Gender Stratification

In many societies, gender stratification favors males. According to many anthropologists, gender divisions of labor progressed into gender stratification favoring men when many societies abandoned foraging in favor of farming. Previous foraging subsistence valued the work of women because their vegetable food-gathering and small-animal trapping provided a majority of the daily caloric requirements. The shift to agricultural lifestyles involved long days of hard manual labor, in which male biological differences were favored. (Buchmann & Charles, p. 68)

As men became the primary food producers, there was a shift of women and domestic tasks to an inferior status. Also, in many societies, males are granted access to the public sphere and the outside world, which gives those experiences and power over females who do not possess access to such experiences. However, the gender roles and expectations are too great for some. Individuals sometimes feel they do not belong to their sex or gender. In some societies, there is a place for these people whose sex and gender do not correspond, individuals who feel they are neither man nor woman. (Nelson & Bridges, p. 54)

A man or a woman is associated with its own unique set of roles, each with its deleterious consequences. The effects of gender socialization in conjunction with the societal constraints arising from the gendered division of social roles act to create and reinforce women's and men's perceptions of how best to act and respond to social expectations. Men feel the pressure to meet their gender roles by being career-minded, promotion-driven primary wage earners whereas women try to live up to the expectations of homemaker, caretaker, and support giver. (Buchmann & Charles, p. 75)

To understand diversity in gender and sexual orientation it is important to distinguish between sex and gender. Sex is a biological and anatomical classification referring to the chromosomes present in an individual; females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome. Men and women also differ biologically in primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Primary sexual characteristics are genitals and reproductive organs, while secondary sexual characteristics are often breasts, voice differences, and hair. But there are other differences in male and female biology beyond sexual characteristics. Sexual dimorphism refers to those nonsexual differences such as height, weight, muscle mass, lung capacity, and endurance. (Buchmann & Charles, p. 80)

Today, there is quite a bit of overlap in these areas but these differences existed to a greater degree throughout human evolution. As opposed to sex, gender refers to the cultural construct that defines acceptable male and female behavior. These gender roles vary widely across the globe. Anthropologists have identified recurring themes in gender divisions of labor, but gender roles differ with the environment, economy, and political system of societies. Because gender differences exist in societies, often gender stratification develops. Gender stratification is the unequal distribution of power between males and females that reflects their different positions in the hierarchy (Eagly, p. 114)

Gender identity describes how to identify each point of view sex as a man or as a woman. Most people usually have a combination of sensations, some sensation of "male" or "masculine", another part of women's thoughts. The meaning of gender identity is psychological, social and legal persons. The feeling of ...