Sociology Unit 2 Race, Gender, & Social Stratification

Unit 2: Social Stratification: Race, Gender & Age Key Terms: ● Social stratification - a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. ● Race - a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. ● Models of urban growth - models have been developed and extensively adopted to study urban expansion and its impact on the ambient environment. ● Central business district - the commercial and business center of a city. ● Hyperghettoization - the extreme concentration of underprivileged groups in the inner cities. ● Suburbanization - a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. ● Gender & sex - the roles, behaviors, activities, attributes and opportunities that any society considers appropriate for girls and boys, and women and men. ● Glass ceiling - a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to minorities) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. ● Pay gap - the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for doing the same work. ● Domestic violence - violence or other abuse in a domestic setting, such as in marriage or cohabitation. ● Heteronormativity - the belief that heterosexuality, predicated on the gender binary, is the norm or default sexual orientation. ● Poverty threshold - dollar amounts set by the U.S. government to indicate the least amount of income a person or family needs to meet their basic needs. ● Wealth - An abundance of valuable material possessions or resources; riches. ● Welfare reform - changes in the operation of a given welfare system, with the goals of reducing the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, keeping the welfare systems affordable, and assisting recipients to become self-sufficient. ● Social mobility - the movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. ● Privilege - a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted group of persons. Gender, Race, and Age ● Gender: refers to the personal and social characteristics but not the biological traits that we associate with different structures. ○ Gender is considered a social construct by many sociologists because it is something that we as a society creates and enforces. ○ Gender is very influential! It influences how we organize society and even how we distribute power. ○ Gender stratification refers to the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege across genders. ■ Example - Women were not allowed to vote for a long time in many countries. In the United States, women were given that right in 1920 and in Saudi Arabia women were only recently allowed to vote in 2015! Patriarchy ● Patriarchy: a form of social organization where men have more power and dominate over other genders. ○ Most societies throughout human history have been patriarchies. These societies are maintained by specific attitudes, behaviors, and systems. ○ These attitudes usually favor men and encourage society to believe that one gender (normally men) are innately better than others. This idea of thought is commonly associated with sexism. Common examples of sexism in society include: ● Women being told to avoid heavy lifting because men are “stronger” ● Young girls being encouraged to be tomboys ● Boys being shamed for liking pink or anything stereotypically feminine ● Women being encouraged to wear ‘revealing’ clothing in an attempt to “get what she wants” ● Boys being told that they need to man up ● Women being told that it would be better for them to stay home and care for their family rather than pursue a lucrative career. Hegemonic masculinity & Emphasized Femininities ● Discovered by sociologist Raewyn Connell ● It is the process of society defining and celebrating certain characteristics as being masculine. ● Hegemonic masculinities are linked to power within societies. This plays into patriarchal dividends. ○ This is a term used to describe the benefits that men receive simply because they are male. ○ Emphasized Femininities is the exact opposite of hegemonic masculinity. ■ Emphasized femininities are forms of femininity that conform to what the ideal female is in men’s eyes. The social reality is that femininities come in many different forms and may or may not be constructed in ways that emphasize stereotypical notions of gender. Gender Expectations ● The first people to teach us about gender are our parents. ● Growing up, many daughters are given dolls to play with and sons are given cars or toy hammers. ● From this, kids associate taking care of others as a feminine act and building/fixing things as a masculine one. ● This is very similar to the societal expectation that men are the breadwinners in families and women will take care of the home and children. ● Studies have even shown that as more women become equal earners outside the home, they still tend to do more work in the household as well. ● Sociologist Arlie Hoch child called this phenomenon the ‘second shift’. ○ This term refers to the common occurrence in which women come home from work to more work (ex: cooking, laundry, childcare) whereas men are more likely to spend their time in leisure after work. ● These gender dynamics are often further reinforced by corporate and governmental policies that set aside parental leave only for women. There are also other less formal influences, like commercials or TV shows that depict fathers who can’t do the laundry or take care of their own kids for a weekend. ● The media also plays a big role in gender ideals because it often promotes ideas like, encouraging women to value youth, beauty, and thinness. It also encourages women to be desirable to men. Gender in Society ● Since the 1970s, the number of women pursuing higher education has increased dramatically. ● Women now make up the majority of all college graduates. What is also interesting is to see how gender can even play a role in education. ● Men are often heavily represented in fields like computer science, economics, and engineering, while women are more likely to go into fields like biology, psychology, or sociology because these degrees often lead to jobs in service or care positions like, education, health care, and administrative roles. ● These jobs are known as “pink collar jobs” because they have the highest concentrations of women in the field while also having less prestige and lower pay. ● The glass ceiling is a term used by sociologists to describe the invisible barrier that stops women from advancing to the top levels of an organization. ○ Despite laws like Title IX, that are set in place to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex and gender, women are often held back through less visibly seen kinds of sexism. ● For example, men who are assertive or overly confident in salary negotiations are more successful in getting a higher salary. But when a woman is seen behaving in a similar manner they tend to be viewed in a negative light, some even consider them to be overconfident or proud. ● One of the results of gender stratification is gender wage gap (which is a direct effect of the example provided above). According to a survey done in 2016, “white women earn about 80 cents for every dollar that white men make”. This gap is wider for non-white women, with Black women earning 65 cents and Hispanic women earning 58 cents for every dollar that white men make. ● While that 20 cent gap isn’t all due to gender discrimination, a lot of it can be explained by differences in education, choices of careers, differences in the hours worked, and differences in experience. However, the last two factors – hours worked and career experience – are often related to the decision to leave the workforce to care for children, which is way more normative for women than for men. Race/Ethnicity ● Race is about more than just the color of someone’s skin. Much like gender, race is a socially constructed category. It’s used to categorize people who share biological traits that a society thinks are important. ● The big question: What's the difference between ethnicity and race? ● For many people this can be a confusing question because they are very similar. Ethnicities are socially constructed categories based on cultural traits that a society finds important, rather than strictly biological traits. As mentioned prior, race is social grouping that is based on shared physical or social qualities. An ethnic group has a shared cultural heritage like language, traditions, and religion. Two people of different races might share an ethnicity and two people of the same race might be of totally different ethnicities. ● Example: Japanese and Vietnamese people are both considered Asian (the same race), but they come from different cultural backgrounds. ● Unlike race, which is based on observable, physical traits, ethnicities aren’t, and two people of the same ethnicity can be entirely different races. ● A person’s race influences a whole host of social outcomes, from their education to their income to their experiences with the criminal justice system. ● Sociologists define a minority as any category of people, who are distinguished by physical or cultural difference, that a society sets apart and subordinates. In sociology, a minority group’s relative size isn’t important. ● For example, women are considered a minority, even though they make up about 51% of the United States. The US Census 6 Categories of Race The US Census uses six different categories of race when collecting data about the demographics of the country. ● White refers to anyone who reports their origins as being from Europe, the Middle East, or Northern Africa (People of Middle Eastern descent are categorized as White by the Census, even if they often aren’t treated as if they’re white). ● Black or African Americans are the second largest racial group in the United States and are defined as individuals with African heritage, including those who are Afro-Caribbean. Since many African Americans’ ancestors were forcibly brought to the United States as slaves, the countries that their ancestors originated from are often unknown. ● The third racial category used in the Census is ‘American Indian or Alaska Native,’ which refers to anyone whose origins are indigenous to the contiguous United States and Alaska. ● The fourth Census category for race, Asian, refers to origins in Eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including China, India, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Vietnam. ● The fifth Census category is Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, which refers to people whose origins are from Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. ● The last Census category is just ‘Some Other Race.’ Social Stratification ● The question of what it means to deserve wealth, or success, or power, is a matter of social stratification. ● Social stratification is a fancier word used to describe what is commonly known as inequality. ○ It's a system where society categorizes people, and ranks them in a hierarchy. Everything from social status and prestige, to the kind of job you can hold, to your chances of living in poverty, are affected by social stratification. ○ One of the principles of social stratification is that it’s universal, but variable. ■ This means that It shows up in every society on the planet, but it is different by how it divides and categorizes people, and the advantages or disadvantages that come with that division. ■ Stratification is a characteristic of society, and not a matter of individual differences. It is simply just another way to classify people into groups. We know that people are different because of choices or backgrounds so we might assume that stratification is just a natural outcome of those differences, but it isn't. ■ We know this because we can see the effects of social stratification on people, independent of their personal choices or traits: ● For example, children of wealthy families are more likely to live longer, be healthier, attend college, and excel in school than children that are born into poverty. Social & Horizontal Mobility ● Stratification also persists across generations. ○ Social stratification serves to categorize and rank members of society, resulting in different life chances. But generally, society allows some degree of social mobility, or changes in position within the social hierarchy. People sometimes move upward or downward in social class. A group of people that have obtained generational wealth are likely to be wealthy across many generations because of where they are in the social hierarchy and how that money passes on over time. A group of people born into poverty may likely remain in that position or slightly move up but when it comes to social hierarchy it is unlikely or very rare that there is any change. This can be described as horizontal mobility because that group can change positions (like a slight increase in pay) without changing your standing in the social hierarchy. Systems ● Sociologists classify stratification systems as being either closed or open. o Closed systems tend to be extremely rigid and allow for little social mobility. In these systems, social position is based on ascribed status, or the social position you inherit at birth. o On the other hand, open systems of stratification allow for much more social mobility, both upward and downward. Social position tends to be achieved, not ascribed. ● Examples of Closed Systems: The Caste Systems (India & Feudal Europe) and South African System of Apartheid. ● Example of an Open System: Class Systems ● The main difference between caste and class systems is that class systems are open and social mobility is not legally restricted to certain people o In class systems, the boundaries between class categories are often blurred and there’s greater opportunity for social mobility. o The American system of stratification is actually founded on this very idea. The American Dream is the common idea held that it’s possible, through hard work and perseverance, to move up the social hierarchy, to achieve a higher class standing. o This highlights another area in which the American class system. It puts a small emphasis on meritocracy, meaning that social mobility is based on personal merit and individual talents. One of the ideals of the American dream is that anyone, no matter how poor, can "pull themselves up" and become wealthy. ● Not every society is strictly a caste system or a class system. Modern Britain is a good illustration of a mixed system of stratification. It still maintains a limited caste system of nobility as a legacy of the feudal system of estates, which survives alongside, and helps reinforce, a class system similar to what we have in the U.S.