By the time students have reached high school, they have already observed and experienced sex role stereotypes and begin to cast themselves and others into such roles. Pressures to conform to these roles are in place.
It will be important to ask students to think in terms of the following social science observations of women. One of my favorite books that I have referred to for definition and clarity is David Augsberger’s Pastoral Counseling Across Culture. I am using this source because I feel that he has done a good job of examining women’s roles around the world. He has a succinct list that he has used and it will be helpful to review his. Augsberger makes the following statement: “A cultural universe divided by sex is imperative. Psychological traits are viewed as sex linked certainties, forever separating masculine and feminine roles, talents and temperaments. The body fixes the limits of the should. The social distance between the sexes is conceived as an integral part of the human condition”(224).
Augsberger further asserts: “The oppression of women is inextricably bound up with the world system of sexploitation. Women bear the heaviest burden of national, economic, class, and religious oppression. They are often told their own liberation must wait for the attainment of the whole society’s liberation”(224).
In order to truly address political issues of gender we must consider some of the sex role stereotypes. According to Augsberger “Cross Cultural Comparisons of Women’s Roles,” these assumptions are widely made by societies (224).
-
Women are biologically unable to do certain work.
-
Women choose submissive roles and prefer to be dominated.
-
Women possess an essentially maternal instinct, primarily expressed in love for sons rather than daughters.
-
Women’s lives, roles and opportunities are circumscribed and limited.
-
Women are universally subordinate to men.
-
Women are comparatively powerless.
Augsberger challenges and refutes these sex role stereotypes by collecting data from many cultures. The data he uses supports the following opposition to the above role stereotypes:
-
Sex, reproduction and child rearing do not preclude women from hard physical labor, complex commercial dealings, or artistic creativity.
-
Women of traditional societies are not acquiescent, subservient, and passive but are active, claim rights, and resent male dominance.
-
In traditional societies few alternatives are available to either males or female, although women are more contained in the domestic sphere.
-
The degree of subordination of women varies least in a small scale tribal societies.
Women wield a great deal of power. In many societies they constitute a major labor force, exercise full control of domestic resources, provide much of the subsistence and influence, underwrite, and facilitate the more prestigious activities of their men. Furthermore Ausgsberger quotes Rafael Patai who suggests the tentative working hypothesis that seems well supported by available data: The greater the distance between the status of the lower and high classes, the greater the inequalities of men and women, and visa versa” (223).
Augsburger also states that “Sexual roles are shaped not only by tradition by the economic, agricultural, and technological needs of society. As this changes, there are also alterations in both expectations and possibilities for women and men” (223).
It is important not to forget the resent history for women within the last century in the United States. Women have earned the right to vote. Women have fought for the right to have flexibility in the workplace. Women have taken to the political stage the right to have control of their bodies concerning reproduction.
Social scientist have provided a world view of women. This world view has inspired women to think their potential differently and to challenge their “place” in society.