(Turner, 2003, pp. 182-194)
Turner, J. (2003). The structure of sociological theory (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thompson/Wadsworth.
Feminist Conflict Theory
In the 1960’s and early 1970s, the obvious gender bias of sociological inquiry was exposed. Both theory and research in sociology had focused on males and, in a very real sense, contributed to patterns of gender inequality. Indeed, if one looks to the early masters of sociological theory, they were conspicuously quiet about gender issues, despite the fundamental facts that roughly one-half of the human population is female and that all patterns of social organizations have historically revealed a gender-based division of labor. When sociological theorizing turned to gender questions, however, theorizing itself became confrontational and conflictual. …critical feminist thinking tended to reject science and “male modes" of thinking about the world in general, offering a variety of new ways to analyze social reality. Yet, many critical feminists stayed within the scientific field, preferring to conceptualize gender process in more neutral theoretical terms. In particular, those in this scientific camp worked within a conflict-theory approach, analyzing gender inequalities as yet another form of conflict-producing stratification. Most of these theorists sought to explain why women have experienced discrimination, and how this discrimination has placed them in disadvantaged positions in the stratification system. …we will examine two prominent examples of feminist theorizing that remain committed to developing laws: Rae Lesser Blumberg and Janet Chafetz.
Rae Lesser Blumberg’s Gender Stratification Theory
Rae Lesser Blumberg developed a theory emphasizing women’s degree of control of the means of production and the distribution of economic surplus.1 Blumberg’s theory is based on a broad empirical knowledge of diverse society types, ranging from hunting and gathering through horticultural and agrarian systems to industrial societies. Her theory thus explains the position of women relative to men in all types of societies, from the earliest to the most complex societies of the late twentieth century. (See Table 11.1.)
Table 11.1 Abbreviated Summary of Blumberg’s
Gender Stratification Theory
Sexual stratification, Blumberg argues, is ultimately driven by the degree to which, relative to men, women control the means of production and the allocation of productive surplus or, in Marxian terms, “surplus value.” Such control gives women economic power that, in turn, influences their level of political power, prestige, and other stratifying resources. In Blumberg’s view, sexual inequalities are “nested” at diverse levels: Male-female relations are nested in households; households are nested in local communities; and if a society is sufficiently large to reveal a coercive state and a system of class stratification, household and community are nested inside of the class structure that, in turn, is lodged within a larger state-managed society. This nesting is important because women’s control of economic resources can be located at different levels, and the level at which their economic power is strongest influences the power that women can command at the other levels of social organization.
Nesting of economic power is marked by what Blumberg calls a discount rate in which women’s economic power will be reduced or enhanced depending on the level at which it is concentrated. If women’s relative economic power is at the micro level of the household (for example, women work and contribute to family income), women will not have household authority proportionate to their economic contribution if males control more macro social spheres. Male control at these more macro levels “discounts” or reduces the power that women should have in the household. Conversely, if women possess power at more macro levels, then the discount rate turns positive and will enhance women’s power at the more micro, household level. Thus, as a general proposition, the more women have economic power at macro levels of social organization, the more they will be able to gain access to other forms of power—political, coercive, ideological—and the more their economic contributions at the micro level will be appreciated and increase their authority within the household and their influence within a community.
Blumberg emphasizes that during time of transition, when women’s economic power relative to men is growing, men are likely to perceive such changes as a threat and to repress physically and politically women’s efforts to gain equal power. Yet, as women’s relative economic power increases, this increase will translate into political influence: If women’s economic power and political influence become consolidated, then political policies working against women will recede, male-supremacist ideologies will decline, and male violence against women will be punished.
Thus, gaining control of economic power—that is, the control of their means of production and the allocation of the fruits of their production—is the critical condition influencing women’s position in the stratification system of a society. What, then, determines when and how women gain economic power? For Blumberg, the key variable is the demand for labor performed by women, especially the strategic indispensability of their labor. In simple societies without class stratification, women’s participation is a function of (1) the demand for their labor relative to the supply of labor and (2) the degree o compatibility of this productive labor with the reproductive (especially breast feeding) labor that women must also perform. In class-stratified systems, the demand for labor becomes more important as other arrangements can be made for child care. In these complex systems, women can begin to move into male-dominated positions when there is a shortage of men to perform the activity (such as when men are at war, or the demographics of war have created shortages of men in the population) or when the economic activity of women is sufficiently valuable for traditional norms about the sexual division of labor to change.
Thus, the strategic indispensability of women’s labor becomes one of the most important determinants of women’s access to economic power. When women’s activities are defined as important, their indispensability increases, but other conditions influence indispensability: (a) the extent to which women control technical expertise, (b) the degree to which women can work autonomously from male supervision, (c) the size, scale, and level of organization in women’s work groups, (d) the degree to which women can organize on their own behalf and pursue their interests, and (e) the degree to which women can avoid competition from workers (other groups of women, slaves, immigrants, and the like) who can be used as substitutes for women’s labor.
The kinship system also influences women’s capacity to gain economic power. Blumberg see inheritance rules as the most crucial: That is, can women inherit and control property? If so, then they can exercise economic power. Next most important is the residence rule of kinship: Does a bride continue to reside with or near her kin in their community? If so, then she can control domestic property and secure necessary support and coercive backup form her local family. Another influence from kinship comes from the descent rule: Is the system matrilineal (with property and power passing through the female’s side of the family) or patrilineal (with property and power coming from the male’s side)? If the system is matrilineal, women retain more power (even though much of the property and power goes through the male kin who will, nonetheless, provide support in dealings with her husband).
In addition to strategic indispensability and kinship rules, an important factor influencing women’s economic power is the way surplus and other resources are distributed. When communal relations of production prevail, where men and women equally share work and its outputs, women will have more economic power than in systems where men control the means of production and distribution of its surplus. Such male control increases with class stratification’ inequalities are high along every front, including the distribution of power, prestige, property, and opportunities for the respective sexes. Under these conditions, especially if women cannot inherit or control property, their ability to gain economic power is dramatically reduced. In these stratified systems, however, those at the bottom of the stratification ladder will have virtually no property, creating a situation where men and women will share their misery more equally. Conversely, as one moves up the class ladder in such systems, inequalities between the sexes increase, and females are denied access to economic power.
Without economic power, Blumberg argues, women are denied honor and prestige, and more important, they have less control over such basic matters as their fertility patterns (when and how many children to have), their marriages (when, if, and with whom), their rights to seek a divorce, their premarital sex, their access to extramarital sex, their household activities, their levels and types of education, and their freedom to move about and pursue diverse interests and opportunities. Thus, economic power has important consequences for what women can, or cannot do in a society. And, Blumberg emphasizes, it is not just women’s economic participation that matters; rather, does such economic participation translate into control of one’s own productive activities and the distribution of the outputs from this productive activity? If women’s work is strategically indispensable, if kinship facilitates their inheritance and acquisition of property, and if stratification at the macro level does not so blatantly favor men, then women can gain economic power. Without such economic power, sexual stratification will be high, but with this economic power, the degree gender inequality will decline. Table 11.1 summarizes Blumberg’s main argument in propositional form somewhat shorter than her longer list of propositions or hypotheses.
Janet Saltzman Chafetz’s Gender Equity Theory
Janet Chafetz has been one of the most prominent feminist theorists committed to developing scientific explanations of gender stratification. Her most ambitious effort, Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change,2 presents a set of models and propositions to explain both the forces maintaining a system of gender inequality as well as a theory of how such a system can be changed. As she emphasizes, the two are interrelated because “a theory of the maintenance and reproduction of gender systems is a theory of change targets, because it identifies the critical variables that sustain the status quo and, therefore, must be changed.”3
The Maintenance of Gender Stratification
Chafetz argues that two types of forces sustain a system of gender inequality: (1) those that are coercive and (2) those that are voluntaristic acts by individuals. The two are interrelated, but Chafetz initially theorizes about them as separate forces.
Coercive Bases of Gender Inequality Gender stratification, Chafetz contends, is ultimately related to the macro-level division of labor in a society. If this division is gendered—that is, work is defined and distributed based on a person’s sex—males will typically receive more resources than will women, and this material resource advantage will translate into differences in power between men and women at the micro, interpersonal level. The more males have a material and power advantage over their wives stemming from the gendered division of labor, the more men will use this power in their relations with wives, and as a result, the more likely are wives to defer to, and comply with, the demands of their husbands.4 Thus, once there is a macro-level division of labor that favors men, this system gives men power advantages for interpersonal demands and, as a result, makes them less likely to contribute to family and domestic work. Wives thus become burdened with domestic chores, even when they work, which makes it increasingly difficult for them to compete with men for resource-generating work outside the home—a situation that, in turn, sustains the macro-level gendered division of labor.
When men have advantages in the macro-level division of labor, they are also more likely to be incumbents in those elite societal positions to which power resources accrue. The more male control these elite power positions, the more likely the distribution of opportunities in both power and work roles outside the home will favor men over women.5 Once this situation exists, the attitudes and behaviors in work roles will continue to give men advantages, because these roles will be viewed as attributes favoring men over women. Indeed, the attributes of women will often be negatively evaluated, thereby perpetuating the advantage of men in competition with women for those positions generating material and power resources.
These definitional processes at the macro level filer down not only to micro-level interactions between men and women, especially between husbands and wives, but to virtually all inter-gender interactions as well. As men control material and power resources, while using this resource advantage to define and, hence, ideologically control the work situation, men can use this same definitional power to regulate micro encounters between men and women. If women accept their male interaction partners’ definitions of reality, they are more likely to defer to men and to play gender-traditional domestic roles that, in turn, support the macro-level bias in the division of labor.
This process is exacerbated because men control elite positions in the broader society and can, therefore, perpetuate definitions of worth that favor men; these definitions typically lead to the devaluation of the work that women perform, inside and outside of the domestic sphere. For example, domestic family work of a wife goes unpaid and, hence, undervalued, whereas traditional work roles for women, such as secretary, are underpaid because they are not valued as highly as are roles performed by men.
Gender social definitions become, in Chafetz’s model, a critical link between macro- and meso-level coercive processes and voluntaristic processes that operate more typically at the personal, decision-making level. Chafetz distinguishes among three types of gender definitions: (1) gender ideology or beliefs about the basic and, typically, presumably biological differences in the natures of men and women; (2) gender norms or expectations about the appropriate and proper ways for men and women to behave; and (3) gender stereotypes or accentuation of the differences between men and women in how they will generally respond in situations. For Chafetz, the greater the level of consensus is among members of a population on these gender definitions and the more the gendered differences are presumed by individuals to be the way the sexes are, the more power these definitions have to influence both macro- and micro-level social processes sustaining gender inequality. In general, Chafetz argues, the gender ideology sets the constraints for gender norms that then contribute to gender stereotyping about the differences between men and women.
Voluntaristic Bases of Gender Inequality The more the economic division of labor, the distribution of incumbents in elite positions, and the cultural definitions of a society reveal a gender bias, the more likely members of the adult generation are to evidence gender differentiation in their work and home activities. As a result, adults become both role models and active socializing agents for engendering the next generation in their behaviors, expectations for their future, and definitions of what is real and appropriate. To the extent that this engenderment occurs via family and other socialization forces, individuals “voluntarily” act in ways sustaining macro-level division of labor and cultural definitions about differences between men and women, while reproducing these gender differences in micro-level encounters between men and women.
These basic ideas, which Chafetz presents as a systematic list of propositions and a series of causal models, constitute the core of her argument about the maintenance of gender inequality and stratification. Table 11.2 presents the core propositions in highly abbreviated form.
As Chafetz emphasizes, however, once the forces maintaining a system are understood, the critical targets for change are also identified. Much of her approach involves an effort to use understanding of the maintenance forces to construct what she terms “gender system changes.”6 From the theory, the obvious targets for changing a system of gender inequality are (1) the gender division of labor, (2) the resulting superior resource power of men, (3) the social definitions comprising gender ideologies, norms, and stereotypes, and (4) the engenderment process that differentiate the orientation, expectations, and behaviors of men and women.
Table 11.2 Abbreviated Summary of Chafetz’s Theory
on the Maintenance of Gender Stratification
Changing Systems of Gender Inequality and Stratification
Many of the processes generating changes in gender stratification, whether long-term change in the distribution of resources or shorter-term oscillations in the opportunities for women, are external to the gender system itself. Forces such as technological changes, demographic shifts in the age and composition of the population, changes in the structure of the economy, and the geopolitical forces like war and migration can all exert pressures on the system of gender inequality. Chatetz conceptualizes these as “unintentional change processes,” and her argument runs as follows:
Demographic Variables Expansion of the working-age population will tend to decrease the opportunities for women, holding steady the number of actual work roles available in a society, whereas a decline in the working-age population will increase opportunities for women in the economic division of labor. Sex ratios also have much the same effects: As the sex ratio of men to women drops below parity, opportunities for women increase; if the reverse is true and the proportion of men relative to women increases, opportunities for women will decline.
Technological Variables Changes in technology have important effects on gender stratification. Technology can alter, Chafetz argues, the strength requirements, the mobility required, and the capacity to work outside the home and its domestic responsibilities. The greater is the amount of change along these variables, the greater will be the effects of technology on gender stratification. In general, when technologies reduce the strength requirements of work outside of the home (which, as Chafetz emphasizes, are typically exaggerated by males anyway), when less physical mobility is required, and when the obligations of child rearing and household can be overcome by technology, the opportunities for women will increase, thereby reducing the effects of the gendered division of labor on gender inequality. Conversely, when strength requirements, mobility, and domestic burdens are all high, or perceived to be so by virtue of gender definitions, then opportunities for women decline. Moreover, technological change that renders obsolete the skills of any gender, whether the male or female, will work against women because men will enjoy a competitive advantage in seeking new resource-gathering work roles.
Economic Variables Structural changes in the economy, typically driven by both demographic and technological transformations, will also influence gender stratification. An expanding economy will help women gain access to resource-gathering work roles, as long as men are fully employed. The reverse is also true: A retracting economy will decrease opportunities for women. Deskilling of jobs is an important form of economic change, as technologies (particularly information systems but mechanical ones as well) are used to perform tasks that once required skill. Because of men’s favored position of power in the division of labor, their jobs will be less likely to be de-skilled than will those occupied by women, or at the very least, men’s jobs will be de-skilled less rapidly.
Political Variables Conflicts in the political arena can be external or internal. Chafetz argues that, regardless of the case, conflict will tend to strengthen traditional gender definitions. Internal conflict is especially likely to do so, and the more prolonged the conflict, the more likely this is to be the case. Even when women can assume traditional male roles during a conflict, as when men are gone to war, Chafetz argues that traditional gender definitions will still be strengthen and that the opportunities presented to women because the sex ratio has dropped below parity will be only temporary. When men return from war women will be displaced, or, if a large number of men have been killed, women will be displaced as the pool of male labor is replenished and engendered.
These demographic, technological, economic, and political forces are, as Chafetz stresses, often unintended’ they simply occur as the world economy and technologies on which it runs change, and the political and the international politics among nations are altered, and as the international migration of populations unfolds over time. Yet, much change in gender stratification is intentional, involving deliberate acts to alter the distribution of resources among men and women.
One source of intended change is, at first glance, not easily predicted: elite males who control key positions actively seeking to change gender stratification. Chafetz argues that two conditions cause this kind of elite-initiated change to occur: (1) when elites perceive that gender inequality threatens their incumbency as elites or thwarts their plans for the society; and (2) when competing factions of elites need to recruit women to their side to prevail in a conflict. Under these conditions, elites will attempt to mobilize women’s support in exchange for promises to ameliorate women’s disadvantages in the division of labor and in the system of gender definitions.
Whether or not initiated by such top-down efforts by elites, women’s mobilization to pursue their interests is influenced by other forces, especially industrialization, urbanization, and expansion of the middle classes. When these events occur, middle-class women might begin to seek expanded opportunities outside their domestic responsibilities, and they are more likely to have the resources (material, educational, and symbolic-ideological) to pursue opportunities. As they do so, however, they confront the existing system of gender stratification, which creates role dilemmas. As women overcome these dilemmas, they acquire a sense of efficacy and begin to change their frames of reference in ways counter to dominant gender definitions. As women pursue interests outside the domestic sphere with this changed frame of reference, especially if they do so in a context where other women are also in proximity pursuing the same goals, they will experience an escalated sense of deprivation as they encounter the gendered division of labor and the distribution of power. For now, they interpret these obstacles in light of a sense that they deserve more than old gender definitions allowed, and their sense of deprivation increases relative to their dramatically escalated expectations for what is possible, or what should be possible.
When women experience these sentiments collectively and in proximity, they begin to form women’s movement organizations to pursue the interests of women in eliminating or at least mitigating gender inequality. Even if these movements split into diverse factions, the ideological and political ferment created will begin to erode old gender definitions and to instill those of the more moderate organizations of the women’s movement. As public support increases for these moderate definitions, more expansive efforts to change the gender-biased division of labor, the system of gender ideology, norms, and stereotypes, and the distribution of power can proceed. And, if elites begin to support these efforts, the women’s movement will proceed more rapidly and successfully.
Yet, Chatez emphasizes, successful mobilization of women inevitably generates a sense of threat among powerful interest groups in a society. The greater this sense of threat is, the more likely those threatened are to lobby against efforts of the women’s movement. Such threat need not always come from threatened males, but can also come from women who are committed to traditional gender roles and definitions. Such efforts to thwart the goals of women’s movements can be influenced by the internal conflicts within the movement and its ideologies. Internal conflict, per se, consumes resources that could be mobilized to pursue the goals of the movement. Equally important, conflict creates alienation and disaffection from some part of the movement, giving anti-feminist men and women potential allies.
The basic ideas from Chafetz’s propositions on change are summarized in abbreviated form in Table 11.3. These dynamics of conflict mobilization appear within a broader cultural, political, technological, economic, and demographic context. Thus, political conflict, whether internal or external to the nation, produces cultural conservatism that, in turn, strengthens traditional gender definitions in ways that can work against efforts by women to mobilize. If gender definitions are highly conservative and biased against women, mobilization will encounter resistance, regardless of whether or not the movement occurs within the context of political conflict. Economic and demographic forces, described earlier, can also work against a movement; if the economy contracts, if technologies de-skill, or if migration alters the supply of male workers or sex ratios, these forces can work against women’s efforts to change gender definitions and the division of labor, as well as the distribution of power.
Table 11.3 Abbreviated Summary of Chafetz Theory
on Change in Gender Stratification
Conclusion
These two theories are representative of more scientifically oriented feminist approaches.7 Gender inequalities will exist when men control disproportionate resources, and conversely, they will decline as women gain economic, political, and ideological resources. To gain access to these resources requires, however, mobilization by women and their allies, and there other conditions influence how effective this mobilization can be. This kind of theorizing tries to cast gender inequality in a more comparative light, viewing patterns of gender stratification in all types of societies—past, present, and future…
Notes
1. Rae Lesser Blumberg, “A General Theory of Gender Stratification,” Sociological Theory 2 (1984), pp. 23-101.
2. Janet Saltzman Chafetz, Gender Equity: An Integrated Theory of Stability and Change (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990). See also her Sex and Advantage: A Comparative Macro-Structural Theory of Sexual Stratification (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1984).
3. Chafetz, Gender Equity (cited in note 24), p. 17.
4. Ibid., p. 48.
5. Ibid., p. 54.
6. Ibid., pp. 99-220.
7. For an effort to reconcile both Blumberg’s and Chafez’s theories with other in the conflict tradition, see Randall Collins, Janet Saltman Chafetz, Roe Lesser Blumberg, Scott Coltrane, and Jonathan H. Turner, “Toward and Integrated Theory of Gender Stratification,” Sociological Perspectives 36 (3, 1993), pp. 185-216.
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