Welcome to Gender and Society

Introduction to the Module

• Introductions• Why gender? • Why feminism?• Early feminists• What next?

Who are we?

• Pam Lowe

– Lectures

• Anna Gruszczynska

– Tutorials

Why is gender important?

• Talk to the person sitting next to you about what gender means to you?

First words

‘Sugar and Spice and all things niceThat’s what little girls are made ofSlugs and snails and puppy dogs tailsThat’s what little boys are made of’

Traditional UK nursery rhyme

Girl or Boy

• On birth, babies are divided.– Blankets, hospital wristband, baby books,

cards etc• They are assigned a sex and with this

goes normative ideas of appropriate behaviour

• This effects their entire lives

The big picture

• There is no country in the world where women earn as much as men. On average women earn from 50% to 80 % of men’s wages

• 2/3 of the world’s illiterates are women• 3/5 of the 115 million children out of school are

girls; • Just 15.6% of members elected to parliaments

(both houses combined) in the world are women; • Only 2 of the United Nations General Assembly

presidents have been women• Source http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-URL_ID=8277&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Accessed 29/09/08

The UK

• Girls now do better than boys in gaining GCSEs and A levels

• Women in full-time work get paid on average 17% less than men

• Women in part-time work get paid on average 40% less than men.

• Only 19% of MPs are women.• Only 25% of UK MEPs are women• Source: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

What do you think?

• Were you surprised about this picture of inequality?

What is femimism?

• No one sort of feminism• Lots of different positions within the UK

and across the world• All have one thing in common• They believe that as a group women are

disadvantaged in relation to men, and wish to expose/challenge/overcome this disadvantage

When did feminism start?

• The widespread adoption of the term from the 1960s

• But feminist thinking as a much longer history

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97)

• A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

• Castigated as a ‘hyena in petticoats’

• Ideas still relevant today

Mary’s central argument

• ‘Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and they should be beautiful, everything else is needless, for at least twenty years of their lives’

• Wollstonecraft, M (1992) A Vindication of the Rights of WomenLondon penguin p100

Mary’s central argument

• Girls are trained to be feminine• They are not encouraged to the same sort

of ambitions as boys• Women could be as clever as men if they

were given the same access to education

Sojourner Truth

• Famous speech ‘Ain’t I a woman’ 1851• Born in slavery approx 1797• After New York slaves were

freed worked with the

abolitionist movement and

advocated women’s rights

Ain’t I a Woman

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!" And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunders, she asked "And a'n't I a woman?”

“Look at me! Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear de lash a well! And a'n't I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'n't I a woman?”Source http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_sojourner_truth_woman.htm accessed 20/09/05

Sojourner’s central message

• Women are seen as weaker and less capable of physical activities than men

• But this idea about ‘women’, does not refer to all women

• This norm is based on an image of a middle-class white woman

• Many women work as hard (or harder) than men.

Sojourner’s central message

• Different expectations

of womanhood

I’m not a feminist but…?

• Feminists have often been portrayed as anti-men?

• There were/are a few separatists, but most feminists DO NOT believe that men are the enemy!!!

• Men can, and do, identify themselves as feminists

• Ideas about masculinity, can be just damaging

Are you a feminist?

• What does the name feminist mean to you?

• Would you call yourself a feminist?

The rest of the module

• Week 1 Introduction to the Module• Week 2 The Social Construction of Gender • Week 3 Gendered Education• Week 4 Gender in the workplace • Week 5 Gender and Sexualities• Week 6 Liberal feminisms and the equality and

difference debate• Week 7 Independent Study• Week 8 Socialist Feminisms and the theories of

reproduction• Week 9 Radical Feminism and the continuum of

violence• Week 10 Theories of masculinities• Week 11 Completion and Submission of Learning

Diary

Learning diary

• Important to record as you go through the module

• Important to reflect on your learning• Different ways you can do this

– Standard form– Written/typed comments– Annotated photocopies.

Deadlines

• Week 3 Reflective writing (500 words) Submitted in the lecture in week 3.

• Week 7 Critical analysis (700 words)

Submitted to reception Friday week 7

• Week 11 Completed Learning Diary

Submitted to reception Friday week 11

Summary

• Gender is an important division in society

• There are different versions of feminism

• Introduced Mary Wollstonecraft and Sojourner Truth

• Understood the learning diary.

Next week: The Social Construction of Gender

• History of Feminism up to the Second-wave

• Sex and gender theories

• Relationship between feminism and sociology