Women in
Comparative Societies
Measuring and
Comparing WomenÕs Status
Worldwide, women
enjoy less status and power than men
True? Mostly true? Sometimes true? Used to be true?
What kinds
of power and status do men enjoy to a greater degree than women?
Do women enjoy
any kind of power or status to a greater degree than men?
What kind? In what societies?
Economic Power
and Work
Absence of women from highest levels of economic power elite (only
4% of US CEOs are female)
40% of women worldwide work
Gender pay gap: yet they earn 15% less than men
worldwide
Regional
differences: US/Europe 20% less;
sub-Saharan Africa 50% less; Middle East 70% less.
Feminization of poverty
A majority of the 1 bln
people in the world living on less than $1/day are women
Why the pay
gap? Why is poverty more likely
for women?
WomenÕs work in the
private sphere
Reproductive labor
often not considered work
Why?
Development of money,
surpluses, trade (exchange)
Exchange Value vs.
Private Use Value
Exchange
Value in the public sphere
Private
Use Value in the household
Data we should
seek to measure womenÕs economic status/power:
% of women in the
workforce
women as % of workforce
% women economic elites
(e.g. CEOs/executive positions, highest income levels, property owners)
pay gap – try to
get figure for men and women doing the same work for the same amount of time
hard to come by
why?
occupational
segregation
compare low status
menÕs job wages to low status womenÕs job wages
data on educational
attainment, literacy are also useful as they are indices of womenÕs earning
power
fertility rate (average
number of births per woman), rates of contraceptive use, average age at
marriage
also helpful in
assessing womenÕs economic power
especially to compare
womenÕs earning power in one region to another
Political and
Legal Power
Women have gained voting rights in most countries only in the last
30 yrs (18)
Only 9% of presidents and prime ministers worldwide
19% of the worldÕs legislators are female (16% in US)
Regional differences
Scandinavia
highest rates of women representation
Rwanda
highest in world
US
below global average; around rates found in Latin America
Why??
Data to Seek
If country has
ever had female president/PM; % women in parliament; prominent women
politicians; how they got into politics; if there is a Ministry of Women
Religious power
Most religious leaders are male
Power to define, interpret religion most often only allowed men
Most religions have asserted that the Divine/Natural order of
things is for women to be subordinate to men by Divine/natural
Data to Seek
Major religions, breakdown
Tenets of the
major faith(s) regarding women
Women in
positions of religious power
Rate of
believers, non-believers or degree of secularization
History of
religious influence on organization of society, law
Social Status
Margaret Mead
ÒPrestige values always attach to the activities of menÓ
Examples?
From US
From other cultures
= Male privilege
Son preference
Sex selective abortion
Daughter preference in
US
Data to Seek
Evidence of sex
selection; gender preference for offspring
Public opinion
data on respect for women, men
Aphorisms,
folklore, sayings, customs
Females as
Property
as property
as
currency, commodity, something with exchange value
Examples?
In US?
Data to Seek
Customs such as
bride price, dowry, child brides
Age at first
marriage
Physical Violence
against Women
Universal
Proof of womenÕs lower status or
something else?
Data to Seek
Rate of intimate
partner abuse
Laws on violence
against women, enforcement of
Rate of sexual
violence against women
Laws about sexual
violence, enforcement of