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Introduction
Western female thought through the centuries has identified the relationship between patriarchy and gender as crucial to the womenˇ¦s subordinate position. ... This essay seeks to move beyond the irrepressible evidence for gender inequality and the division of labour. Rather, it poses the question of gender inequality as it manifests itself as an effect of patriarchy drawing from a theoretical body of work which has been developed so recently that it would have been impossible to write this essay thirty years ago. ...
The feminist engagement with theories of patriarchy criticised pre-existing theoretical positions and their ideological use, tracing theoretical progenitors of popular views about gender, gender roles etc (Cooper, 1995; Raymond, 1980). Developing theories to explain how gender inequalities have their roots in ideologies of gender difference and a hierarchical gender order, feminist theoretical concepts of patriarchy are able to explain and challenge gender inequality and the gendered division of labour in the private and social spheres (Seidman, 1994). They have done this by challenging concepts of gender, the family and the unequal division of labour underpinned by a theory of patriarchy that has come to reveal how it operates to subordinate women and privilege men, often at womenˇ¦s expense.
Patriarchy, Structure and Gender Inequality
Walby (1990) reveals how patriarchy operates to achieve and maintain the gender inequalities essential for the subordination of women. ... This is an important point because if feminist theories of patriarchy are to stand they must show that patriarchy operates to the same end in both the private and public sphere, even if it uses different strategies, otherwise it could not be the main reason for the continuing inequality of women in both the private and public sphere.
Walby shows that within the private structure and the public structures, patriarchy does use different strategies to maintain gender inequality and these strategies both achieve the subordination of women. ... This strategy does not benefit the institution directly, but it does ensure that individual patriarchs are privileged at the expense of women, and it maintains gender differences. ...
This description of the relationship between patriarchy and structure demonstrates how inequalities in the workplace and in inequality in the home are two sides of the same coin and individual males are involved in the direct and indirect subordination of women simultaneously. ...
Gender and Gender Inequalities in the Domestic and Occupational Divisions of Labour
Feminist concepts of gender and gender inequality allow us to refer more or less directly to a theoretical framework for understanding how they have come to form a basis that helps structure the whole of society according to the concept of patriarchy (Seidman, 1994). The gender differences, which lead to gender inequality in the division of labour, and presented as natural by patriarchy and unequal gender order has been normalised and legitimated by science, medicine and popular culture (Raymond, 1980). Feminists hold that this normalisation conceals the social and political formation of an unequal male order, arguing that gender difference is socially produced in order to sustain male dominance (Seidman, 1994).
Frable (1997) points out that there is no basis for a biological account of gender difference since gender identity can only refer to the psychological sense of being male or female.
Approximate Word count = 2651
Approximate Pages = 10.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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