WEEK 6 LECTURE

QUESTION: EXPLAIN GENDER RELATION IN THE HOME AND IN THE WORKPLACE.

GENDER RELATION HOME WORKPLACE 1. On average, womens wages are only 81 percent of mens wages (See 2005 U.S. Department of Labor report.) 2. The men and women earn for the exact same job position and the exact same job responsibilities. One of the reasons women are paid less money for the same work, is that women are paid based on gender stereotypes. 3. One of the most common stereotypes is that women dont need equal pay because they are married. (See Your Rights in the Workplace at p. 7/34.) 4. The husband is often thought of as the breadwinner and the wifes salary is often seen as simply a supplement to the husbands salary, and is thus justified to be a lower amount. 5. Further, studies show that women are often stereotyped as the ones who take care while men are stereotyped as the ones who take charge, the latter being a notion more connected to prerequisite behaviors for top-level job positions.

1. In Asian countries, traditionally, the female role was to be in charge of domestic matters. e.g. : serving her husband, looking after her children, and performing household chores like cooking and cleaning. 2. This type of female was appreciated as "virtuous". An old Chinese proverb on women states: "Talentless is virtuous". "Tolerance" and "obedience" were womens attitudes towards their lives. 3. According to this gender "philosophy", in ancient China, women had no right to go to school. Schooling was available only for a rich familys male figures. 4. Family was the single content of a womens life, which in turn was regarded as yet another virtue. It is because of this social moral concept, that women, after they were born, together with their family began to prepare for their marriage passively 5. Marriage was the only measurement for a womans life value. Fem ales had no self-esteem or a concept of their own selfhood. Instead, society viewed them as an appurtenant of their husband.

WHY GENDER RELATION AT HOME HAPPEN? 1. The influence of a "men-dominated" social system where the male dominates the activities related to economics. 2. The economy mode, to a certain extent, decides the social position of men and women: men are the center of family and society, which women are a part of property of men. 3. Followed by this gender stereotype, responding social characteristics emerge. E.g. : the family mode of one husband having several wives; men are the definite economycontroller of family and society, etc.

WHY GENDER RELATION AT WORKPLACE HAPPEN? 1. The husband is often thought of as the breadwinner. 2. The men often thought as the take charge