Gender and Power April , 24, 2002
Power - the ability to influence others and to resist being influenced.
There are both legitimate and illegitimate powers.
Legitimate power is authority, i.e. power that is recognized and accepted by the people who are being influenced. It is power legitimated by the group.
There are 3 types of legitimate power or authority according to Max Weber:
Traditional Authority – authority that rests in tradition and which is passed from one person to another. Example of traditional authority is the succession of authority from the King to his descendants.
Charismatic Authority – authority which exists because of the person’s personality and charisma. Example of this might be cult leader like Jim Jones.
Legal Authority – the authority exists because of law. This is the type of authority of which we are most familiar in our society.
Political institutions and the military, including the police deal with legitimated power.
Certain institutions in our society have as their primary function the use of power - political institution deal with the use of power, has head role (the President). Other institutions deal with the enforcement of power - i.e. the military and the police.
There are also individuals and groups who use power to influence others - but this power is not legitimated by society, nor is it institutionalized. They exert power through the use of violence.
In both cases - whether the power/violence is legitimate or illegitimate - the power is gendered. Men hold both the legitimated positions of power in the political, legal and military (police) institutions. Moreover, they are most likely the perpetrators of illegal power/violence.
We will also recognize that the boundaries of what is legitimated and what is not has permeable boundaries. For example, in some states it is not illegal to force one’s wife to have sex.
Gender and Politics
When we speak about politics, we are essentially speaking about power – the power to distribute scarce resources, to institutionalize particular values, and to legitimately use force or violence.
Currently more women are running for and being elected to public office, and more are obtaining political appointments than ever before. Nevertheless the percentage of women in general decision making and in the military remains small.
To the extent that men and women have different degrees of political power, they will have unequal input into political decision making, and consequently, their interests and experiences may be unequally represented in law and public policy.
The Gender Gap: Political Attitudes and Activities.
Voting – Between 1920 and 1960, men’s rate of voting exceeded women’s rate by a considerable margin, although there was a gradual increase in women’s voting rates over the four decades. During the 1960s, there was sharp increase in women’s voting rates and, by 1978, the margin of difference between women’s and men’s voting rates was just about 2 percent. Lake and Berglio have attributed this to the rise in women’s level of educational attainment during this period as well as the rapid increase in the number of women working outside the home.
In the 1980 President election, two significant changes occurred: more women than men cast ballots, and women voted significantly differently than men. 47% of women voted for Reagan compared to 55% percent of men.
54% of women voted for Clinton – while only 43% of men
Gender gap: differences in voting patterns and political attitudes of women and men.
The gender gap involves more than voting behavior; there are particular perspectives on political issues that underlie individuals’ votes. Research consistently shows that women more than men express concern about health care, childcare, education, poverty, and homelessness. In contrast, men more than women express concern about the federal deficit, taxes, energy, defense and foreign policy. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, women have expressed greater pessimism about the economic condition of the country and have showed greater favor toward increased government activity in the form of programs to help families, even if such programs require increased taxes.
A strong and consistent gender gap also emerges with respect to issues of war and peace.
Women prefer domestic social spending over military spending. Women more than men express concern about crime and drugs. Women are also more likely than men to favor gun control laws.
Despite sex differences in these areas, on other topics, men’s and women’s political opinions are more likely to converge. For example, women and men share similar views on protecting the environment, reproductive freedom and abortion.
Other factors besides gender are race and ethnicity, social class, age, education and employment status.
Contrary to the popular myth that men are more interested and active in politics, there are actually few differences between the sexes in their level of political activism.
However, since so few women hold higher political offices, we need to evaluate the explanations given for this extreme difference.
Explanations of why this is include: socialization. This argument suggests that boys are told they can grow up to be president some day; the best girls can do is hope to grow up to marry the man who will be president. Therefore, they are not socialized to the possibility. However, current research found no gender differences in the political views of school-age children.
Another theory - no role models for women
Another explanation - women have greater difficulty meeting the demands of public life given their domestic responsibilities. It is not surprising therefore that women typically enter politics at a later age than men do and the at female political candidates are more likely than men to be single, widowed or divorced.
Another explanation - women lack the credentials (education) - this doesn’t seem to be a viable argument.
Another explanation - women may be relatively scarce in public office because of prejudice and discrimination against them that may occur on two levels: among the electorate and within political offices.
Recent research demonstrates that female and male candidates are covered differently by the media. For one thing, female candidates receive less media coverage than do male candidates. Media coverage of male candidates focuses more on campaigning issues, whereas media coverage of female candidates tends to focus on the viability of their campaign.
Prejudice and discrimination against female candidates can be found at a second level as well: within the political practices.
Other issues: Incumbents - usually do better than challengers (fewer women incumbents). Resources, Networks and Connections
Military–
Bourg and Segal -
The military is clearly recognized as a heterosexual, masculine institution.. The military has played a significant role in helping to create and does play a role in sustaining, gender and sexuality stratification. The military reflects and enforces the traditional stereotypes.
Militarism perpetuates the equation between masculinity and violence and war encodes violence into the notion of masculinity generation after generation.
Women make up about 14% of active-duty personnel. More racially diverse than in prior decades.
In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, a series of events took place that greatly expanded both the number and the roles of female military personnel. First, in 1967, Congress passed Public law 90-30 which removed the limit on the number of enlisted women and the number of promotions for women officers. In 1973 the military draft was replaced by the all-volunteer force, causing worried military planners to turn to the recruitment of women as a means to keep enlistment up. Several court cases overturned the military’s policy of awarding dependent benefits to female personnel using different standards from those applied to male personnel. In 1978 the federal court struck down the Navy’s policy of barring women from sea duty. ROTC began to accept women. The Air Force opened flight schools to women. In 1975 the Defense Department lifted its ban on parenting for female personnel and made discharge for pregnancy available on a voluntary basis.
During the Carter administration, there appeared a strong commitment to recruit women for the military which was pared down under the Reagan era.
From the 1970s to 1994 the US military utilized what was called the risk rule to determine the military jobs from which women would be barred. For the most part, these were ground combat and combat support jobs that entail substantial risk of being killed in action or captured as a prisoner of war. In 1993 then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, on behalf of the Clinton administration issued a directive ordering the armed services to permit women to fly aircraft in combat. In 1994 the Air Force and the Navy announced they had female pilots who were combat ready.
Also in 1994 the Army and Marine Corp opened some combat jobs to women but continued to exclude them from direct combat, such as armor, infantry, and filed artillery on the grounds that they lacked the physical strength needed for these jobs and their presence would disrupt morale.
Informally, the branch makes the decision as to whether or not women can serve in combat positions.
However, despite several other exceptions – for example, women are prohibited from serving in units where the cost of renovations to accommodate them would be prohibitively expensive and in support jobs that operate and remain with direct ground combat troops – it is estimated that about 95% of military posts are open to women.
The exclusion of women from combat roles has historically had important consequences for female military personnel, since such positions command substantially higher salaries on average than support positions do. They are all critical for promotion to the highest military ranks, in fact, it has been argued that combat exclusion has been women’s greatest impediment in achieving promotions.
Many recent analysts have argued that the difference between many combat roles and combat support roles is more a matter of semantics than a reflection of the actual danger attached to the positions. For example, women were permitted to fly combat aircraft, they regularly piloted the tanker aircraft that refuel fighters. They participated in the US invasion of Panama and were commanded by a female Army captain. In 1990 and 1991 women accounted for more than 10% of the military troops deployed in the Persian Gulf crisis. Nevertheless, while the probability of women using this training increases with every military conflict that the US enters, the official exclusion of women from direct ground combat remains in place.
Currently women make up 14% of active-duty U.S. military personnel. Varies - in the Navy 94% of positions are open to women; women constitute 12% of Navy enlisted personnel and 14% of officers. Women sere on almost all classes of ships except submarines. Army 70%, 15% of enlisted personnel and 13% of officers. , Marine Corps 62%and smallest percentage of women, 5% of enlisted women and 4 percent of officers.
A number of arguments have been made over the years to justify the exclusion of women from military combat and now from certain aspects of military combat. These include : women lack the necessary physical strength to perform adequately, ;their capacity for pregnancy and childbearing makes them inappropriate combatants. Women’s participation in combatants would reduce unit cohesion by disrupting male bonding and promoting fraternization. MAXWAC and REFWAC studies in the 1970’s showed that women performed well and without negative impact on unit performance
Widespread sexism often in the form of sexual harassment but also non-sexual harassment. This is known as gender harassment
Laura Miller examines how men in structurally dominant positions use resistance tactics against women in structurally subordinate positions in the military. It draws on social psychological theory to explain why men perceive themselves to be disadvantaged in relation to women in the military and examines their resistance tactics, or "weapons of the weak," that men use to retaliate against women in the military.
In the case of gender relations in the Army, perceptions matter because some Army men believe that women, not men, are the privileged and powerful group in the military. These men then act as "an oppressed group" on the basis of those perceptions. Most of these men object to women’s increased participation in the military, but fear negative organization consequences for expressing their objections openly. Therefore they resort to interactional, indirect forms of protest.
Miller calls Army men’s resistance strategies "gender harassment." This behavior includes sabotage, foot-dragging, feigning, ignorance, constant scrutiny, gossip and rumors and indirect threats harassment targets women but is not sexual; often it cannot be traced to its source.
These men described themselves as unjustly constrained or controlled by military women. Furthermore, these men tend to believe that women’s power is usually gained illegitimately and that women take advantage of their gender to promote their own careers.
Gender harassment refers to harassment that is not sexual, and is used to enforce traditional gender roles, or in response to the violation of those roles. This form of harassment also may aim to undermined women’s attempt at gaining power or to describe that power as illegitimately obtained or exercised. Many Army women report that gender harassment on the job is more prevalent than sexual harassment.
Some forms of gender harassment –
Resistance to Authority – they do not outright refuse to obey orders; yet they challenge women’s authority by not complying completely. They feign ignorance about what is expected of them, or encase in foot-dragging
Women sometimes hesitate to report uncooperative behavior because it could be interpreted as lack of leadership skills or as inability to get along with other officers. Such an appraisal in turn could affect work evaluations and promotion opportunities.
Constant Scrutiny - . Hostile men use constant scrutiny to catch individual women making mistakes and the use the mistakes to criticize the abilities of women in general. The same is not true for men.
Scrutiny as a harassment strategy is particularly safe in the military because it fits into the functioning of the organization. Once cannot be punished for seeking out and correcting errors, and it would be quite difficult to prove that women are being watched more closely than men.
Gossip and Rumors - Research on power and social interactions found that "rumors are especially likely to flourish among people who see that their fates are in other people’s hands." Army women are often the subject of untrue gossip about their sex lives.
Stories of sexual harassment or sexual activity between men and women soldiers were often framed in terms of the natural consequences of women "being there":
Rumors and gossip about sexuality thus communicated the inappropriateness of women serving among men, or implied that women’s power was often gained illegitimately through sexual favors.
Sabotage – Miller found evidence of sabotage, as a form of gender harassment, only in work fields that are nontraditional for women. Sabotage of equipment and tools was reported by women in mechanical fields.
The threats are usually communicated in a tone of concern for women’s safety, for morale, or for combat effectiveness. This concern, whether genuine or not, gives the teller some sense of safety from reprimand for his statements.
Indirect Threats – Some soldiers report that some of their fellow men would rape women who dared to enter infantry or armor units. The men almost always wrote or spoke in terms of what other men would do.
Which men are most likely to object to women’s current or expanded participation in the military? -Minority men did not vary by rank, were least likely to support the currently policy, and were most likely to prefer to allow women to volunteer for the combat arms they so desired. Men of color, regardless of rank, may be more likely than White men to identify with women, who are fellow members of a minority; or they may be less likely to feel threatened by equal opportunity issues.
Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Privileges:
Easier Physical Training Standards – Both men and women reported that women’s physical training requirements are not only different from men’s, but easier for most women to meet than men’s are for most men. Although this training is supposed to maintain physical fitness, most soldiers interpret it as a measure of strength.
Pregnancy as an Advantage -
Some men find it unfair that women have an honorable option out of the service, deployments, or single barracks that men do not have: pregnancy.
Better Educational Opportunities: Many men feel that restrictions on women’s roles are unfair not because they limit women, but because they appear to give women opportunities to receive more schooling than men.
Bourg and Segal - The relationships between the military, gender, and sexuality can be examined at multiple levels.
The military affects gender stratification in at least three ways. First, it contributes to cultural definitions and images of masculinity and femininity. (e.g. warrior masculinity). This experience ahs included subtle and not so-subtle messages that women and homosexuals are inferior and not able to or suitable to serve their country.
Second, the military provides its members differential access to power and resources. Third, military service has historically had strong connections with the rights inherent in U.S. citizenship.
The effects of social-structural and cultural factors on Women's military roles. Three major types of factors affect women's participation in armed forces through history and across nations: characteristics of the military, (examples when there are shortages of qualified men, especially during times of national emergency, most nations have increased women's military roles. Among the social-structural variables that affect women's military participation are demographic patterns, labor-force characteristics, economic factors, and family structure. High unemployment rates )especially among young men are associated with a ready supply of men to serve in the armed forces and relatively low opportunities for women in the military The greater family responsibilities for the average woman, the less women's representation in the armed forces. structural characteristics of society, and cultural values regarding gender and family. A culture can exaggerate or minimize the importance of sex differences (in physical or psychological traits) and thereby justify or reject a gender-based division of social roles. The extent to which a culture continues to assign women the primary role of reproduction and childcare affects women's military roles. Shared parenting, extended family, government-sponsored parental leave, and community-supported child care are structures that enable parents to be involved in their societies without neglecting children.
The Criminal Justice System
Although the number of women in the police and criminal justice system has increased, the numbers remain small. The 1972 amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allowed women equal opportunity to law enforcement. Many police departments removed discriminatory hiring and deployment practices.
Although women have constituted an increasing number of police recruits since the 1970s, they continue to be marginalized in training at many police academies. Instructor frequently use sexist humor to "liven up: the classes. They also commonly refer to female recruits as "girls" and "gals" while the male recruits are "men" and "guys."
The belief in male superiority, for instance, is still strong within police departments. There are also double standards of behavior for women and men and different criteria for evolution. When a female officer makes a mistake, for example, the consequences may be exaggerated. Department member also continue to make references to women’s physical size and strength and to question the impact of these physical qualities on the effectiveness of female officers. Martin reports, however, that the physical appearance and conditioning of male officers receive considerably less attention from coworkers and supervisors. Although Martin notes that most male officers no longer engage in blanket stereotypes or rejection of women in police work, they continue to view women’s routine competence as exceptional. Moreover, female officers face a double bind: if they conform to the men’s conceptions of "good" women, they will be viewed as too weak to do a competent job, but if they behave like the men, they will be labeled "bitches" and "dykes."
This point raises one final way that male officers attempt to assert their superiority: by sexualizing the workplace. Sexual teasing, jokes, and innuendo are routine in police departments, and female officers typically joining in this behavior. Sexual harassment, however, remains a serious problem, and it occurs not only in local and state departments but also in federal agencies.
Despite the prevalent stereotypes about female police officers, there is little evidence that they differ from their male colleagues in their attitudes toward police work and toward citizens. Experience, measured in years spent of the force, appears to be more important than an officer’s sex in affecting her or his attitudes.
Research indicated that female correctional officers have experiences similar to those of women in police work. Women make up about 13% of correctional officers at men’s prisons; nevertheless the increased presence of women in corrections has not led to their full integration in the workplace.
Similar to police officers, female and male correctional officers show few differences in their attitude toward their work and toward inmates.
Gender Model vs. Situational Model
Empirical research suggests that the role officers play is more important than their gender or race in determining how they perform their work.
Alisa Politz Worden found that women and men officers had similar attitudes on a range of subjects concerning policing. Female officers do report lower levels of self-confidence than male officers do but this is hardly surprising since hostile environments contribute to lower self-confidence.
Approximately – 10% in Local Police Departments
Correctional officers – 30%
(Adult state systems)
Juvenile State Systems (37%)
Federal Prisons (27%)
Judges Attorneys and Judges - by 2000, women will represent 50% of lawyers; however they represent 10 to 19% of judges.
How are institutions of legitimate power sustained as male dominated institutions? Carol Cohn speaks about gender discourse in shaping national security. What does "gender discourse" mean - a system of meanings, of ways of thinking, images and words that first shape how we experience, understand, and represent ourselves as men and women, but that also more than that: they shape many other aspects of our lives and cultures. In this symbolic system, human characteristics are dichotomized, divided into pairs of polar opposites that are supposedly mutually exclusive: mind is opposed to body; culture to nature; thought to feeling; logic to intuition; objectivity to subjectivity; aggression to passivity; confrontation to accommodation; abstraction to particularity;' public to private; political to personal, ad nauseam. In each case, the first term of the "opposites" is associated with male; the second with female. And in each case, our society values the first over the second.
Real women and men do not really fit these gender "ideals," the existence of this system of meaning affects all of us. And specific discourse of gender vary by race, class ethnicity, locale, sexuality, nationality and other factors... We become positioned by the gender discourse. Example, the physicist "who felt like a woman" when he "blurted out" his sudden awareness of the "only thirty million" dead people?
Illegitimate Power
Men constitute 99 percent of all persons arrested for rape; 88% of those arrested for murder; 92% of those arrested for robbery; 87% for aggravated assault; 85% of other assaults; 83% of all family violence; 82% of disorderly conduct. Men are overwhelmingly more violent than women. Nearly 90% of all murder victims are killed by men, according to the United States Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reports.
Theories to explain this;
Biological differences – androgens, male hormones, ex testosterone are what drive male aggression. Except that we have learned that the evidence is unconvincing. Although its is true that testosterone is highly correlated with aggressive behavior. Increased testosterone levels typically result in increased aggression. It does not cause aggression but only facilitates an aggressiveness that is already present. It does nothing for nonaggressive males. Nor does the causal arrow always point from hormone to behavior. Can be a case of eminence. Nor does increased testosterone cause violence against those who are significantly higher on the dominance ladder.
Homosocial competition which regards male violence as the result of the evolutionary competition for sexual access to females. In some cultures, males are not in the least violent or competitive with each other.
Psychological theories – Psychodynamic – male violence is a way to prove successful masculinity.
Societies in which gender inequality is highest are those where masculinity and femininity are seen to be polar opposites. Themes that anthropologists have isolated as leading toward both interpersonal violence and intersocietal violence. Examples – the ideal for manhood is the fierce and handsome warrior.
Social and Cultural TheoriesOne of the most significant “causes” of male violence, then, is gender inequality.
America - A history of gender violence. Culturally - Violence has long been understood as the best way to ensure that others publicly recognize one's manhood. Male violence is a code that sees violence as the chief demarcating line between women and men.
Men’s violence against women is the result of entitlement thwarted; men’s violence against other men often derives from the same thwarted sense of entitlement.
The Gender of Crime – Young American men are the most violent group of people in the industrialized world. Two innate biological variables are predictors of violence are youth and maleness. Examples – listed above.
Despite the increases in crime rates for women over the past few decades, the base numbers were so small to begin with that any modest increase would appear to be a larger percentage increase than among men. There have been some increases I women’s property crime, especially fraud, forgery and embezzlement most of that increase has been in petty theft: shoplifting, credit card fraud, passing bad checks. Katz argues shoplifting is the prototypical “female” crime because it is about satisfying desire without taking responsibility. The stickup is the prototypical “male” crime, fast, aggressive, dangerous, and violent.
Women’s violence remains dramatically different from men’s violence. For example, women’s violence tends to be defensive, while men are more often the initiators of violent acts.
We have some evidence that the gender gap in violence is decreasing. But women constitute only 6.3% of the prison population.
Men's violence against women can be studied as an issue of entitlement thwarted. And an issue of power.
Men learn that violence is an accepted form of communication between men and between women and men. Nearly one in five victims of violence treated in hospital emergency rooms was injured by a spouse, a former spouse or a current or former boyfriend of girlfriend. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women in the nation between 30 and 40% of all women who are murdered are murdered by husband or boyfriends. Between 12% and 25% of all American women have experienced rape and another 12% to 20% have experienced attempted rape.
College - Nearly 44% of all women surveyed have experienced some forms of sexual activity when they didn't want to.
Rapists - Diana Scully found that rapists have higher levels of consensual sexual activity than other men, and are as likely to have significant relationships with women and are as likely to be fathers as other men. Rape was used by men "to put women in their place," Rape is a way to get even, to exact revenge for rejection, to retaliate. Feelings of powerlessness couple with the sense of entitlement to women's bodies.
Rape is a crime that combines sex and violence, that makes se the weapon in an act of violence. It is less a crime of passion than a crime of power. It stems from a feeling of powerlessness. Men's feelings of both powerlessness and entitlement are also part of the backdrop to the problem of violence in the home.
Domestic violence varies as the balance of power in the relationship shifts. Concentration of power in men's hands leads to higher rates of violence. Women and men do not commit acts of violence at the same rate, for the same reasons. Kersti Yllo argues that men tend to use domestic violence instrumentally for the specific purpose of striking fear and terror in their wives' hearts, to ensure compliance, obedience, and passive acceptance of the husband's rule in the home women tend to use violence expressively, to express frustration or immediate anger - or, defensively to prevent further injury.
The best predictors of the onset of domestic violence is unemployment. Racial and ethic differences disappear when social classes are similar.
Domestic violence is another way in which men exert power and control over women. And yet, like rape, domestic violence is most likely to occur not when the man feels most powerful, but when he feels relatively powerless. Violence is restorative; a means to reclaim the power that he believes is rightfully his.
July, 2000 National Institute of Justice, drawing on a population that was 99% heterosexual, found that 25% of women and 8% of men, were victims of an abusive relationship sometime in their lives.
The official statistics probably underestimate the problem.
About 12% of adult intimates experience at least one incident of physical abuse at the hands of their partners.
Straus's findings suggested that far from being a one-sided attack, partner abuse is usually mutual abuse, an exchange of physical and psychological abuse between partners.
Some researchers have cited findings that appear to show that women assault their male partners as much as men assault women. Women do report using violence against their husbands or boyfriends at about the same or even a slightly or even a slightly higher rate than men report using violence against their wives or girlfriends.
Dobash, Dobash, Wilson and Daly "The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence."
However, what does further digging into the research show?
Researchers who have identified equal amounts of battering used the "Conflict Tactics Scale" which doesn't discriminate between the intent of the act or the effect of the act. For example in the CTS, there is no difference between a slap that stings ands a punch that causes permanent injury. There is no difference between a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs. There is no difference between a violent who defends her daughter against the father.
The extent of the violence - these studies take a single year rather than a looking over time.
Underreporting of the extent of the violence perpetrated by men. When both partners are interviewed independently, there is great discrepancy. Men tend to underreport and minimize the extent of the violence.
Other criticism The surveys exclude incidents of violence that occur after separation and divorce, yet these account for 75.9% of spouse-on-spouse assaults, with a male perpetrator 93% of the time.
The CTS does not include sexual assault as a category although more women are raped by their husbands than beaten only.
Police and court records persistently indicate that women are 90 to 95 percent of the victims of reported assaults.
There is a myth that men don't report the abuse because of shame, etc. But the U.S. National Crime Surveys shows that men who are assaulted by their spouses actually call the police more often than women who were assaulted by their spouses.
87% of men murdered in the U.S. are killed by other men. 3% of male homicide victims are killed by wives, ex-wives or girlfriends. About one third of female homicide victims are killed by husbands, ex-husbands, or boyfriends.
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