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Society’s institutional framework – its rules, norms, beliefs and practices – means that individuals and social groups not only start from different places, but also have different opportunities to improve their situation in the course of their lives.
Box 3.2 Intersecting Inequalities and the State
Institutional inequalities in one area can be offset or worsened by access or exclusion in another. For example, inequalities in a community on the basis of caste, race or gender can be countered by anti-discrimination laws in employment or by the ability of subordinate groups to take advantage of new opportunities in the market place. On the other hand, prejudice by employers or exclusionary practices by trade unions and professional associations can make these inequalities worse. Society’s institutional framework – its rules, norms, beliefs and practices – means that individuals and social groups not only start from different places, but also have different opportunities to improve their situation in the course of their lives. Given its importance in the overall governance of society, the state can play a critical role in maintaining, reinforcing or countering inequalities in other domains.
Institutions and Gender Inequality
Gender inequality, the main focus of this book, is one of the most pervasive forms of inequality. This is not just because it is present in most societies, but also because it cuts across other forms of inequality (see introduction to Chapter 1). It is constructed through both:
the formal laws and statutes that make up the official ideologies of a society and its institutions; and
the unwritten norms and shared understandings that help shape everyday behaviour in the real world.
Gender inequality . . . is one of the most pervasive forms of inequality . . . not just because it is present in most societies, but also because it cuts across other forms of inequality.
Although gender inequality is thus found throughout society, institutional analyses of it generally start by looking at kinship and family. This is because these are the primary forms of organisation that are inherently gendered. Women’s and men’s roles and responsibilities in the domestic domain also reveal how the wider society views their natures and capabilities and hence constructs gender difference and inequality. In addition, a great deal of productive, as well as reproductive, activity is organised through kinship and family. This is particularly the case among the poor in poorer parts of the world. Consequently, even when women and men participate in the wider economy, their participation is partly structured by relations in the household.
Families and kinship are different from other institutions because of the nature of the relationships within them. These are usually based on intimate ties of blood, marriage and adoption (in contrast to the more impersonal relationships of contract and statute found in the market and state). They are also generally ‘gender-ascriptive’. In other words, to be a husband, wife, brother or daughter is to be a male or a female. In most societies, women are associated with the functions of care and maintenance. These include bearing and rearing children and the wider range of activities necessary to the survival and well-being of family members on a daily basis. While men may participate in some of these activities, particularly in training boys ‘how to be men’ or sharing in certain household chores, they tend to have far less involvement than women.
Women thus play a key role in unpaid processes of social
reproduction (i.e. reproducing society’s human resources on a daily and intergenerational basis). They may also predominate when these activities are shifted into the market, for example, nursing, teaching and social work. However, the part they play in production and accumulation – and the form that their involvement takes – varies considerably across cultures. Different rules, norms and values govern the gender division of labour and the gender distribution of resources, responsibilities, agency and power. These are critical elements for understanding the nature of gender inequality in different societies. Ideas and beliefs about gender in the domestic sphere often get reproduced in other social relations, either consciously as gender discrimination or unconsciously as gender bias. Rather than being impersonal, state or market institutions thus become ‘bearers of gender’. They position women and men unequally in access to resources and assign them unequal value in the public domain.
Regional Perspectives on Gender Inequality
Gender inequality varies at the regional level, suggesting a ‘geography’ of gender. This geography reflects systematic regional differences in:
the institutions of kinship and family;
the household patterns they have given rise to; and
the associated gender division of resources and responsibilities.
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women participation in politics lawal shehu | Oct 8th, 2010
women needs to be involved in political administration of their respective constituencies where information about their problems will be heard and addressed by the appropriate institution not necessarily the government but the voluntary institutions who cares about women.
AN HERBAL REMEDY FOR HERPES Mercy Junior | Apr 3rd, 2020
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