9.1 Describe the difference between sex and gender.

9.2 Identify the agents of gender socialization.

9.3 Give examples of meso- and macrolevel gender stratification.

9.4 Illustrate the relationship between minority status and gender and sexual orientation.

9.5 Discuss the costs and consequences of gender stratification.

9.6 Predict social policies that could decrease gender stratification.

Key Points:

• Whereas sex is biological, notions of gender identity and gender roles are socially constructed and learned, and vary across cultures.
• Notions of gender are first taught in micro settings—in the intimacy of the home—but reinforced at the meso and macro levels.
• While “she” may go first in micro-level social encounters (served first in a restaurant or the first to enter a door­way), “he” goes first in meso and macro settings—with the doors open wider for men to enter leadership posi­tions in organizations and institutions.
• Greater access to resources at the meso level makes it easier to have entre to macro-level positions, but it also influences the respect one receives in micro settings.
• Much of the gender stratification today is unconscious and unintended—not caused by angry or bigoted men who purposefully oppress women. Gender inequality is rooted in institutionalized privilege and disprivilege.
• Various social theories shed different light on the issues of inequality in gender roles assigned to various sexes.
• For modern postindustrial societies, there is a high cost for treating women like a minority group—individually for the people who experience it and for the society, which loses many potential contributions from women.

Summary:

Because sex is a primary variable on which societies are structured and stratified, our sex affects our public and private sphere activities, our health, our ability to practice religion or participate in political life, our opportunities for education, and just about everything we do.