SOC263H5 Chapter 3: Gender - Notes.docx
Document Summary
Explanations of gender based inequality: gender, introduced in sociology as a way of avoiding biological essentialist views that were associated with the term sex, used to express the view that there is nothing innate about men or women that makes one sex more suitable for performing a particular task than another, refers to the social construction of difference that is largely organized around biological sex, essentialist perspectives reinforced beliefs that biological differences between men and women determine their disparate positions in society, feminist sociologists identified that it is difficult, if not impossible, to address structural aspects of gender through empirical research, women and men have different experiences in most institutions, example: labour markets are structured that women have fewer opportunities for promotion than men, patterns of gender, in turn, are made obvious through human interaction in our productive, reproductive, and distributive activities, gender involves identity, power, exploitation, and oppression.
