Gender as a determinant of social status - towards an androgynous society?

Javornik, Jana (2004) Gender as a determinant of social status - towards an androgynous society? IB Review, 3, 66-72.

Abstract

Due to a number of factors, among others the feminist movement, female and male realities have been changing intensively. The changes benefiting women have been among the greatest social changes seen in the 20th and 21st centuries. Demographic shifts reflected the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation, which also stimulated changes in socio-economic realities. Mortality and fertility rates started falling, while the economic participation rates of women began to increase. The social context, influenced by these trends, became a framework for creating, developing and perceiving the demands of the feminist movement - the right to vote and be elected, the inclusion of women in the labour market on equal grounds as men, education, changed ownership structure, making decisions over one's body etc. Yet despite all these changes the androcentric (male oriented) culture is still prevailing, which through the established societal control mechanisms enables the continuing reproduction of patriarchalism. The article discusses some economic aspects of the subordination of women; it challenges the petrification of the mechanisms of regeneration and reproduction of misogynous development patterns and tackles the still dominant androcentric social order.

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