Gender and Power Relations

Patriarchy is a social system in which males holds power and predominate major political roles and leadership, authority and privilege. In the family, fathers and grandparents holds the power to control over women and children. Most patriarchal society is patrilineal that the authority is automatically passed down from father to son, and the cycle continues on without any female interference. Patriarchal society has predominated most societies in history.

Throughout centuries of human existence, women have been deemed as inferior to men in multiple different cultures and religions. Men have developed a norm to be the individual who carries out duties to help maintain a stable life for himself and the family in which he is providing for. Because of this fundamentalist approach towards how society should be, women’s rights have been suppressed throughout political, social, and cultural actions. The Islamic religion in particular, is fond of abusing the rights of women and empowering the rights of men in such a way that it has created a permanent existence of conflict within countries who follow Islam. In fact, in the Quran it states that women must have lesser authority than men, therefore their

In many shops, there seems to be an obvious separation between boys and girls items, for example, the birthday cards, books, clothes, and toys. This is shown in a variety of ways the boy's items are mainly the color blue and the books have pictures of either action figures, superheroes or tools. Whereas the girl's items are mainly the color pink. The books show pictures of fairies, princess, and Bratz. The cards also have the theme of the color pink for girls and blue for boys. The girl's cards have a lot of sparkles and pretty pictures whereas the boy's cards are covered in camo kind of illustrations and also have action figures on the covers. The children's clothes are separated into sections where there are labels for the boy's clothes and labels for the girl's clothes. The girl's clothing is all pretty and pink, it is covered in sparkles. Whereas boys clothing has camo patterns, blue colors, and pictures of action figures.

In present day all around the world, society has certain expectations for the actions and behaviors of males and females. There are many factors in our everyday lives that contribute to the gender norms that society has set. This essay will discuss how situations in life can play a part in how people treat other people based on their gender. It is believed that males are the leaders of our world, but in present day woman can do as much as men can do. From The Journal of Marriage and Family, Hu states, “Differentiated gender roles in adulthood are rooted in one’s gender role socialization. In order to understand the persistence of gender inequalities in the domestic sphere, we need to examine the gendered patterns of children’s housework time.”(2015, P.1). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes, and activities of males and females that they must be taught. These roles define how females and males are viewed in society, their household, and workplace. In The Journal of Sports behavior by Hardin, he states, “Although gender role differences from biological and “Natural” exists in popular consciousness, research has long demonstrated that instead, many are long time socially constructed… Individuals understand their gender because they are given names and treated in particular ways, such as dress in pink for girls and blue for boys, that reflect social construction of gender. Bandura's social cognitive theory is key in understanding the factors in socialization”(2009, P.3). Bandura's theory of of social cognition is that behavior, environmental events, and cognitive factors are the main keys that shape attitudes and actions of an individual. Although, gender roles play a very big part in our society, specific genders are treated differently while dealing with peer influence, media influence, as well as employment.

First, it is imperative that one knows what exactly patriarchy is: “a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women” (“Patriarchy”). Any social structure where men outrank women, where men are provided with an unequal increase in opportunities, or any system that instills stereotypical traits, or gender roles, falls under this category.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière’s Tartuffe satirizes the role of women in an irrational patriarchy. Tartuffe, a hypocrite who claims his evil intentions to be religious, finds his way into Orgon’s household and family which he intends to take away from him. Orgon is blind to Tartuffe’s actions and refuses to hear reason from his family until it is almost too late. Through this play, we see Elmire, who differentiates from other women around her.

In current society, social divisions focus a lot on the prospects of people within each society. This essay will piece together the reasons behind concepts such as women being forced into unpaid labour, male dominance over females in employment, the sexualization of women in the media as well as inequalities within violence. Through discussing each of these concepts, we can compare the historical context of gender inequalities to the present day to see if things have improved or deteriorated in modern society. Before looking into the concepts of gender inequalities, we must first explore gender itself which is the division into two groups - men and women. Gender inequality is definitely something

primogeniture- Primogeniture is the practice of giving inheritance to the eldest son, this led to the younger

Over the course of history, gender inequalities have been a prevalent issue amongst countries around the world. The notion, women are inferior to men has shaped their treatment in all aspects of life. Women were subjected to a patriarchal role in society, the men worked and women took care of domestics to some degree greater or lesser depending the country they resided in. In the late 19th and early 20th century women started rising up against male dominated societies in feminist movements. These movements were campaigns and reform plans to combat issues of equal pay, sexual violence, and denial of suffrage, reproductive rights, equal job opportunities and property rights. Thus observing women in Great Britain and Saudi Arabia today one can see how the role women play in society has dramatically changed from 1800s till now.

Defined simply however, it implies a system in which the father or a male member who is considered as the head of the family, controls all economic and property resources, makes all the major decisions of the family and thereby maintains ongoing control over all members of the family and those related to it. Very clearly, this system establishes male dominance and control over women in society, in general, and particularly so within the family. The ‘unequal power relationship’ between men and women, accrues power to men in an important institution of society. Thus, it is important to see patriarchy as both an ideology of women's subordination and control, and, a concept of struggle against the

As defined by Dictionary.com, patriarchy is, “a social system in which power is held by men, through cultural norms and customs that favor men and withhold opportunity from women.” This has been the foundation of many feminist jurisprudence theories as they attempt to rectify the ramifications of the patriarchy. Issues that have been often cited by feminist jurisprudence theorists range from the gender wage gap, lack of educational and employment opportunities for women, and the need to protect women from rape and domestic

Usually I have a natural affiliation to viewing texts as a feminist, but recently this has been turned around. Masculinity is often perceived as the ideal trait for a man and this masculinity can be explored through the aspects of dominance, objectification, ownership and the space this dominance has in our society. The masculine lens puts most of its emphasis on strength and dominance, the idea of being able to control others. The epitome of a man's man can assert himself over others often by controlling physical and conscious space. This frequently violent type of masculinity has a huge influence over the feminine as well as creating a feeling of insignificance for men who do not fulfil this type. “Taking a ‘gender perspective' is often assumed to mean highlighting the roles, needs and rights of women and girls – vital to addressing persistent gender inequalities in access to power, influence, resources and security.

The Middle East is known for its natural beauty and majestic architecture. Aside from the breathtaking scenery the Middle East offers, people from the Middle East live restrictively in contrast from the people’s lives in the Western countries. In countries such as Egypt, Iran, and Israel, people face constant fear of violence from wars, gender equality and women’s rights are ignored, and the people face poverty. Gender equality and women’s rights in Middle Eastern countries are nowhere to be seen. For instance, in Egypt, killing infant girls because the parents want a boy, is very popular. The murderer of unwanted infant girls is a growing problem in Egypt. But since women are considered inferior to men and also less wanted than men, people

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian, social theorist, philologist and literary critic whose work had a tremendous impact on several disciplines. He was not a sociologist by training, but he worked diligently on sociological issues and otherwise had significant influence on the work of other sociologists. One of his most famous works is the The History of Sexuality, in which he examines the emergence of "sexuality" as a discursive object and separate sphere of life. According to Foucault, the idea that everyone has a sexuality is relatively a recent development in the West. In Volume 1, Foucault discusses the relationship between sex and power in a historical context. He states that the ways in which humans think about sexuality is primarily shaped by the "repressive hypothesis," which claims that Western society had suppressed sexuality from the 17th to the mid-20th century, and this was due to the rise of capitalism and the bourgeois society. There are several key concepts in this book that will be discussed in this paper include repressive hypothesis, sexuality, power, and discourse. This paper will seek to show the ways in which sexuality is a discursive object, and how sexuality was linked to power throughout history.

Patriarchy usually means a family that is male-dominated and headed by the father. It is a social construct in which men and masculine roles are considered to be absolutely superior to women and feminine roles. A society is considered patriarchal when it is male-dominated, male-centered, and male-identified. Being a male-dominated culture means that positions of power and authority in the political, economic, legal, religious, domestic, educational, and military spheres are usually reserved only for men. Male-identification means that a culture’s ‘normal’ way of living is based on men and their lives. Male-dominance means that the culture has been shaped by men in a way that mostly serves male interests. Patriarchal societies are male-identified because their core ideals concerning what is morally right, desirable or normal are connected with how they think about masculinity or men in general. They are always male-centered, with the culture’s focus is