Abstract
In this article the authors contend that gender inequalities in occupational divisions of labor are better understood in reference to the concept of symbolic patriarchy. The conceptual framework is informed by social constructionist theories that view gender not merely in light of sexual or biological differences but as interwoven, fluid, and contesting boundaries of authority. The goal here is to locate the labyrinths of power and unequal treatment of women, evidenced through the “gender pay gap” and derived from the social landscapes and mindscapes of inequality. The study concludes that workforce-based privileges and rewards for men seem to be sustained and reinforced by patriarchal socio-cultural systems of inequality and domination that maintain visible and invisible mechanisms of power, privilege and influence in symbolic, figurative, and metaphoric cultural forms, rendering them the norm.
Highlights
Even though women in the workforce earning wages or a salary are part of an established modern phenomenon, many of the biggest workplace challenges facing working women worldwide orbit around “gender” (Butler, 1997)
To shed light on the quandary of privilege and rewards among working women and examine links between symbolic patriarchy and gendered privileges, this study situates differences between the sexes within “gender” discourse (Butler, 1993; Sunderland, 2004; Tannen, 1994) in order to better understand the ways in which gender inequality and patriarchal ideologies in a given society are perpetuated within historical periods
In this paper we examined the social conditions under which mindscapes of gendered privilege thrive and the ways in which knowing, thinking, and being a woman in the workforce become possible in the 21st century
Summary
Even though women in the workforce earning wages or a salary are part of an established modern phenomenon, many of the biggest workplace challenges facing working women worldwide orbit around “gender” (Butler, 1997). The term symbolic patriarchy refers to a system of government by males, and to the dominance of men in social or cultural systems (Meade & Haag, 1998). In this way, patriarchy imposes masculinity and femininity character stereotypes in society, which strengthen unfair power relations between men and women. We recognize the complexity of the historical nature of patriarchy and realize that patriarchies have a number of interrelated dimensions that vary across time, place, material contexts and borders These varieties are constantly shifting as power relations change in concert with other key changes (Hunnicutt, 2009; Patil, 2013). Symbolic patriarchy opens up spaces to examine privilege and benefit infringements in normalized places (outside individual men and women) that sometimes benefits one gender and estranges the other, and other times happens in the form of “patriarchal bargain” as in the case of submissiveness in exchange for protection (Kandiyoti, 1988)
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