GROUP 2: GENDER AND FAMILIES

Maki Razuman
Neil Vincent Regner
Reynnard Sumalpong

PART I. GENDER ROLES AND SOCIALIZATION

Gender Roles

. People make assumptions about how others should act in social life, and to whom they
should be attracted, based on their perceptions of outward bodily appearance, which is
assumed to represent biological sex characteristics.

. Feminine: (examples: cooking, child care, Being a housewife) Seen as Submissive,

gentle, emotional, passive, weak.

. Masculine:(examples: Being a leader, Breadwinner and provider for a family) Seen as

Dominant, aggressive, adventurer, assertive, strong.

. According to the biological determinist view, where “biology is destiny,” this is the way
nature intended. However, this view fails to account for human intervention. As human
beings, we have an impact on the social arrangements of society.

. Social constructionists believe that many things we typically leave unquestioned as

conventional ways of life actually reflect historically- and culturally-rooted power
relationships between groups of people, which are reproduced in part through socialization
processes, where we learn conventional ways of thinking and behaving from our families and
communities.

. Gender identity is one's own personal experience with gender role and the persistence of
one's individuality as male, female, or androgynous, especially in self-awareness and
behavior.

GENDER SOCIALIZATION AND FAMILY

Construction of Gender.
 - The focus for this discussion is based on how males and females learn masculinity and
femininity through family/primary group interactions, and how they are socialized into
dichotomous, “traditional” gender roles.
- Gender determines what is expected and valued in a woman or man in given context
- Gender is part of the broader socio-cultural context.
- The family and other primary groups help to create and maintain the socialization of
children.
- The socialization of children in the family unit has been examined in various ways and
focuses on four traditions: parent effect perspective, the child effects perspective, the
reciprocal socialization perspective, and the systemic-ecological perspective.

Family and the Construction of Gender

- Parent Effect perspective - addresses how the different styles, behaviours and
dispositions of parents socialize traits and behavior in children.
- Child Effects perspective - reverses the order of operations in family
socialization, focusing on how children socialize parents.
- Reciprocal effects perspective - examines how both children and parents
socialize one another reflexively; the impact of gender and family socialization
are mutually tied to both entities.
- Systemic-ecological perspective - considers that gender and family is neither a
parent-to-child nor child-to-parent process.

Child-Rearing
- Socialization of persons into a given gender, begins the moment a child is born. Ruth
Hartley notes four processes involved in a child’s learning of gender identity. In most
cases these processes are performed unconsciously by those nearest to the child.

- These processes are seen as “natural” reactions to the child’s sex. Thus the child too
learns unconsciously.

Processes involved in gender socialization

● Verbal Appellation telling children what they are and what is expected of them.
● Canalization people direct children’s attention to gender appropriate objects.
● Manipulation people handle girls and boys differently even as infants.
● Activity exposure familiarizing children to their gender-appropriate task.
 - This series of processes enables children to identify which gender their parents think they
should belong to, and to acquire the corresponding behaviour and roles.

Institutions of Mass Socialization

- Institutions of mass socialization play an important role in promoting the dominant

gender ideology and inequality. In our contemporary society, four institutions are crucial:

● Formal education - The education system itself is authoritarian in orientation, with

learning occurring largely as a transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. Schools
and teachers channel boys and girls towards gender-appropriate behavior and activities.
The content of textbooks and visual aids reinforces gender stereotypes, with females
portrayed primarily as mothers and well-behaved, and males primarily as workers and
adventurous.
● Mass Media - Print media, broadcast media and films carry the same gender stereotypes
as school textbooks. Advertising uses gender imagery to get people to buy products; in so
doing, it also convinces people to buy the prevalent gender ideology.
● Religion - Most dominant religions teach that gender differentiation and inequality are
ordained by God. This teaching is conveyed in sacred symbolism. Example: Filipino
Catholic marriages rites bid brides to be good housewives, obedient to their husbands and
look up to Mary, the model of Catholic women, depicted as “ever-virgin”, meek and self-
sacrificing. Muslim fundamentalists practice purdah, or the seclusion of women, and
insist that no women venture into the public eye unless she is covered from head o foot.
● Language - Language is the most subtle and pervasive institution of socialization, since
it is used everyday, It is a primary mediator in our relationship with the world. Thus
sexist language is a powerful tool for the maintenance of gender ideology. The range of
derogatory words in English which refer exclusively to women is wider than that of
words denigrating men, and common phrases such as the reference to a weak or timid
person as “having no balls”, unconsciously put down on women.

OTHER THEORIES ON GENDER SOCIALIZATION BY THE FAMILY

1. Gender Socialization by the Family: An Either/Or Dichotomy

- Gender socialization is often examined by sociologists to determine how and why males
and females act differently.
- The socialization process begins at birth; families usually treat newborns differently
according to their sex; and begin to socialize in gender roles.
2. Homophily
 - Homophily describes the tendency for network connections to be same-sex rather than
cross sex; it begins as soon as children are able to choose their playmates
- Homophily is linked to social process and emerges as children learn from their families
and through experience that sex differences are permanent personal characteristics Boys
and girls learn and develop in gendered subcultures which generally influence social
networks and future interactions.
3. Differentiated gender identities (On the lens of Psychoanalytic Perspective)
- Psychoanalytic theory’s treatment of gender hinges on two of Sigmund Freud’s most
important findings: the notion of internal conflict and the idea that we have an
unconscious part of ourselves that motivates us but about which we are unaware
- The main utility of his work is used here to show that boys learn masculinity as an
oppositional construct to femininity more than girls learn what it means to be feminine by
what is non-masculine.
4. Doing Gender
- “Doing" of gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of
society is hostage to its production
- Doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional, and micro
political activities that cast particular pur- suits as expressions of masculine and feminine
"natures."
- Doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men,
differences that are not natural, essential, or biological.
- Another perspective on gender socialization is influenced by ethnomethodology and
provided by West and Zimmerman (and others)
- In this perspective, gender is understood as created and maintained while actors assume
and play out roles in society. Here, emphasis is placed on the fact that many roles and
tasks in society tend to be gendered
- When we view gender as an accomplishment, an achieved property of situated conduct,
our attention shifts from matters internal to the individual and focuses on interactional
and, ultimately, institutional arenas.

5. Variants of Identity Theory and Gender: Nascent Stages of Inquiry

 - This phenomenon is specifically examined to show how identities that are formed by the
family become internalized.
- One of the most intriguing elements to gender is why human beings (who are supposedly
rational creatures, or at least capable of rational thought and behavior) continue to operate
according to gender expectations and stereotypes
- Identity theory explains why such (sometimes) irrational behavior perpetuates, and also
why both men and women adhere to the identities they learn early on that are acquired
from the messages and cultural influences of family and society.

Reference:

● https://books.google.com.ph/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=qjjbCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=gender+role+sociology&ots
=U5eF94K9Sw&sig=Bjw9G3s8_moff1_6mfa3EjeyBt0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=
gender%20role%20sociology&f=false

● https://library.pcw.gov.ph/sites/default/files/Sex%20and%20gender%20in%20the
%20Philippine%20Society%20a%20discussion%20of%20issues%20.pdf

PART II.

THE GENDER AND INTERACTION

- Gender is a system of social practices within society that constitutes people as
different in socially significant ways and organizes relations of inequality on
the basis of the difference (Ridgeway & Smith-Lovin 1999).

- Gender is distinctive, however, in that its constitutive

cultural beliefs and confirmatory experiences must be sustained in the context
of constant interaction, often on familiar terms, between those advantaged and
disadvantaged by the system.

- Sexual behavior and reproduction also increase the rate of contact between men and
women. In addition, gender crosscuts kin. Most people interact with other-sex
family members such as parents, siblings, or children.

- Gender is deeply involved in the fundamental organization of

interaction, people are many things in interaction in addition to their sex.
Dichotomous sex categories make simple orienting frames, but by the same token they are too
diffuse to define behavior adequately in most contexts.

- Sex category is one of only two or three “primary” social categories constituted in our culture
as essential to make another suffi-
ciently sensible in relation to self so that interaction can proceed

- Two factors are likely to shape the patterns of association that occur in
interaction between sex category and situational power and prestige. The structural contexts in
which cross-sex and same-sex contact occur may interac-
tionally advantage one sex more often than the other.

NETWORKS OF MALE-FEMALE INTERACTION

- The common activities that occur in childhood play groups create gendered knowledge,which
strengthens the perception of gender differences and erodes the common ground upon which
intimate, status-equal friendship relationships between males and females must be based.

- Women are much more likely to know friends through their husband’s work ties than men are
to know their wives’ work friends.

- Men and women meet each other in contexts where institutional roles heavily structure their
interaction. Kinship, work, and couple-oriented social events are the primary settings for these
interactions.

- The sex-segregated nature of work creates a biased opportunity structure for work interaction
between men and women. Women are found in different,often less attractive, jobs than men
(Reskin 1993);

- These subtle network pressures on women in high status positions lead to some interesting
differences in the ability of women to translate network characteristics into career advancement.
Men are more able to translate educational attainment and external professional contacts into
central positions in informal organizational networks

- Burt (1992) found that men’s mobility was enhanced by ties to people who were not directly
connected to one another (i.e. bridging ties that crossed structural holes in the network). Women,
on the other hand, needed strong ties to strategic partners in
the organization to advance quickly.

- These organizational network findings confirm Granovetter’s (1983, 1985) conclusion that
weak ties are less advantageous for people in insecure positions, whether economically or
socially.

THE OVERDETERMINED NATURE OF INEQUALITY IN MALE-FEMALE

INTERACTION
Gender and Positions of Authority

- Since cognitive sex categorization makes gender a background identity for actors in these
encounters, they experience men in more powerful roles, behaving assertively and agentically,
while women act in a more supportive manner in their less powerful roles.

- The gendered division of labor in society also gives men and women different experiences from
which they may acquire different skills and interests.

- If gendered traits play a large role, they would affect the selection of men and women into
powerful versus subordinate roles as well as the way that they act in those roles.

- Differences in legitimacy in work positions mean that even men and women who hold
structurally equivalent formal positions are actually operating in different social contexts.

Gender Status and Behavior in Interaction

- Gender is a status characteristic in many countries in that beliefs that associate higher status and
competence with men than with women are widely held.

- Expectation states theory claims that gender becomes salient in a setting when it either
differentiates the actors (a mixed-sex context) or is culturally linked to the task at hand. When
gender is salient, gender status beliefs shape the expectations actors form for the competence of
men and women in the setting.

- In mixed sex groups, then, the theory predicts that men will be more influential, participate
more, be more assertive, and be less inclined to agree than similar women. When the task or
setting is stereotypically masculine (e.g. Car repair)

- Gender’s direct relevance to the setting will exaggerate these behavioral differences, increasing
men’s power and prestige advantage over women. When the task is stereotypically feminine
(e.g.child care)
PARTICIPATION, INFLUENCE, AND LEADERSHIP

- There are gender differences that favor men in mixed sex interaction but these interact with the
gender typing of the task or setting, giving men a stronger advantage in masculine tasks and
weak disadvantage in feminine tasks. In same-sex groups there are few differences between
men’s and women’s assertive gestures and speech.

- In a meta-analytic study of emergent leadership in mixed sex contexts, Eagly & Karau (1991)
found that the overall tendency for men to become leaders rather than women varied with the
gender. typing of the leadership and task.

GAZE AND GESTURES

- Visual dominance is a pattern of looking at the other more while speaking than while listening.

- In same-sex groups men and women differ little in visual dominance. They both show similarly
greater visual dominance when in high-status rather than low-status positions in the interaction

- Dovidio et al (1998) found that when mixed sex dyads turned from a gender neutral task to a
masculine task, men’s greater visual dominance and rate of gesturing became exaggerated, but
when the dyad shifted to discuss a feminine task, women displayed more visual dominance and
gestured more than men.

TENTATIVE SPEECH

- Lakoff (1975) has suggested that women, due to their lower status, use more tentative,
deferential speech forms, especially with men, and that these forms make the speaker appear less
convincing.

- Studies do show that women are more likely to use tag questions, hedges, and disclaimers, and
hypercorrect, “super polite” grammatical constructions.

- Maltz & Borker (1982) and Tannen (1990) have argued that women learn more supportive, less
dominance oriented speech styles in childhood peer groups that are sex segregated.

INTERRUPTIONS

- The evidence suggests that men more often disruptively interrupt women than other men,
whereas women do not discriminate in whom they interrupt
CREDIT FOR PERFORMANCE

- In addition to shaping patterns of participation,influence, gaze, and tentative versus assertive

speech, scholars have shown that the activation of gender status beliefs in mixed sex interaction
can affect the credit women receive for their performances compared to similar men.

- Gender status beliefs evoke double standards for judging competence, so that a performance of
the same quality is seen as less indicative of ability in a woman than a man.

COUNTERVAILING EVIDENCE
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- There is one set of evidence that contradicts the broad pattern of support for gender status as the
primary cause of gender differences in assertive, task directed behaviors and influence among
formal peers.

- Interaction Process Analysis (IPA) to code the percentages of each person’s behavior in an
encounter that are task-oriented and instrumental versus supportive and socioemotional.

- Such studies generally find that men in task groups have higher percentages of task behavior
and women have somewhat higher percentages of socioemotional behavior.

- IPA records relative percentages rather than absolute numbers of task-directed behaviors and
classifies as socioemotional all acts that contain any socioemotional element.

SOCIOEMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR

- Women also use more expressive intensifiers than men and are nonverbally warmer.

- Women’s higher rate of socioemotional behaviors in interaction is attributed to several sources.

When gender status is salient (in mixed-sex or gender relevant settings), women face legitimacy
problems when they seek to be highly influential.
- In sum, gender status beliefs become salient in mixed sex or gender relevant situations and
create unequal competence expectations for similar men and women.

- The evidence shows that gender inequality in male-female interaction is created primarily by
situational factors. These include unequal formal roles and salient gender status beliefs. As a
result, behavioral difference and inequality are quite sensitive to changes in the structure of
situations and vary across contexts.

Gender Identities in Interaction

- Two traditions share this emphasis on meaning: the “doing gender” perspective and the
structural symbolic interactionist perspectives.

- “Doing gender” is an ethnomethodological approach that argues gender is an interactional

accomplishment, something that must be continually enacted in local situations to persist as a
social phenomenon.

- Cultural norms dictate that there are two and only two sexes, each with inherent natures that
justify male dominance. However, these norms cannot be maintained unless people present
themselves in ways that allow others to categorize them as male or female.

- Gender is an adverb rather than a noun something that modifies the ways that role behaviors are
enacted, rather than a personal characteristic.

- The concept of gender as something that one “does” has been very influential as a theoretical
point, but researchers have been slow to operationalize this insight to orient empirical work on
interaction

- Modern structural symbolic interactionists see identities as a set of cultural meanings that are
learned through a variety of mechanisms, including interaction behaviors, people’s emotional
reactions, material culture, and other institutional arrangements

- Gender is often viewed as a “master identity” because it is evoked across a large variety of
contexts, rather than being associated with specific institutional roles
- The structural symbolic interactionists’ view is closely related to traditional socialization
approaches to gender: People learn meanings about what it is to be masculine or feminine and
then enact those meanings across a variety of situations.

- The traditional femininity in the latter encounter helps to restore meanings that were upset in
the former confrontation. In this way, the control system view of the structural symbolic
interactionist mirrors the basic insight of the “doing gender” perspective.

- Verta Taylor (1999) showed how social movements purposefully create new identity meanings.
In an ethnographic study of a post-partum self-help group, Taylor followed how new mothers’
identities were transformed to create a more positive, assertive emotional state.

- Both perspectives stress the meanings associated with behaviors as well as identities. Behaviors
in interaction provide social confirmation or disconfirmation of gendered identities because they
have cultural meanings that interactants share.

- The primary difference between the two perspectives is the degree of specificity about these
cultural meanings and how they are assessed in empirical work.

-As Kroska (1998:307) pointed out, advocates of the doing gender perspective rarely measure
these normative conceptions, but rather infer them from differences in behavior by sex category.

- Kroska showed how combining the basic insight of the doing gender perspective with the
greater formalism of the identity control theories can produce theoretical progress.

THE ROLE OF UNEQUAL INTERACTION IN MEDIATING BELIEFS ABOUT

GENDER

-Gendered identity meanings develop in response to widely shared cultural beliefs about men
and women. Several scholars have noted the striking correspondence between such beliefs about
men and women and stereotypes of high and low status people more generally.

- Given sex categorization in interaction and male-female interaction that is most often status
ordered, men and women commonly experience one another as acting in high and low status
ways. It is reasonable to expect that these repeated experiences would affect widely shared
beliefs about men’s and women’s attributes.

- Since men and women interact frequently, but usually under conditions where men have more
resources (e. g., pay, formal position, contacts, information) that advantage them in the influence
hierarchies that develop, mixed-sex interaction continually refreshes gender status beliefs

- A person’s multiple identities can be thought of as hierarchically arranged in terms of

commitment or embeddedness within social networks

- Interaction helps produce gender identity and gender status beliefs as well as being shaped by
them.

INTERACTION PROCESSES AFFECT NETWORK STRUCTURES

- Homophily on gender operates both through the opportunities that are presented for men and
women to interact (induced homophily) and through the choice to interact with others who view
the world in the same way (choice homophily)

- People select to interact with those who confirm their own view of the world, especially their
self-views, To the extent that men and women occupy “different worlds” because of their
structural positions,they will be more likely to form gender-homophilous friendships and other
peer relations

- Social identity perspective may help to explain the considerable variability in the extent to
which people in the same structural position construct ego networks that are gender homophilous

- The salience of gender identity is likely to vary depending on factors such as personal history,
organizational context, exposure to social movement activities, parents’ ideologies, and other
factors. The extent to which people select for gender-homophilous networks also is determined
by the legitimacy of men and women within a particular position.

* Interaction processes affect with whom one interacts in several interrelated ways.
- First, since men and women often occupy different structural positions, they come to know
different things, view the world in different ways, and prefer gender-homophilous friendships.

- Second, since women are often structurally disadvantaged in interactions with men, sex
category is likely to remain socially constructed as a salient difference.

- Third, gender identity salience will vary across individuals in predictable ways, based on
personal biography and structural context, producing concomitant variations in the gender
homophily of ego networks. Finally, the special legitimacy and interactional problems that
women face may lead them to seek out other women as appropriate role models, mentors, and
friends.

Reference:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vZcOApJMdCgJJgDycPYo2SZSdyByI6edg8PqYSB4
dLs/edit
THE GENDER SYSTEM AND
INTERACTION
Cecilia L. Ridgeway

PART III: GENDER SYSTEMS IN THE PHILIPPINES AND ITS IMPACT TO FAMILY
(IP AND REGULAR FAMILY)

Gender System

- Gender systems are the social structures that establish the number of genders and their
associated gender roles in every society.
- The most basic and common element in contemporary gender systems is a difference in
gender roles: the assignment to women of the primary responsibility for caring for
children and the home, and to men of the task of providing the income on which their
families live.
 - In most contemporary societies, this sexual division of labor exists in the form known
technically as the production-reproduction distinction.
● Production - refers to social production, or the production of commodities: that
is, goods and services for exchange rather than for immediate consumption.
Production is viewed as a men's sphere.
● Reproduction - Includes not just biological reproduction, but also the other task
associated with it: childbearing, the maintenance of other members of the family
and the maintenance of the dwelling - activities indispensable to survival, but
assigned no economic value. This is viewed as a women's sphere.

- Sex and gender are two differenct concepts: sex is a biological facts, gender a social
construction. The distinction between male and female, and the definition of these
categories according to each one’s role in biological reproduction, is universal in all
human cultures. The definition of gender categories, masculine and feminine, is not.
However, nearly all societies use sex as the basis for differentiating masculine and
feminine roles, thus creating a Gender System.

- Primary component of the gender system is division of labor which is justified by

gender stereotypes which fit into a coherent gender ideology.

-The basis of common-sense gender ideology is biological determinism: the belief that
sex automatically dictates social roles and even personality. However, what small
evidence there is for this ideology is offset by evidence that social and cultural factors
have greater influence in shaping individual personalities and capabilities.

-Thus the gender system is depicted by dominant gender ideology as a harmonious

arrangement in which men and women take complementary roles.

- Gender binary is another example of a gender system. A gender binary is the

classification of sex and gender into two distinct and disconnected forms of masculine
and feminine.

- In cultures where the gender binary is prominent and important, transgender people are
a major exception to the societal norms related to gender.

GENDER SYSTEM IN THE PHILIPPINES

- Ethnographic accounts reveal an egalitarian arrangement among pre-colonial Filipinos.

Example: the Filipino legend of creation tells the story of how man and woman were both
 nestled in a bamboo tube and made to appear at the same time as the bamboo split in half.
Historical accounts of pre-colonial lifestyles support the equality of the sexes as was
implied in this folktale.

- Social scientists in the Philippines have found that social norms perpetuate the perception
of the "traditional" roles of married men and women. Filipino traditions now dictate that
the husband be the breadwinner and the protector of the wife and the family, while the
wife be household manager and the keeper of the hearth. The wife is also expected to
keep the "marriage intact by her patience, submission, and virtues" (Sevilla, 1982:68)

- In present practice however men and women’s roles (especially the latter) have deviated
from the idealized “tradition”. The contemporary Filipino Wife, whether in rural or urban
areas, is more apt to actively engage in economic activities to financially help support
their family.
- Women have sought gainful employment outside the home to augment the husband’s
income or to substitute for an unemployed or Incapacitated husband. (Medina, 1991:156).

* More married rural women than urban women are engaged In economic activities.

* Miralao (1984) explains that the rise in the number of working married women is a
response to the “Impoverishment of households at the bottom of the social economic
hierarchy, the rising levels and standard of living, and the continuing acquisition of
education by women.

- In regard to household chores and child care, the norm still appears to be wife-dominated.
However, some family researchers have shown an increasing number of men helping in
domestic tasks particularly when the wife works outside the home.

* Research finds (Illo 1977) that husbands of working women in Bicol tend to help in
household chores more than the husbands of women who did not work outside the home.

- Studies reveal that Filipino husband and wife decision-making roles vary according to
decision area.

*Wife - Primary decision maker on matters dealing with household budget and
expenditures, childbearing and household management, family health, food preparation,
money and child control.

*Husband - While the husband decides on acquiring a loan and extending monetary aid
to relatives.
 - Household decision making in the Philippines is dominantly egalitarian.

The Changing Traditional Gender System and Roles of Indigenous People (Women of the
Kalanguya Tribe in Capintalan, Carranglan.)

- Part of the uniqueness of Indigenous Peoples is their rich culture and traditions which
they have passed down from generation to generation. Focusing on the Indigenous
Women of the Kalanguya Tribe in Capintalan, Carranglan. They are a very hardworking
tribe that does not discriminate between men and women when it comes to work.
Past
- Traditional roles of Kalanguya women showed the way they lived several decades ago
and the role they played within the tribe. Elderly women who were interviewed said that
doing the kaingin (slash and burning farming) with their parents was one of their main
tasks.
- It is normally the men who do the preparation of a kaingin while women do the planting
while women do the planting. Planting and harvesting crops have been the Kalanguyan’s
way of life while growing up.
- If there were plenty of infants, the eldest female child would usually stay at home to take
care of the baby, while the parents and other children would go to the forest to do
kaingin.
- According to one of the eldest females in the community, girls as young as six years old
were taken along the field to learn about kaingin. It will be one of their main
responsibilities until such time that they marry, bear children and are given other work.
Today
- It is evident that there has been a shift in the way the Kalanguyans think. They have come
to realize the importance of education even though the older women were still taught the
old way of subsistence.
- Most young girls and women are attending school.
- When they were asked as to what they dream of becoming when they finish their studies,
almost all of them answered that they want to be teachers. With the desire to be of service
to the community and to see more of their people educated.
- For those under the age of 20 - 39, two of the respondents were able to finish a degree in
Education. In fact, one is already teaching at the local High School in Capintalan, while
the other one is a teacher in Isabela, which is a province further up north.
- The younger men of the Kalanguya community would rather do manual labor like plow
the fields and do kaingin.
- Based on their statements, the boys find it more difficult to cope at school and would
rather work, while the girls are motivated to study and break free from the traditional
image they often see in their grandmothers who still insist on doing kaingin, planting and
harvesting, even if they could afford not to do so anymore.
 - With education finally taking an important place within the Kalanguya community, and
with the women taking in more important roles, it is not surprising that they have found
their voice and have become more vocal when it comes to choosing the person they are to
marry. Perhaps this is one of the most welcome developments, where the Kalanguya
women are now free to marry a person of their choice. Tribal intermarriages between
other tribes such as Ibalois and Kankana-eys, and even local lowlanders and highlanders
are now allowed and accepted.
- They now know the value of education and are striving to make something of themselves
and give service to their fellow Kalanguyans. They are free to choose the man they want
to marry, enjoy the courting process and take equal responsibility in raising a good
family. More importantly, they have now been recognized as equally deserving to be
given a position of trust and leadership within the Kalanguya community.

Comparison

- It is evident that the Indigenous People’s gender system is quite similar to a regular
filipino family's gender system where both men and women are equally distributed with
roles that are dominantly egalitarian, where young men choose to work with labor and
women are the ones in charge of decision making and leading their own people, Their
most empowering development for the Kalanguya women is the fact that in 1985, The
Kalanguya Community voted for a woman as their Barangay Captain.

Impacts of Gender system to the Filipino Family

Socioeconomic Correlates of Household Power - Studies on marital power indicate that

women with more economic resources tend to have more power than those with less
resources.
1. The Filipino household is basically egalitarian but exhibits a relatively stronger
female- than male bias
2. Filipino household decision-making power structure appears to be impervious to
economic variations
3. Household power relations are organized to support a pronatalist which
emphasizes the procreative function of married couples as a major source of
status.

Fertility - is the key factor in the Filipino household power allocation. This pattern is
consistent with the strong pronatalist ideology that underlies Philippine social structure.
The balance of power tips in favor of the husband when the couple has no children. Once
the couple has at least one child, household decision-making follows more closely the
traditional female-oriented pattern of household management and an egalitarian fertility
decision-making.
 - In the face of economic insecurity, a child is a valuable economic resource. Children,
when they are young, are valued for the help they provide within the household and in the
farm. The simple menial chores performed by children are valuable as they free the
parents to do the major tasks (Caldwell 1978).

Issues related to Gender System

● Economic Marginalization of Women - society does not give much recognition and
value to women’s contribution to the economy.
● Political Subordination of Women - the secondary position of women compared to men
in the society.

References:
Gender Systems
● https://www.includegender.org/facts/gender-systems/
● https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.191#:~:text=Abstract
%20The%20gender%20system%20includes,the%20basis%20of%20that
%20difference.&text=Most%20interactions%20between%20men%20and,status
%20relationships%20that%20are%20unequal.

Gender Systems in the Philippines

● https://library.pcw.gov.ph/sites/default/files/Sex%20and%20gender%20in%20the
%20Philippine%20Society%20a%20discussion%20of%20issues%20.pdf
● https://pssc.org.ph/wp-content/pssc-archives/Philippine%20Sociological
%20Review/1994/10_Gender%20Roles,%20Fertility,%20and%20the%20Status%20of
%20Married%20Filipino%20Men%20and%20Women.pdf
● https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=82449
 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES ON GENDER AND FAMILY (PERSPECTIVES)

· Sociologist explain gender roles according to several theoretical perspectives, general ways
of understanding social reality

· Formal theories that consist of logically interrelated propositions that explain empirical
evidences

· As research on gender issues accelerates and more sophisticated research tools are
developed, it is becoming clearer that the best explanations are those that are inter-
disciplinary and that incorporate concepts related to diversity.

. Learned behaviors in a given society or community of social groups and influenced by

perception and expectation.

Levels of Analysis
· Sociological perspective on gender also vary according to the level of analysis,
referring to the scope of the data collected and how the data are explained
- Macro Sociological Perspective.
- Micro Sociological Perspective
- Mezzo Sociological Perspective

Functionalism Perspective
 - Also known as “structural functionalism”, is a macro sociological
perspective that is based on the premise that society is made up of
interdependent parts, each of which contributes to the functioning of the
whole society.
- Functionalists seek to identify the basic elements or parts of society and
determine the functions these parts play in meeting basic social needs in
predictable ways.

Preindustrial Society.
- Functionalist suggest that in preindustrial societies, social equilibrium was
maintained by assigning different task to men and women
- Hunting and Gathering and subsistence farming activities of most
preindustrial societies, role specialization according to gender was
considered a functional necessity

Contemporary Society.
- Similar principles apply to families in contemporary societies. Disruption
is minimized, harmony is maximized, and families benefit when spouses
assume complementary, specialized, nonoverlapping roles (Parsons and
Bales, 1995; Parsons, 1966)
Instrumental Role
Expressive Role
- If too much deviation from these roles occurs or there is too much overlap,
the family system is propelled into a state of imbalance that can threaten
the survival of the family unit

Conflict Theory
- With its assumption about social order and social change, the macro
sociological perspective of conflict theory, also referred to as social
conflict theory
- Conflict theorist assert that is preserved involuntarily through the exercise
of power that one social class holds over another

Marx, Engels, and Social Class

 - Originating from the writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883), conflict theory is
based on the assumption that society is a stage on which struggles for
power and dominance are acted out.
- Friedrich Engel (1820-1895), applied these assumptions to the family and,
by extension, to gender roles. He suggested that the master-slave or
exploiter-exploited relationships occurring in broader society between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat are translated to the household.
- Engels argued that a woman’s domestic labor is “no longer counted beside
the acquisition of the necessities of life by the man; the latter was
everything, the former an unimportant extra”

Gender and Family

- Conflict theory focuses on the social placement function of the family that
deposits people at birth into families who possess varying degrees of
economic resources e.g., social class endogamy
- When social placement operates through patriarchal and patrilineal
systems, wealth is further concentrated in the hands of males and further
promotes female subservience, neglect, and poverty
- Engels suggesting that when women gain economic strength by also being
wage earners, their power inside the home is strengthened and can lead to
more egalitarian arrangements

Symbolic Interaction
- Also called as “the interactionist perspective”, is at the heart of the
sociological view of social interaction at the micro level
- It is highly contextual explanation for interaction, accounting for details of
the setting itself

Social Constructivism
- Social interaction is a process governed by norms that are largely shaped
by culture,
- This process referred to as the social construction of reality — the shaping
of perception of reality by the subjective meanings brought to any
experience or social interaction

HOW DOES SYMBOLIC INTERACTION AND SOCIAL

CONSTRUCTIVISM RELATES TO GENDER?

Doing Gender
 - This idea of what is appropriate or inappropriate for gender is further
extended in ways consistent with both social constructionism and
symbolic interaction.
- In “doing” gender, symbolic interaction takes its lead from Erving
Goffman (1922-1982), who developed dramaturgy approach to social
interaction
Ex: Heterosexual bar scene where men sit at the counter and operate from
a script where they are expected to make the first move.
- Gender roles are structured by one set of script design for males and
another designed for females. Although each script permits a range of
behavior options, the typical result is that gender labels promote a pattern
of between-sex competition, rejection, and emotional segregation.
- Gender Scripts about heterosexuality sustain power differences not only
between women and men, but also between players who may define
themselves as gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered
- Gender-based heteronormative cultural scripts invade all sexual
encounters

Doing Difference
- Gendered subcultures emerge that strengthen the perceptions of gender
differences erode the common ground on which intimate, stats-equal
friendships between the genders are formed.
- Once the genders are socially constructed as different, it is easier for those
with more power (men) to justify inequality to those with less power
(women). Social difference is constructed into social privilege
(Fenstermaker and West, 2022)
- Gendered scripts invade their dance space even as they transgress its
boundaries

Reference:

https://books.google.com.ph/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=qjjbCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=gender+role+sociology&ots=U5eF94K9Sw&sig=Bjw
9G3s8_moff1_6mfa3EjeyBt0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gender%20role%20sociology&f=false