Updated notes 3/5/09

2/26/09 Women?s Bodies & Beauty Ideals Body Image and Beauty Ideal Reducing women to body parts Learned behaviors from media -Self Loathing -Critical Costs of The Body Project -Time and energy -MONEY -Determination The Beauty Business Creates needs by playing on insecurities about our bodies Women?s Magazines Commoditization Objectification Whites Only? Forever Young? Always Able? Ideal notions of beauty are racist, ageist, and ableist -Instead: Focus on how African American women and minorities think about their bodies. -Instead: Appreciate older women for the beauty of their wisdom and bodies -Instead: Realize that people with disabilities are more handicapped by the mental limitations of nondisabled people then by their own minds and bodies. Resisting Beauty Stereotypes Defy dominant beauty standards Multiple ways of expressing beauty Power beyond appearance -Does beauty = power? NO! -Power, passion, strength, courage to choose the ?other? = beautiful Body Politics Central to patriarchal oppression of women Crucial site of resistance 3/3/09 Kinship System Marriage Institutes the meaning of marriage Decides upon marriage ability Establishes the number of marriage partners permitted. -Monogamy -Polygamy Inheritance Determines how descent is recognized Decides on the distribution of property Defining Ourselves through Connections with Others Gender Roles: ?the attitudes and behaviors considered culturally appropriate for boys or girls, divided into duties between men (public sphere) and women (private sphere)? Relationships -Development of Self -Foundation in home and family Development of Self Foundation of home and family Helps define our personal lives Married Couple living together with children Middle-Class White Heterosexual Nuclear family developed out of Western Civilization Home was once self-sufficient produced its own goods and exchanged good with other families Now the home is separate from productive activities 50% are married couple families Nuclear 27% are people living alone Without children 17% are other families Single parent, extended, lesbian, gay, etc. 6% are other nonfamily households Adults living with others Encompasses all classes, sexualities, racial groups, and ethnicities Two parent households Extended families -Multigenerational families Single Parent households Lesbian and gay families -With and without children Adults living with other adults (roommates) -With and without children Grandparents raising grandchildren Relatives raising nieces, nephews, cousins Marriage Traditional Marriage Contract (Head/Compliment Model) Husband heads the house with responsibility to provide a wage Wife primary responsibility it to the home, raising children, integrating her identity into her husband?s? -?Mr. and Mrs. John Jones,??The Jones? Junior Partner (Goodwill Model) Both work outside the home Junior disrupts work for partner/care for family Equal Partners (Egalitarian Partnership) Neither partner is the primary provider or completes domestic tasks Alabama is a Common Law State A heterosexual couple can become ?legally married? without a license or ceremony. This is called a common law marriage; but three things must exist The couple must have the legal right or capacity to marry Each person must intent to be married to the other person The couple must hold themselves to family, friends and community as being married An equal treatment issue? 3/5/09 Work for Women is never done. Women?s paid and Unpaid Labor Upaid household labor Who does the work at home? History of Women?s Paid Work Women?s Labor Participation Salary statistics Unpaid Household Labor Why is work done in the home seldom considered work at all? -What did you do all day? Housework and technology Women and agriculture Research findings in domestic work -Barbara Ehnrenrich, Maid to Order -Housework is not degrading because it is manual labor -Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Second Shift -women perform about 2/3rds of the household labor -70/30 gender split -Chloe bird, Sociologist -Once married women do twice the amount of work in the home as their spouse -women gain 14 hours/ Main gain 90 minutes -Julia Shields, How to Avoid the Mommy Trap -Men who share more housework and childcare duties report a better sex life -Leisure time is generally planned by women. Cross-national comparisons North American men are less egalitarian thanScandinavian men Japanese men are less like than both to share housework Russian women do the least amount of housework Hungarian women do the most housework American couples living together share more domestic work than married couples Women are more likely to multitask -Cook dinner while vacuuming Women complete tasks critical to family functioning -Call the baby-sitter, remember homework or school lunch, organize holidays Men are increasingly helping with daily housework -for every 10 that do little or no housework, a larger group helps. -Very few share work equally Pre-Industrial America (1600-1700) 750,000 Europeans immigrated to America Many were indentured servants Prior to the slave trade Africans also arrived as indentured servants WWI ? women help satisfy labor needs 1910 (20.9%...1920 (20.4%) WWII ? again women were ?needed? workers After the Wars Black American Women During slavery had no choice about choosing between work and leisure After emancipation had limited opportunities -Domestic work, laundress, farm labor -Textiles (South) Face barriers in the workplace Networks/ role models Are perceived by white colleagues as under qualified Credibility of black women is suspect Native American Women Prior to colonization many nations were matrilineal -Inheritance and family name were through the female line Colonization pushed Native Americans off their land and they were denied food and livelihood culture and tradition Faced low skilled farm and domestic work Stagnant reservation economy impacts opportunities Most still work low wage jobs Salary Statistics Women earn 76 % of that earned by men (2005) -Down from 77 percent in 2002 Black women earn 64 cents to the dollar Latinas earn 54 cents to the dollar Dual labor market -Primary market, high salaries -Secondary market, low wage workers. Pay Equity Barriers Men enter into fields dominated by female labor and disproportionately hold management jobs -k-12 education -nursing -social work Receive better pay, more prestige, and power Women are encouraged to take leadership positions at failing organizations -Set up for failure Mature employees are not offered employer sponsored training opportunities Trend in certain professions losing their status as they become feminized -Pharmacists -Veterinarians