Structures of Gender Relations

Keywords: Power Relations, Production Relations, Emotional Attachments, Symbolic Relations or Culture, Control of Public Spaces, Victims of Organizational Conflicts

As I have mentioned in Part 10 of this series of articles, there are four principal structures of gender relations in patriarchal-capitalist cultures: I) Power relations, II) production relations, III) emotional relations, and IV) symbolic relations. (1)

I. Power relations

Gender relations under patriarchy are power relations, which are both institutionalized and personal or discursive. In the creation of gendered inequalities, there are the institutional inclusion of gendered power and men and women’s own personal agency.

Institutionally, men occupy the main power in both the State and enterprises, and have almost exclusive control of leading positions. Men are likely to command public spaces, for instance in streets and outdoor play areas, and in cyberspaces such as chat-rooms and social websites.  State elites are spectacularly the domain of men, with very few women, except in decidedly subservient roles. The leading States adopt diplomatic, military and colonial policies that are made from the perspective of masculine ideologies that place a prize on power, force and harshness.

In most families and countless civil society institutions, men are in positions of power. Men have just about absolute control of the institutions of force (police, military) and control of the processes of violence (military instruction, weapons.) They are rarely subject to dangerous domestic violence and penalties for rape.

One disadvantage for men in holding positions of power over women is that they are the great majority of those who are arrested, imprisoned, and executed. Men are the principal recipients of military and criminal aggression. They are more prone to be victims of organizationally motivated conflicts and scuffles over economics.

Concerning women, they are almost invariably dominated in the patriarchal power structure, which means that they have a social and a structural interest in making changes happen, as we have seen from the feminist movements in Western societies and we are now seeing in the feminist movements of developing countries.

II. Production Relations

The divisions of labour based on sex are gradually transforming, although this may vary from society to society. For instance, the work of secretary was a man’s job in nineteenth century America, but it became a woman’s job in the 20^th century. The reason for this shift was the earlier belief that after marriage women should not be working outside the home.

In the above the two aspects, the social relations that regulate work are different.

Historically, another division of labour based on sex is that men did paid work outside their home while women stayed at home and did unpaid domestic work. In this type of division of labour, men work for money while women work for their keep, and for love of family.  There are jobs that are still considered more appropriate for males. These are usually paid at a much higher rate, for instance engineering work, whereas jobs in human services are thought to be more suitable for women and come with lower incomes and benefits.

In production relations, the model of a paid working husband and an unpaid round-the-clock housewife is at the core of a “gender accumulation process” (2) which establishes a patriarchal benefit for men. This gender accumulation process is emphasised by the multinational organizations. The pattern of the gender regimes of these establishments is turned into the division of labour. These gender regimes vary from culture to culture and during different periods of history. Where there is a staunch conviction that women perform better at public relations tasks and men are better at manual jobs, there would be favouritism in the process of staffing: teaching will go to women, and engineering to men.

In the capitalist system, although women and men are compelled to participate similarly in the economy, men, because of the gendered division of labour,  generally receive higher salaries and more benefits than women - nearly twice the women’s average income. They control most of the principal capital and other resources that are accumulated in certain areas, participate in economic activities more than women, benefit more from opportunities such as promotions, and as husbands they obtain assistance and gains from the women’s unpaid house labour activities which Ivan Illich names “shadow work”. (3)  

In the hands of men is the control of nearly all machinery, such as electric generation, transportation and computers, this is the foundation of contemporary economy and especially increases the profitable cost of labour.

The conditions of inequality between women and men are generated and expressed by men’s violence against women.

To avoid a breakdown, any system of social inequality needs to be reproduced on a daily basis. The regulations against inequality ought to be repeated with constant reminders and endorsements. The social agents ought to stay put in the spheres of unequal relations, as without social agents the regulations become outdated and the powers of the sphere are lost. This demonstrates the explosive capacity of segregated spheres over which the banned have no control. This also shows how the homosexual structures of social life threaten heterosexual understanding and planning. (4)

One disadvantage of the division of labour for men is their large numbers employed in dangerous and extremely toxic jobs. There is a larger percentage of men who are the sole provider for the family and continue to work as a result of social pressure and obligation. Men’s expertise quickly becomes redundant. They pay more taxes than women and, within the Welfare State, their income is reallocated to women.

In Western cultures, one leading discourse is sexuality and, more precisely, the disparity in the understanding of heterosexuality and homosexuality. This contrast is more noticeable in Western cultures that try to explain what is not readily explainable. In some other societies such as Thailand, the notion of a homosexual individual is perceived as a natural reality, as they acknowledge the presence of a third gender.

III. Emotional Attachments

In the emotional sphere of male-dominated gender relations, men have the convenience of getting abundant emotional backing from women regarding social duty to give-and-take.

In this situation, the inconvenience for men is the restriction on free expression of emotions, mainly sensitivity, although it is now possibly changing. Men are discouraged from having a rapport with babies.

In fact, forbidding some pleasure, desire and emotional attachment in itself is a contradiction within the patriarchal system. This means that the patriarchal system is assumed to be the central power in gender relations, but afterwards it hinders itself in a way that boys are expected to repress their emotions contrasting with women who are allowed to candidly display their feelings.

IV. Symbolic Relations 

The last structure of gender relations system is the symbolic relations. In the patriarchal system, the gendered site of power is constantly that of the masculine. For instance, in films made in the 1960s, men were always given the active roles, whereas women usually got the passive roles. In other words, masculinity was symbolized by the notion of activity and femininity, by the idea of passivity. Women had the opportunity to make their opinions known only when the filmmaker was a woman.

The male benefit in patriarchal culture’s symbolic relations is that men control the majority of social institutions (media, churches, synagogues and mosques, schools and universities). Most religions portray men as superior to women. Men are more valued than women, that is, they and their hobbies, such as sports, are considered to be more significant, interesting and suitable to report. Men outweigh women in high-yield and remarkably resourced segments of education, such as biotechnology, IT, and MBA.

One of the social detriments of men in patriarchy is failure in general education. A fewer number of men compared to women, participate in valuable learning opportunities, such as social and humanistic studies. In divorce and custody battles in Western cultures, the mother’s authority in childcare tends to outweigh the father’s interests.

Conclusion:

These patterns of relationship may be moving along various historical itineraries, creating a crisis and shift in which there is an internal conflict that challenges the present arrangements and compels a transformation in the social structure itself. Therefore femininities and masculinities, as patterns of social practice, are always predisposed to a historical breakdown.

To be continued.

Notes

1. Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. London, UK: Polity. PP.74-75.

2. Mies, Maria. 1999 (1986). Patriarchy and Accumulation On A World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour.  Zed Books: London, UK.

3. llich, Ivan. 1981. Shadow Work. Salem, Marion Boyars: New Hampshire and London .

4. Breines, Ingeborg and R.W.Connell and Ingrid Eide (editors). 2000. Male roles, masculinities and violence: a culture of peace perspective. UNESCO Publishing, Cultures of Peace Series. PP. 182-3.