Citation

Chafetz JS. J. Fam. Issues 1988; 9(1): 108-131.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1988, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12281309

Abstract

A theory of the major mechanisms that sustain and reproduce systems of gender stratification is presented. The central support mechanism is the gender division of labor within both the family and the wider society. This gender division of labor and superior male power continuously bolster each other. Men can use their power, individually at the micro level and collectively at the macro, to allocate work roles and to create social and interpersonal definitions that justify their superior position, their behavior, and the treatment of females. In this way, they individually and collectively coerce women into behaviors and roles that perpetuate their subordinate status. Yet except for occasional times of women's movement activism, most women do not feel coerced, and most members of both genders do not consciously perceive the system as fundamentally inequitable. Indeed, women are likely to feel that they have chosen the lives they lead as freely as have men. This results from the various processes that contribute to the production of gender differentiation, by which both males and females come to want to behave in gender normative ways. The author does not blame the victim or argue that women choose their subordinate status. Instead, her theory suggests that in the absence of gender differentiation and gender-normative choices, women would nonetheless be constrained to perform the work that more powerful men delegate to them. To the extent women perceive that they choose the roles they play, the system of gender stratification is substantially bolstered because of its apparent legitimacy. Most women do not feel that their domestic and childrearing responsibilities, and therefore a heavy double workday, result from male power. Rather, they define them as their natural, God-given or desired labors. Under such circumstances, male power is only potential; it need not be employed. When the women's movement alerts some women to the coercive aspects of the process, system legitimacy may be called into question. Nonetheless, the system itself continues to function largely unchanged for the great majority. Despite this lack of change, it is hypothesized that many aspects of the gender system are in the process of change in advanced industrial societies such as the US, especially for younger cohorts.

Language: en