(Research) An Interactionist's View: The Construction, Conservation of Gender Stratification...

An Interactionist’s View: The Construction of Gender Stratification and its Conservation in Mass Media and Academic Setting

Estacio, Andrew A.

COMA 101 T

ESTACIO 1 The Construction and Conservation of Gender Stratification through Interactionism

Abstract The stratification of gender is inevitable in the society. Male and female are dichotomized and classified into hierarchies; consequently, one gender overpowers the other. With that, inequity, injustice, and resistance happen.

The perception seen on the binary opposition between male and female is merely a social construct. Once a human is born, he is deliberately injected with the habitus of gender differences. Given the biological sexes, the society embedded them maleness and femaleness for distinction. But first, a social coordination must occur in order to construct and embed these distinguishing concepts.

Symbolic Interactionism by George Herbert Mead suggests that interaction is the key to construct meanings. People who interact with each other bridge and share messages; therefore, new meanings are being learned and developed. Moreover, their actions are based on these meanings which then can be changed through series of interaction.

Society, through series of interaction, constructed gender meanings associated with being feminine and masculine. This enables the categorization of woman from a man and vice versa. Yet gender meanings have been reinforced with the idea of domination of one gender. The drive for this can be rooted from the study of gender productivity. One is superior if he or she has an active participation in societal building. This is illustrated in the study of knowledge wherein men are superior because they greatly produce ideas than women do.

The issue of gender productivity is one form of gender status belief—beliefs that treat one gender inferior or superior for experiential reasons. This is a result of continuous sex categorization.

Categorizing sex is even more intensified in schools and media. Elementary textbooks, for example, portray men and women with different roles; the former have vigorous roles and the latter have domestic, household roles. On the other hand, the media portray gender with an explicit sense of gender domination. Television advertisements commonly depict women as men’s source of pleasure and are always objectified.

Education and media are influential in delivering meanings of gender stratification.

Indeed, they contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequality for society has always been interacting with the gender meanings they disseminate. As a point for change, it is necessary to restructure their systems and remodel their outputs with messages that will deliver empowerment of the inferior gender and foster gender equality.

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Introduction The natural-essentialist perspective claims that the concept of gender difference is caused by biological stimulations; that humans have the natural tendency to act differently in accordance to their sex. However, society has still the greatest contribution in establishing the perception of differences between genders. Thus, gender is essentially a social construct.

Now, the social constructionist’s concern is to track down the societal root of stratification that is entrenched on gender construction.

In this paper, the fundamental construction of gender meanings will be explained through symbolic interactionism and how these lead to categories, status beliefs, and inequality. Also, education and media will be the focus of the interactional conservation of gender stratification. In the end are recommendations that entail ways of transforming the orientation of gender meanings within these fields.

Dichotomized Thinking stimulates Gender Stratification It is embedded in the human cognition that an abstraction can be perceivable through giving it construction—an understandable symbol and meaning. E.g., for humans to recognize an abstract, rounded-thing, they all communicated and negotiated about it; until the majority labeled it as “ball”, having 360-degree angle as its meaning.

Needless to say, everything humans can make sense of was inherently unknown, but not until it was socialized and considered identifiable through their point of views. At deeper level, the very nature of mundane perceptions has always been called “social constructs” by intellectuals. Evidently, society is the essence-creator for everything that is known. The same concept applies with the issue of gender stratification. This social dichotomy is never an inherent dilemma but it has been purely crafted by humans through various ways.

Nonetheless, society goes through a coordinating process that will construct meanings for things. George Herbert Mead, a social constructionist, theorized that social interaction is the medium to create meanings; hence, calling it “Symbolic Interactionism” or SI. Its general concept entails that people act towards things based on the meaning those things have for them, and these meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. In addition, language is essential in order to transmit the learned meaning—hence the term symbolic interactionism.

Using Mead’s first premise--people act toward things depending on the basis of assigned meanings--interactionism on the very first move is somehow a phenomenon of

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attraction; one acts and becomes close towards what is understandable. In its fundamental sense, it requires one to make sense of and anticipate other’s behavior in order to get attracted, to coordinate, and to communicate with the other. Essentially, a basic definition of the self and the perceived other must be at least developed, so as for the interaction to work (Alexander and Wiley, 1981). For example, assuming that a toddler is given two objects—a ball and a box; given that she has the basic idea of a ball and was reinforced to like it, more likely that she will get “attracted” to and comprehend with the ball, instead of the box.

In the issue of interactionism vis-à-vis gender, the very basic definition of sex is about two separate beings with unique distinction. Perhaps, the first construction that will come up in mind is that man and woman are distinct because of their empirical differences—physical appearance and genitalia. Clearly, gender meaning at first level is already associated with differentiation and categorization. This meaning is embedded within people’s mind and is of constant use in the process of interaction (Bargh, 1988 cf. Ridgeway, 1997).

Nevertheless, human cognition demonstrates perception as hierarchal. A person, having an automatic, basic construction, will then elevate into more detailed perception (Brewer, 1988; Fiske and Neuberg, 1990 cf. Ridgeway, 1997). Given the basis of a fundamental category--man and woman are distinct, comes more subsequent meanings that will widen sex differentiation and categorization. Let’s say one sex runs fast than the other; that sex will be regarded to as stronger, thus another meaning. This occurrence explains that meanings are dynamic. According to Mead, these are always modified by cognitive processes, which is comparing and contrasting as evaluated in the example. The constructions on gender are modified depending upon their activities in standardized institutions they are in.

Throughout the evolution of mankind, gender meanings have been developed and reinforced with the basis of capacity, “which sex can do this and which sex cannot.” This reinforcement has heightened gender meanings from fundamental categories into more profound and diverse, social categories. One form is the gender status belief. This gender construction now entails the issue of power--one sex as superior over the other (Carli, 1991).

Take for example the categorization of gender in relation to knowledge, a basis of competence and authority.

In the sociology of knowledge, the production of knowledge is seen as the foundation of gender superiority. In fact, knowledge itself is subject to authority—a matter of what is truthful than the other. A more truthful one is called authoritative knowledge. To have this is to also have an authoritative proponent who will establish its truthfulness (Lamug, 1997).

The person who produces this knowledge is determined as the spearhead in a society.

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Through this, social hierarchies are created (Bourdieu, 1988). The question is--what gender produces more knowledge in order to be entitled a spearhead?

A fundamental field of knowledge wherein social categorization occurs is science. It is highly influential in the economic, political, social, cultural, and ecological aspect of society. Scientific knowledge is seen as a source of great authority. According to Lamug (1997), scientific careers carry much prestige, and scientists have a great deal of power to influence the everyday experiences of our lives. Since its origin, its study has been dominated by men. They have had the larger contribution and active participation in this field; thus, they gain the power and honor in return, and they produce patriarchal ideas that degrade the scientific concepts about women. Such examples are the meanings given to the union of sperm and egg cell. Sperm cell is described as energetic, fast, and numerous, which are then associated to men character. While the egg cell is less vibrant, alone, and still--meanings that are synecdochic to women’s attributes. Most scientific ideas are products of the masculine minds and they contribute to the productivity of society. With this, women are treated as less productive; consequently, they are given with tasks that require less intellectual sophistication and are subordinate activities, like household.

In addition, science is one of the bases for the fundamental category of gender.

Other than the genitalia and physical distinction, it has reinforced studies of the natural capacity of a sex. Scientific researches claim that men are biologically inclined with activities that require more energy and work, and women are generalized with lesser capacity in these aspects. Subsequently, interaction will instill these scientific meanings to people’s minds; and eventually, fabrications and societal adaptations to the meaning come afterwards, e.g. “the man, tough and stronger, should carry the loads, not the woman.”

Interaction produces meanings of distinction, this pushes the actors to sex-categorize one another. The persistence of sex categorization leads to the use and formation of gender status beliefs (Ridgeway, 1997). This is manifested on the way people socialize. Seeing a person is already seeing a particular sex, at that instant, it’s already categorization. When one grasps that person’s sex, it is inevitable to think of him with status beliefs. This may come into gender stereotypes, roles and discrimination. The problem now is how these processes that elicit gender inequality are being sustained. The persistence of socializing gender inequality is to be analyzed in the cases of education and media.

Manifesting and Conserving Gender Stratification through Education Education is an instrument for learning meanings about gender. It affects and influences students on how to see society as having standards and boundaries for sexes.

Indeed, schools teach students social, political and economic values. Moreover, Lamug

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(1997) argued that the curriculum of schools has implicit value messages, called the hidden curriculum that works within the formal one.

In fact, hidden curriculum is demonstrated in elementary textbooks. Researchers have concluded that books for teaching children have contents that teach lessons about gender: to quote from Best (1983:62), “boys eat, girls cook; boys invent things, girls use what boys invent; boys build houses, girls keep house.”

It is but already established in elementary textbooks the major distinction of men and women through different roles they do. Furthermore, there is a case study by Lamug (1997) that entails that male and female have a wide gap in terms of occupation roles portrayed in English textbooks. Her result showed that the number of male roles (55) is more than that of female roles (16). Male occupations have even more variety than that of the female. They include those of president, oceanologist, astronaut, sculptor, driver, tailor, and carpenter.

Females, on the other hand, usually portray family roles and domestic related work such as cooking, food, washing clothes, sewing, cleaning house, and going to market. They are also portrayed as actively employed in occupational work but these are of small variety and actually, are “extensions of their domestic responsibilities.” These include being school teachers, market vendors, nurse, librarians, and the like (Lamug, 1997).

Additionally, the exclusivity of an academic institution to a particular gender affects the social production of knowledge (Lamug, 1997). In the case of male-exclusive schools, knowledge that is being taught is crafted in accordance to male learning. This hinders the perspective of female knowledge, e.g. sociological topic regarding feminine culture cannot be fully understood without the experiential description of a woman herself. With this, knowledge is lopsided and it reinforces separation and disconnection to the other gender. It consequently bars men from their ability to relate to women as equals in different aspects (Hall, 1982).

Gendered knowledge sets gender-specific courses. For instance, since the field of engineering mostly contains male-produced knowledge; therefore, the conception is that the knowledge in it is only fitted for male comprehension. With that, engineering becomes a male-only course. The absence of female knowledge and female proponents can lead to the centralization of an educational course to the male gender.

To sum all of these, the orientation of education is already tasked to socialize and reinforce the dichotomy of gender. It is instilling into the mind of society, especially the youth, all the gender status beliefs seen on educational materials such as textbooks, and the bias in knowledge. Evidently, it has inculcated male domination in its curriculum. As a result, students are continuously developing meanings of superiority to males because of their frequent occurrence and elite depiction in the materials and their high influence and participation on knowledge-building and utilization.

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Manifesting and Conserving Gender Stratification through Media Unlike the implicit gender stratification in education, the mass media mostly portray gender images in roles that have explicit sense of hierarchy. For the depiction of women, it is not only an issue of their roles, being domestic and household-centered, but their portrayal in the media, in fact, already demonstrates trivialization, discrimination, and narrow definition of their gender (Tuchman, Daniels, and Benet, 1978). Meanwhile, men are shown with authoritative roles, obviously ruling women.

Lamug (1997) studied the manifestation of gender stratification in the television advertisements and it shows that women and men attributes are in the doer-receiver basis.

Women do the roles of housekeepers, and dependable, physically attractive persons who ease pain, while men are the recipients of their attention. Thus, men are the focus of the activities of women.

For instance, beer commercials often portray women with decorative roles for their physical attractiveness and sex appeals. Their role is not just to introduce the beer but also to seduce men. In this way, men receive pleasure; women then are trivialized and objectified.

Moreover, using the gender idea of Courtney and Whipple (1983 cf. Lamug, 1997) regarding TV commercials, advertisers associate “seduction” in such advertisements because they want the product be incorporated with multiple purposes, which in the case of beer commercials is to give beer a purpose for drinking and seduction.

Also, even in the creation of TV advertisements, background voices are always male; allegedly, female voices are treated as less authoritative and less believable; “the male voice is the voice of authority” (Courtney and Whipple, 1983: 136 cf. Lamug, 1997).

The inequitable gender representations of the media intensify categorization of sex into recognizing subordination and vulnerability, “which sex look like servant and which can be dominated.” The meanings produced involve the treatment of the inferior gender in a sense that they can be exploited for the benefit of the superior gender. With females as the apparent inferior, these meanings establish their “servanthood” under men; eventually, this leads to abuse and objectification.

Gender Equality: A Call to Reconstruct the Constructed In a radical point of view, the culture of patriarchy and sexism is seen as the fundamental root of the observed gender inequality. Weiner (1986) suggested anti-sexist mechanisms to be used in educational setting. These include centering women as the subject of learning and by believing their point of views. Also, he argued that there is a need

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to develop female centered knowledge so as to eliminate male dominated hierarchy, making academic institutions safe for women.

Lamug (1997), on the other hand, recommended liberal approaches that focus on how to perceive genders in educational materials as equal beings with the same characterization. She suggested that textbooks should elevate the status of women to that of men, and portray them with wider range of roles such as judges, doctors, engineers, managers, and presidents. Male should also be depicted doing domestic chores like housekeeping and child care.

In addition, she advised to put cultural contexts upon the gender images. Like in the Philippine society, women can be situated in the depiction of bayanihan while men are into doing the laundry along riverside. This is to mirror the variety and complexity of gender roles of a particular society.

Furthermore, radical approach to media claims that the female subordination reflects the bigoted idea produced by the media organization. This assumption means that women have a low position in the media industry to create empowering ideas for them. To change this dilemma, more women therefore should be hired and have an active participation in production of media concepts. This perspective is in line with Marx’s idea that behind economic production are the controllers who manufacture and spread ideas (Lamug, 1997).

Thus, women should become controllers of the media.

Conclusion In a nutshell, the process of interactionism stimulates the development of gender-gap meanings and disseminates it to the society. As explained, gender meanings begin with a fundamental category—distinguishing basic sex difference—then grow into many categories—distinguishing sex difference based on status beliefs and societal attitudes. In truth, the modification of gender meanings has been reinforced to give inequality in roles, functions, status, and hierarchies, subsequently leading to discrimination, trivialization, and gender abuse. This is illustrated and perpetuated in schools and the mass media. In order to change passive gender meanings, there has to be transformation in the system—empower the inferior gender by socializing her superiority in various roles, consider and exalt her ideas and perspectives, and socialize the meaning of man and woman as equal beings who perform functions equally.

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REFERENCES CITED

Alexander, C. Norman and Mary Glenn Wiley. ‘Situated Activity and Identity Formation’ Social Psycholoy: Sociological Perspectives. New York: Basic Books, 1981 Best, R. We’ve All Got Scars. Indiana University Press, 1983 Bourdieu, P. Homo Academicus. Polity, 1988 Carli, Linda. 1991. ‘Gender, Status, and Influence’ Advances in Group Processes. Vol. 8 Hall, R.M. ‘The classroom climate: A chilly one for women?’ Project on the Education and Status of Women. Association of American Colleges, Washington D.C., 1982 Lamug, Corazon. The Social Construction of Knowledge about Gender as Reproduced in Education and Mass Media. Department of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Banos, 1997 Ridgeway, Cecilia. ‘Interaction and the Conservation of Gender Inequality: Considering Employment’ American Sociological Review. American Sociological Association, Vol. 62, 1997 Tuchman, G., A.K. Daniels, and J. Benet (ed). Hearth and Home: Images of Women in the Mass Media. Oxford University Press, 1978 Weiner, G. ‘Feminist education and equal opportunities: Unity or discord’ British Journal of Sociology of Education. Pp. 265-274.