educated husbands. Less-educated husbands appear to have provided their wives with higher levels of instrumental support because they were more likely to believe that their wives' increasing educational attainment would raise the total family income.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare social womanhood with biological womanhood and show the ways wives attempted to bridge the gaps between definitions of womanhood in their own and in their husbands' societies.
Abstract: The data from a sample of wives living in countries not their own led to a challenge of the assumption that womanhood is an ascribed status. The article contrasts social womanhood with biological womanhood and shows the ways wives attempted to bridge the gaps between definitions of womanhood in their own and in their husbands' societies. If womanhood is an achieved status, further work is needed to define the dimensions and the criteria for this status.
TL;DR: In this article, American leaders (N = 261) in four realms were studied to assess their views on the helpfulness to workers with family obligations of employers' policies and services.
Abstract: American leaders (N = 261) in four realms were studied to assess their views on the helpfulness to workers with family obligations of employers' policies and services. The realms were corporate management, labor unions, the pro-family movement, and the feminist movement. The data were analyzed by leadership realm and gender in relation to policies of two types: (1) scheduling and work arrangements (such as flextime, four-day weeks) and (2) services and benefits (such as child care at work and extended maternity leave). Gender accounted for the respondents' views better than class (management, labor) or social movement (pro-family, feminist) did. Except for feminist men, the men held similar views regardless of leadership realm. The pro-family women differed from the other women (and pro-family men) in failing to view most services and benefits as particularly helpful to employees. Union and corporate women's favorable views on services and benefits suggest that fundamental change in workplace supports for...
TL;DR: This article found that women who considered gender discrimination in promotion and prohibitions against abortion severe social problems were more likely to be on the political left, nonreligious or secular, and generally tolerant of difference and open to change.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to identify the sources of social support for feminist issues in Israel. Attitudes toward these issues as social problems and toward feminism as a social movement were examined through a questionnaire administered to 2,097 university students studying in the Tel Aviv area in 1985-1986. The study found that Israeli students who considered gender discrimination in promotion and prohibitions against abortion severe social problems were more likely to be on the political left, nonreligious or secular, and generally tolerant of difference and open to change. Support for the perception of violence against women as a social problem was stronger than for the other two issues and cut across the dominant cleavages in Israeli society. Students do not connect violence against women with gender inequality. These findings and their significance for the development of feminism in Israel are discussed within the framework of Gamson and Modigliani's (1987) analysis of the culture of po...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reevaluated research on gender differences in sexual attitudes, a literature characterized by misuse of attitude scales and misinterpretation of those gender differences that are obtained, and interpreted the gender differences as reflections of the different social structural positions of women and men.
Abstract: This article reevaluates research on gender differences in sexual attitudes, a literature characterized by misuse of attitude scales and misinterpretation of those gender differences that are obtained. A study by Hendrick, Hendrick, Slapion-Foote, and Foote (1985) is used to illustrate these pitfalls. The gender differences in sexual attitudes obtained in this study, characterized by Hendrick et al. as indicative of women's greater sexual conservatism, are interpreted here as reflections of the different social structural positions of women and men.
TL;DR: This article examines baby farming as an urban neighborhood-based system of group child care in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century and considers the dangers and abuses the practice of baby farming posed for parents, children, and baby farmers.
Abstract: This article examines baby farming as an urban neighborhood-based system of group child care in Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century and considers the dangers and abuses the practice of baby farming posed for parents, children, and baby farmers. It explores reformers' early efforts to regulate the city's baby farms. Finally, the essay also investigates the ways in which the residents of Philadelphia's poor neighborhoods monitored the child-care establishments in their communities that catered to working mothers.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the effect of interrupting or being interrupted on perceived power, identity traits, job performance, and interpersonal relationships of equally situated male and female speakers in a corporate context.
Abstract: In a corporate context, would interrupting affect the perceived power, identity traits, job performance, and interpersonal relationships of equally situated male and female speakers? The gender of both the interrupter and the interrupted speaker was varied in hypothetical transcripts of conversations between two corporate vice-presidents. There were no significant effects of interrupting or being interrupted on perceptions of the relative power of men and women speakers. However, the interrupter, regardless of gender, was perceived as more successful and driving, but less socially acceptable, reliable, and companionable than the interrupted speaker.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between single women and married men from the perspective of a single woman and found that single women experience greater control over their sexuality than they do in socially approved relationships because they feel freer to repudiate their sexual repressions, to abstain, to have safe sex, and to explore their sexual preferences.
Abstract: Feminist thought characterizes women's sexuality as both a source of freedom and a source of exploitation. Central to the feminist research agenda on women's sexuality is the analysis of strategies that women use to increase their sexual autonomy and reduce their sexual constraints. One such strategy is the sexual liaison between single women and married men. In this article, liaisons between single women and married men are examined from the perspective of the single woman. Data come from intensive interviews with 65 single women who have been or are involved with a married man. Gender norms play a significant role in transforming a platonic relationship into a sexual one, but once a liaison is established those norms can be curtailed. In these liaisons, single women experience greater control over their sexuality than they do in socially approved relationships because they feel freer to repudiate their sexual repressions, to abstain, to have safe sex, and to explore their sexual preferences. The article...
TL;DR: This article analyzed articles appearing in True Story from 1920 to 1985 that concern women's grief after pregnancy and child loss and discussed a historical link between nineteenth-century consolation literature and current psychological and academic discussions of grief.
Abstract: This article analyzes articles appearing in True Story from 1920 to 1985 that concern women's grief after pregnancy and child loss. They are discussed as a historical link between nineteenth-century consolation literature and current psychological and academic discussions of grief. True Story is a confession magazine marketed for working-class women, whose reproductive losses have generally been minimized or ignored by previous literary and current professional and journalistic treatments of maternal grief. Articles are examined within the constructs of confession literature and within the larger context of women's popular literature. Like working-class women's experiences of reproductive loss, these areas have been largely overlooked, dismissed, or denigrated by literary scholars and sociologists. The moral tone of True Story gives women's first-person narratives about infant death and pregnancy an ambiguous prescriptive quality, in that both self-empowerment and self-blame are recommended. True Story re...
TL;DR: Aboriginal fringe-dwellers in Central Australia emphasize their independence of the white-dominated world around them as discussed by the authors, and women have developed variations on this perspective of independence and personal power.
Abstract: Aboriginal fringe-dwellers in Central Australia emphasize their independence of the white-dominated world around them. Because of differences in their means of support, men and women have developed variations on this perspective of independence and personal power. Men present themselves in terms of their white employers and base their personal collateral on those links. Women stress their ability to care for their families without help from others and present themselves as able to play all social roles in the Central Australian world. This image of woman as universal actor places moral premiums on the protection of domestic interests at the expense of wider gender, ethnic, or class interests. These ideas are explored through analysis of the life story of one woman, Katy Mayhew. Although obtained in an interview setting, the occasion of Katy's story became a life event through which she, her daughter, and her “sisters” reflected upon their lives as Aboriginal women in Central Australia. It is argued that l...
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the orientation of 150 women autoworkers toward feminism and found that women's feelings of being trapped in a job, their feelings of job competence, and their self-esteem were significant determinants of feminist orientations.
Abstract: This article analyzes the orientation of 150 women autoworkers toward feminism. Demographic variables had no significant independent effects when considered with other variables. Age, marital status, and education did have noteworthy mediated effects. Seniority level, workplace threat, and job skills were significant determinants of feminist orientations. Women's feelings of being trapped in a job, their feelings of job competence, and their self-esteem were also important factors. The interrelationships among the variables suggested that there are two routes to profeminist attitudes. One route is followed by older, higher-seniority women who develop a positive stance toward feminism as a result of mostly positive work-related experiences (high skills, high job competence, high self-esteem). The other route is followed by younger, divorced, or college-educated women whose negative work-related experiences (low seniority, low job skills, high job entrapment, low job competence) apparently sensitize them to...
TL;DR: Hong and Mandle as discussed by the authors showed that if all couples stop at two regardless of the sex of the second child, the following would result: 67 percent of boys would be in families receiving the subsidies pertaining to the One Child Glory Certificate and 67% of only children would be only children.
Abstract: In their recent exchange on the potential effects of the one-child policy on gender equality in China Lawrence K. Hong (1987) and Joan D. Mandle (1987) overlook a detrimental effect of the policy. Since the program offers monetary and other rewards to couples with one child and couples that produce a boy are more likely to stop at one girls are put at an economic disadvantage. In the "worst case" scenario all couples whose first child was a boy would stop at one and claim their rewards while all whose first child was a girl would forego the rewards and have a second child. Assuming all couples stop at two regardless of the sex of the second child the following would result: 67 percent of boys would be in families receiving the subsidies pertaining to the One Child Glory Certificate and 67 percent of boys would be only children. On the other hand no family with a girl would receive a subsidy and all girls would have a brother or sister. This would place a double onus on girls. First no girl would enjoy the subsidies special nursery schools and preferential treatment in education that have been promised to only children. Most boys would. More important is the systematic demographic inequality engendered by sex-selective transition to a second birth: All girls would share parental attention and investment with a brother or sister while most boys would enjoy undiluted parental attention and investment. For both reasons other things being equal girls would get substantially less than boys. (excerpt)