Gender roles and Culture

Gender roles and Culture

The Relationship between Sex and Gender across Cultures

• Differences in sex roles exist universally
• Georgas et al. (2006) study on 27 countries found that women did most of housework.
• Fathers concerned with finances, expressive issues, and childcare in all countries.
• Mothers concerned with childcare only in less-affluent countries.
• Cultures differ in nature and intensity of differentiation between the sexes; gender, gender roles, gender-role ideologies and gender stereotypes.

Gender roles in different cultures

        How gender roles have evolved in different cultures is largely tied to the core values of those cultures. Having lived in Europe, Asia, North America and South America, this writer has seen the evolution of gender roles across cultures first hand. What dominates gender roles can be linked directly back to the expressed values of the home culture, regardless of official religious or political statements about culture.

 In Asia, gender roles have evolved as a result of both economic and political factors. The communist party in China, for example, put out the idea that “women hold up half the sky” as a maxim for absolute gender equality. This was a sharp change from past gender role definitions, where women were encouraged to be housebound, domestically-talented and decorative creatures. The effects of this evolution of gender roles has been seen across the region, where women are fully engaged in the economic process and strong female personalities thrive alongside a culture that endorses strong male personalities as well.

In North America and Europe, the main representatives of “Western” culture, the official line is that men and women are equal. However, it is clear that gender roles have evolved in a way that undercuts this official line. Women continue to earn 77 cents for each dollar of comparable male salaries in America, while in Europe an obsession with political correctness and equality through mandates and regulation undercuts women’s efforts to achieve based on merits throughout the Eurozone. 

Add in a uniquely Western opposition to the household help for career women that is widely accepted in Asia and South America, and one finds a gender role for women that includes highly traditional household responsibilities doubled over with the expectation of career success that is still somehow best only when subservient to a male leader. Those Western women come across as more angry and frustrated than their global counterparts should not really be a surprise.

In South America, gender roles have evolved through a blend of native Incan and invading Spanish influences with a strong family focus. Women’s status as items of beauty continues to be a major part of women’s roles in society, but women are welcomed in all industries as contributors.

Men’s “macho” ideal is a more nuanced gender role than is commonly expressed in the media, with many super-macho’s proving to be sensitive family men who are considerate caregivers without any hesitation about being perceived as unmacho just because they are holding a baby in public. Though chauvinism is a real factor toward women as abstract beings, the strong personalities of South American women make it clear that as individuals, they do not accept gender roles as second class citizens.

Gender roles have evolved in different cultures in different ways around the world, but they can be tied back to core values of their societies. In no part of the world are gender roles fixed in place, and the continuing ways that gender roles evolve will be highly interesting to men and women alike.

GENDER DISCRIMINATION STARTS AT HOME

      Home is where we first start to be taught about gender roles, learning from our parents and siblings. Gender discrimination learned at home impacts children in their early formative years and sets the scene for the way a girl is treated throughout her life.

A preference for boys

The idea that boys are somehow better and preferable to girls is deeply embedded in most societies.  The preference for boys is often a financial issue and here’s why:

• A girl often joins her husband’s family when they marry, and may even cost her family a dowry. In Nepal there’s a proverb: to raise and care for a girl is like taking care of someone else’s garden.
• In many countries, only men are allowed to own or inherit property, having a son keeps assets in the family and makes sure parents will have somewhere to live when they get old.
• If a family needs hard physical labour to run a farm or make it’s living in some other way, boys are seen as better and stronger than girls.

Expectant parents might pray for a boy, or even choose to have an abortion if they find out they’re expecting a girl. This practice is known as sex-selective abortion. Did you know that estimates suggest that there are half a million fewer female babies born per year in India because of sex-selective abortion?

This isn’t just an issue in developing countries. Boxing champion Muhammad Ali once famously told a reporter that he had, “one boy and seven mistakes,” referring to his daughters. If everyone is saying that boys are better, it’s not surprising that many boys develop a belief that they are more important than girls – and that girls internalize this too.

Kids are copycats

The saying goes that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but it’s also a key way that children learn. As toddlers, children start to imitate the behaviour of family members of the same gender and can tell the difference between a man and woman.

Around the same time, boys and girls start learning what it means to be a “good” girl or boy – these expectations are often quite different. Gender norms taught at home influence how girls’ perceive their intelligence, their self-worth, and their opportunities for the future.

How a father treats his wife and daughters will affect their potential and life choices, but it will also affect his sons too. Because the family is where we first learn how to be a male and female, a father who does his fair share of domestic work, who values and educates his children equally, who cuddles his sons and daughters and treats his wife as an equal will have a powerful impact on how his son grows up to be a man and treats his own family.

Homework versus housework

The gendered division of household work is accepted almost everywhere – a woman’s most important role is seen as taking care of her home and cooking for her family. Even when boys have household chores, they say something about gender roles: boys’ chores tend to be independent outdoor tasks, while girls’ tasks are often indoors and more closely supervised. These divisions teach children that there’s a difference between men’s and women’s work.

Focus on housework can also prevent girls from working on other things, like homework. Santhi, a girl living in Andhra Pradesh in India, was criticized by her mother for spending time studying and not on housework. Boys, on the other hand, are often encouraged to study and play.

Respect for women begins at home. Fathers, brothers, uncles, and grandfathers must share the burden of household work as an important step in building the self-esteem and worth of girls.

Gender Discrimination in India (6 Major Causes)

Attaining gender justice is not an easy task in India. From time immemorial, a girl child has been considered as an unwanted entity and a burden whom the parents would not mind doing away with. Discrimination against women begins even before her birth. The gruesome evils of female feticide and infanticide prove how brutal the world could be to women.

Though the Indian constitution provides equal rights and privileges for men and women and makes equal provision to improve the status of women in society, majority of women are still unable to enjoy the rights and opportunities guaranteed to them.

Traditional value system, low level of literacy, more house hold responsibilities lack of awareness, non-availability of proper guidance, low mobility, lack of self-confidence family discouragement and advanced science and technology are some of the factors responsible to create gender disparity in our society. The most important causes of gender disparity such as poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, social customs, belief and anti-female attitude are discussed here.

1. Poverty:

In India of the total 30 percent people who are below poverty line, 70 percent are women. Women’s poverty in India is directly related to the absence of economic opportunities and autonomy, lack of access to economic resources including credit , land ownership and inheritance, lack of access to education and support services and their minimal participation in the decision making process. The situation of women on economic front is no better and men still enjoy a larger share of the cake. Thus poverty stands at the root of gender discrimination in our patriarchal society and this economic dependence on the male counterpart is itself a cause of gender disparity.

2. Illiteracy:

Despite the notable efforts by the countries around the globe that have expanded for the basic education , there are approximately 960 million illiterate adults of whom two thirds are women .Educational backwardness of the girls has been the resultant cause of gender discrimination.

The disparities become more visible between male and female literacy rate, during 2001. The literacy rates for males increased from 56% in 1981 to nearly 76% in 2001. The corresponding change in female literacy rate from 30 to 54%. On the whole the decline on gender gap peaked in 1981 at 26.6% and was 21.7% in 2001 is less impressive. The interstate variation in literacy rate for males was much lower in comparison to females. At the state level female literacy rate varies from 35% in Bihar to 88% in Kerala In states like Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan, the female literacy rate is below 50%.

The progress towards education by girls is very slow and gender disparities persist at primary, upper primary and secondary stage of education. Girl’s account for only 43.7% of enrolment at primary level, 40 .9 % at upper primary level, 38.6% at secondary level and 36.9% at degree and above level. Moreover girl’s participation in education is still below 50% Gender differences in enrolment are prevalent in all the state at all levels. They are not able to realize full identity and power in all spheres of life only due to illiteracy.

3. Lack of Employment Facilities:

Women are not able to resolve the conflict between new economic and old domestic roles. In both rural and urban India, women spend a large proportion of time on unpaid home sustaining work. Women are not able to respond to new opportunities and shift to new occupations because their mobility tends to be low due to intra-house hold allocation of responsibilities.

Rights and obligations within a house hold are not distributed evenly. Male ownership of assets and conventional division of labour reduce incentives for women to undertake new activities. In addition child bearing has clear implications for labour force participation by women. Time spent in bearing and rearing of children often results in de-Skilling, termination of long term labour contacts. Thus women are not being able to be economically self-sufficient due to unemployment and their economic dependence on the male counterpart is itself a cause of gender disparity.

4. Social Customs, Beliefs and Practices:

Women are not free from social customs, beliefs and practices. The traditional patrilineal joint family system confines women’s roles mostly to the domestic sphere, allocating them to a subordinate status, authority and power compared to men. Men are perceived as the major providers and protectors of a family while women are perceived as playing only a supportive role, attending to the hearth. Boys and girls are accordingly drained for different adult roles, status and authority. In Indian culture since very early periods, men have dominated women as a group and their status has been low in the family and society.

The preference for sons and disfavour towards daughter is complex phenomenon that still persists in many places. Sons especially in the business communities are considered to be economic, political and ritual assets whereas daughters are considered to be liabilities. Thus anti female social bias is the main cause of gender disparity in our society.

The boy receives a ceremonial welcome on his birth where as everyone is sad at the birth of a girl child. The preference for male child is due to lower female labour participation, prevalence of social evils like dowry and many others causes. The typical orthodox mentality is present even in this modern era leading to sex determination tests and abortion in an illegal way.

Parents often think that teaching a girl child to manage the kitchen is more important than sending her to school. Many feel that it is an unnecessary financial burden to send a girl child to school as subsequently she will be married off and shifted to some other family. This orthodox belief of parents is responsible for gender disparity.

5. Social Altitude:

Though many social activists and reformers carried their crusade against all social odds to restore honour and dignity to women, attitudinal disparities still hunt our rural masses. Despite pronounced social development and technological advancement, women in our society still continue to be victims of exploitation, superstition, illiteracy and social atrocities.

The social stigma that women are housekeepers and should be confined to the four walls of the house is perhaps a viable cause of gender disparity. They should not raise their voice regarding their fortune for the sake of the prestige of the family. In patriarchal society a lot of weightage is given to men.

In the health and nutritional field, male members of family are supposed to take fresh and nutritious food in comparison to women because either they are earning members or head of the family or they are supposed to be more important than female members. This type of social attitude is conducive to create the problem of gender discrimination.

6. Lack of Awareness of Women:

Most of the women are unaware of their basic rights and capabilities. They even do not have the understanding as to how the socio-economic and political forces affect them. They accept all types of discriminatory practices that persist in our family and society largely due to their ignorance and unawareness.

Article 15 of the Indian constitution states that the state shall not discriminate any citizen on the grounds of only sex. The irony is that there still is widespread discrimination which is a form of injustice to women. Hence at the onset of the new millennium let this generation be a historic example by putting an end to the gender – based discriminations by unfurling the flag of gender justice in all our action and dealings.

As Desai has stated, if women get equal opportunities like men, they can work in every field like men. Today if she lags behind a little, it is not her fault but the fault of traditions which have suppressed them for centuries , owing to this, her own thoughts like also hang around only familial life and her nearest environment also does not provide favourable conditions for her devotion in the outside work. In order to change the situation along with economic growth social progress is also greatly required. Hence the need of the hour is to effectively combat gender disparity as to promote gender equality by sufficiently empowering the women.

Caste Discrimination

         Caste systems are a form of social and economic governance that is based on principles and customary rules:

Caste systems involve the division of people into social groups (castes) where assignments of rights are determined by birth, are fixed and hereditary.
The assignment of basic rights among various castes is both unequal and hierarchical, with those at the top enjoying most rights coupled with least duties and those at the bottom performing most duties coupled with no rights.
         The system is maintained through the rigid enforcement of social ostracism (a system of social and economic penalties) in case of any deviations.

          Inequality is at the core of the caste system.   Those who fall outside the caste system are considered “lesser human beings”, “impure” and thus “polluting” to other caste groups. They are known to be “untouchable” and subjected to so-called “untouchability practices” in both public and private spheres.

     “Untouchables” are often forcibly assigned the most dirty, menial and hazardous jobs, such as cleaning human waste. The work they do adds to the stigmatization they face from the surrounding society.

        The exclusion of ‘caste-affected communities’ by other groups in society and the inherent structural inequality in these social relationships lead to high levels of poverty among affected population groups and exclusion from, or reduced benefits from development processes, and generally precludes their involvement in decision making and meaningful participation in public and civil life.

         The division of a society into castes is a global phenomenon not exclusively practised within any particular religion or belief system.

         In South Asia, caste discrimination is traditionally rooted in the Hindu caste system. Supported by philosophical elements, the caste system constructs the moral, social and legal foundations of Hindu society. Dalits are ‘outcastes’ or people who fall outside the four-fold caste system consisting of the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vysya and Sudra. Dalits are also referred to as Panchamas or people of the fifth order.

        However caste systems and the ensuing caste discrimination have spread into Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Sikh communities.

       Caste systems are also found in Africa, other parts of Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific and in Diaspora communities around the world. In Japan association is made with Shinto beliefs concerning purity and impurity, and in marginalized African groups the justification is based on myths.

Caste discrimination affects approximately 260 million people worldwide, the vast majority living in South Asia.

        Caste discrimination involves massive violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. It is often outlawed in countries affected by it, but a lack of implementation of legislation and caste-bias within the justice systems largely leave Dalits without protection.

Understanding ‘Untouchability’

A comprehensive Study of practices and conditions in 1589 Villages

Caste-based discrimination is the most complex human rights issue facing India today. To date, the tools used to assess its status have been divided by discipline—human rights, legal and social science. Although significant contributions toward understanding untouchability have been made in each of these areas, it is difficult to comprehend the scope and pervasiveness of the problem without combining the tools of all three. We have spent the last four years compiling quantitative, comprehensive and reliable data exposing the current state of untouchability (caste-based discrimination) against Dalits (“untouchables”) in Gujarat, India.

This report presents data on untouchability practices in 1,589 villages from 5,462 respondents in Gujarat on the issue of untouchability. In 2000, Martin Macwan of Navsarjan received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, initiating a long-term partnership between Navsarjan and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. In response to Navsarjan’s identified need for an extensive study on caste discrimination, members of the RFK Global Advocacy Team from the University of Maryland/Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and Dartmouth College/University of Michigan joined the team. The objective was to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the topic in order to better drive Navsarjan’s advocacy and intervention work.

In its efforts across Gujarat and India, Navsarjan has experienced first-hand that a deeper understanding gained by intensive data collection leads to the development of more effective strategies to address the continued practice of untouchability. Indeed, interactions with individuals across age, caste, gender and social sectors during the implementation of this study reveal that the potential for ending untouchability may exist within two large groups of people that can be seen as sources of hope.

First, a large segment of Indian society, primarily of younger generation Indians, though largely ignorant about its scope and practice, appears ready and willing to learn about untouchability and work towards its true abolition.

Second, another group of people across caste, nationality and religious affiliations have become deeply concerned about the prevalence of untouchability practices viewed from the perspective of human rights. This group of activists, advocates, donors, lawyers, students, academics, politicians and ordinary citizens has developed an awareness of untouchability as an issue of civil and human rights law.

The report presents both a general and multi-disciplinary view of current untouchability practices across rural areas in Gujarat (bringing together political science, sociology, law, public policy and community organizing) and provides evidence to refute the belief that untouchability is limited to remote and economically underdeveloped corners of India. The broad picture of untouchability can be used to educate Indian society about these practices and to initiate an informed national and international debate on how to address the problem.

Equally important, this report presents a picture of untouchability that promotes global visibility on the continued human rights violations suffered by Dalits and provides an example to other countries on methods for identifying, understanding and eliminating discriminatory activity.

We believe that a systematic approach to understanding untouchability shatters the myth that the problem is intractable.

Instead, we hope that the data presented here and the understanding it generates will spark new energy and commitment to the movement to end the injustice and indignity of untouchability.

Religious discrimination

Religious discrimination is valuing or treating a person or group differently because of what they do or do not believe. Specifically, it is when adherents of different religions (or denominations) are treated unequally, either before the law or in institutional settings such as employment or housing.

Religious discrimination is related to religious persecution, the most extreme forms of which would include instances in which people have been executed for beliefs perceived to be heretic. Laws which only carry light punishments are described as mild forms of religious persecution or as religious discrimination.

Even in societies where freedom of religion is a constitutional right, sometimes adherents of religious minorities voice concerns about religious discrimination against them. Insofar as legal policies are concerned, cases that are perceived as religious discrimination might be the result of an interference of the religious sphere with other spheres of the public that are regulated by law (and not aimed specifically against a religious minority).^[

Sex-Based Discrimination

Sex discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of that person's sex.

Sex discrimination also can involve treating someone less favorably because of his or her connection with an organization or group that is generally associated with people of a certain sex.

Discrimination against an individual because of gender identity, including transgender status, or because of sexual orientation is discrimination because of sex in violation of Title VII.  For more information about LGBT-related sex discrimination claims, for more information

Sex Discrimination & Work Situations

The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment.

Sex Discrimination Harassment

It is unlawful to harass a person because of that person's sex. Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person's sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex.

Although the law doesn't prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.

Sex Discrimination & Employment Policies/Practices

An employment policy or practice that applies to everyone, regardless of sex, can be illegal if it has a negative impact on the employment of people of a certain sex and is not job-related or necessary to the operation of the business.