Patriarchy and Self-Subordination

Patriarchy and Self-Subordination

Social cultural construct of gender has always intrigued me. Being married into a bi-racial family, in an educational setting where I was assumed to take secretarial courses (my family), rather than anthro/soc/gender studies, productive member in society and in a (strict) religious setting, no wonder social construction of gender peaked my interest. Not only does it intrigue me, my degree minor is in gender studies. What influences us and makes us tick? Are male and females all born the way we are? Whose fault is it? Is it nobody’s fault? Main groups being affected (greatly) with it are women, men (yes men can be affected – as in nursing?), sexual orientation groups, ethnic groups, military (political), and even neighborhoods are affected. How does culture construct gender? Is it how we soothe and coo over newborn baby girls, yet tend to be rougher with baby boys? Is it how we associate girls with pink and boys in blue? This construction of gender is vital to our very being. Why? Home, life, education, political, neighborhoods (Papachristos, A. V. 2011) and relationships are affected daily by this. Women in business for instance are greatly affected by gender inequality (Renzetti, C. M., &Curran, D. J. 1989); in turn created from cultural construct. Yes, patriarchy has quite a bit to do with it, yet still it was created from a cultural construct.
In simple terms, cultural constructions of gender are ways in which a gender lives or is brought up. It can vary drastically. Society then places a value on an action, behavior, job and so on. This then “constructs” the values, ideas, or behaviors for what is socially acceptable per gender. A common reluctance of speaking about ones gender and economic issue stems from the very notion of culture. Culture is broad. The channels through which it can enter are as equally broad. It then becomes difficult to make a guess, to digest and then work from - until now. Over the years research has been more precise and forthcoming,...

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