The Conflict Perspective: Gender Inequality, And Sexism

What exactly is gender inequality? Where did it come from and when did it start? Gender inequality is the injustice and prejudice treatment and behavior between men and women, which can also be known as sexism. Gender inequality goes back decades and centuries ago to the agricultural era. During such a time, men and women performed massively different jobs. The men worked with heavy field labor type of jobs, while the women worked with domestic-type jobs such as clothing and food preparation. Even though the law favored men, the labor between both men and women were equal, and families could not survive without the other. When this type of make-your-own-provisions economy was replaced with a market economy, considerably after the American Revolution, …show more content…
Instead of seeing society as this interconnected system of institutions that each contribute their own unique set of tasks, the conflict perspective views these different institutions competing for power and resources. The conflict perspective dates back to Karl Marx and his idea of Marxism. Marx argued that with industries in developing societies comes with socioeconomic status. The Conflict Perspective used in gender inequality is similar to the Structural-Functionalist Perspective in which it is contributed by society’s structure and the institutions within. More specifically, the conflict perspective focuses on the theory that the relationship between men and women have very different ranks in the production process. Once again going back to the agricultural era, men and women had jobs that each contributed equally to the family and their finances. However, once the agricultural economy changed into an industrial one, the importance of jobs was seen differently and men became the dominating power in society (Mooney, Knox, and Schacht 313). Throughout the years, the discrimination of women became extremely harsh to where they were not given the same legal rights, were seen as property to their husbands, and were seen as less superior status- and intelligent-wise (Kitch). During World War II, women were allowed to contribute to the labor industry as factory workers rather than staying at home. Once the war ended, women did not want to return to their inferior jobs as “stay-at-home” mothers. This set the stage for them to take on high job opportunities and higher education to achieve those job opportunities. Today women can take on most jobs a man can, whether it be doctor, lawyer, soldier, engineer, or mechanic. However, even with the equal opportunities men and women have, equal wage and income is nonexistent. Gender inequality happens every day in the