In what ways does connell’s gender order illustrate socially patterned interaction between men and women , and how applicable is this theory with regards enacting change. What is the difference between sex and gender? How is gender sociallyconstructed? What are the inequalities in gender?

What are the experiences of gay, lesbian, bi and multi-gendered subjects? What is queer theory? How have gay and lesbian civil rights influenced the world?

How are interactions between men and women societally patterned? What is the gender order?

Is wide economic and social change provoking a crisis of masculinity; are men’s traditional roles being eroded?

What is patriarchy, and what evidence is there for public forms of patriarchy? What evidence is there that the movement of women into the public sphere has actually been beneficial for the majority of women?

Why does prostitution continue to thrive in the 21st century? How might functionalist, marxist view this matter?

Gender in a globalizing world

Introduction

Socialist feminism does not only recognize class but race as well, age, gender and religion. Unlike other genres of feminism for instance Marxist, which look for understanding the position of women in the society through a perspective that is class-based, socialist feminism visualizes other features in the society as conditioning the experience of women. Furthermore, gender, race and class are viewed as independent structural features that generate power relations that outline women status (Connell, 1987).

However, socialist feminists differed with other feminisms in the sense that they did not involve themselves in disagreements regarding what to point out as the vital source of the oppression of women. Disagreements of the sort gyrated around the subject of whether the chief gender inequalities determinant originated from relations of direct power between women and men, which essentially is assumed by radical feminists (Connell, 1987).

According to Connell, institutions like family, state and capitalist industry are structural characteristics acting in unison to generate the required gendered experiences for labour markets. Part time employment for women or the labour reserve army are working examples. Nevertheless, such deeds in concert are not essentially deliberate, nor harmonious in all instances. For instance, the state demands during war and family relationships on emotional basis generate unavoidable conflicts. Besides, during economic recession in the labour market, state and family relationship terms are affected. In addition, during the unemployment period there are reductions in benefits thus an increase in economic shortcomings on women and accelerated feminization poverty (Connell, 1987).

The framework designed by Connell specifies the structural scrutiny of the experience of women of oppression in various societal institutions at any given time. His framework for the social examination of gender results to a framework that is meta-theoretical. It advocates on identifying the specific constitutions of power, labour and cathexis with an aim of understanding as well as analysing the gender associations in whichever institution within any socio-historical framework (Connell, 1987).

There are considerably diverse social structures that stipulate the associations between men as well as women in relevantly different ways. One is forced to face up with inequity in training, promotion labour division, housework and childcare organisations, labour markets segregation, division between paid and unpaid work and establishment of jobs for men and others for women. These are definite structures that are crucial to consider as elements of structures that are related in causing gendered splitting up of labour (Maharaj, 1995).

Business and state hierarchies practically exclude women. Additionally, there is interpersonal and institutional violence in opposition to women along with sexual surveillance and regulation, domestic influence with the competition of such influence. This is namely division of authority or power depending on gender (Connell, 1987).

Cathexis deals with recognising the social structure of sexuality. The distinguishing of sexed bodies is done ethno methodologically via particular abstract lenses that draw from precise configuration, of our society, of social organizations. Connell adds that sexuality is neither in existence before nor outside social customs in which people form and carry on relationships. Sexuality is endorsed or conducted but not expressed. Cathexis is a structure that shapes the emotional attachments of people (Connell, 1987).

Sex defines the biological differences in reference to hormonal profiles, chromosomes, internal sex organs as well as external. Gender on the other hand defines the description delineated by a culture or society as either feminine or masculine. Therefore, the fact that the sex of an individual is female or male clearly indicates a natural fact that the same applies to any culture.  However, the meaning of sex in terms of gender roles differs cross culturally. Gender roles refer to are behaviours and characteristics attributed to sexes by different cultures. An actual or real man is required by culture to possess male sex, masculine characteristics and mannerisms while a woman who is real ought to have female sex and characteristics (Nobelius, 2004).

The social creation of gender is that a woman originates from a masculine gaze and in order to understand the self perception of a woman and her relations with the opposite sex, we should discover how they are perceived by men. The masculine notion of woman has given rise to idealisations that have a strong influence on the way women behave due to their lack of power to confront the view of male on their sex (Nobelius, 2004).

A woman has been brought in a limited space of her own. She is supposed to continually survey herself in everything she is and everything she does right from the onset of her childhood. On the other hand the role of the man is to make things happen thus an agent of power. Male is the active participant and is attributed with an erotic look, one with the power to gaze. He is the spectator and the woman is the spectacle. In addition, due to the pressure from the society to act woman, women have found themselves socially restricted at home, community and place of work (Maynard, 1998).

An operation carried out by Iris Young to find out the behaviour of women revealed that there are noteworthy differences in men and women in their posture, gesture, movement and overall bodily comportment. A woman is more restricted and they tend to have an imaginary space surrounding them to which they are cautious to move into. This resistance to stretch, reach and extend the body is a clear manifestation of her confinement and unwillingness to meet resistance.  A loose woman will hence violate these rules, which is manifest in her free as well as easy way movement, morals and speech (Nobelius, 2004).

The movement of a woman along with her posture and gesture should convey grace and a measure of eroticism that is held back by modesty. She should make herself object and the same time prey. Men act but women appear; men stare at women while they watch themselves looked at. The surveyor is male and the surveyed is female. This is the case in all scenarios of life (Berger, n.d.).

Gays, lesbians, bi and multi gendered subjects are classified under a common abbreviation LGBT[1]. They mostly face prejudice from the society and the government as well commonly referred to as biphobia which is fear, prejudice or hatred towards LGBT which in most cases is based on mistaken stereotypes. Biphobia later erupts to bisexual erasure which aims to eliminate or conceal bisexual people or their groups and organisations as well as their culture, history or contributions towards their movement (BiWriter’sAssociation, 2007).

Queer is a term that was used in the past as slang to identify homosexuals. However, it has recently emerged as a popular word to signify different things but mostly as a cover up for sexual identifications or embryonic theoretical model developed from traditional gay and lesbian studies. However, queer theory exceeds the understanding of everyone into its exact meaning (Jagose, n.d.).

In the past gay practice especially in the U.S. was termed a felony crime in Sodomy Laws that prohibited oral sex plus anal for all including consenting adults. This primarily aimed at targeting homosexuals who worse still were exempted from employment service to federal institutions for instance the army, FBI and CIA. In cases where officials were later realised to be gay, they were openly removed from office from both public and private sectors. Homosexuals have generally been criticised as immoral, child molesters as well as sex-crazed maniacs (Adam, 1987).

Gays pleaded with the government, with the support of a research that revealed homosexuals as less likely to molest children than heterosexuals, to put an end to the discrimination they were encountering. In 1969, the month of June marked the first movement for gay rights before which it was impossible due to the massacres conducted by Hitler on Jews and homosexuals (Adam, 1987).

The protest was carried out around Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-operated bar then that had seen violence between the police and a group of people that had gathered in support of the victims of the police raid on unlicensed business premises. The police had managed to arrest five employees along with customers. The protest around Stonewall massively influenced the nation.  Since homosexuals are the unseen minority, they drew their inspiration from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose ideas on equal protection acted in their favour (Adam, 1987).

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton went as close as initiating a policy €œDon’t Ask, Don’t Tell€ which played in support of homosexuals in the army. The commanders were restricted to enquire on the sexual orientation of the soldiers who on the other hand were not supposed to reveal their sexual practices. There has been a tug of war for decades on the issue of legalising same-sex marriage. In Hawaii in 1996, a bill that had been previously signed in 1994 by the Governor, supporting the marriage was highly opposed by the Circuit Judge (Mitchell, 1997).

Wide economic and social change is provoking a great crisis on masculinity that has seen most men lose stable jobs as a result of downsizing and equalizing. Women have become a source of threat to their roles as men due to their immersion into full-time employment and their new demands that men are failing to meet. Men have always known themselves as shakers and movers but the recent changes have led to diminishing of their income. There has been a large political and social transformation that has accommodated a greater number of women. In the past men were entitled to the family wage as breadwinners and women were housewives (Fernández-Kelly, 2005).

Patriarchy seeks to retain women as child bearers and rearers. For this to be achieved, women are pushed to the edge of being controlled by men as well as subjugated. Through this, they lack opportunities to make choices that concern their sexuality and reproduction as well as labour. Patriarchal system is developed through bias in division of labour depending with sex, division of public as well as private life and in addition motherhood ideologies that define women as dependent on emotional. Capitalism strengthens patriarchy through less payment for women and limited job openings for women (Gordon, 1996).

In Middle East as well as North Africa has seen lesser economic growth on the public and private sectors. Researchers argue that there is a lot of untapped mental power on women which if properly utilised can cause major chance on these two regions. Gender equality in terms of equal education and opportunities will not only benefit women but it promotes the general welfare and growth of a society. Feminism has still not been fully embraced in the modern society and more so the movement has not been for the benefit of all the women but it targets a specific middle-class group (TheWorldBank, 2011).

Prostitution in the 21^st century is an end result of an elect group of women rising above patriarchy. The art of being in control when practising the art makes most women enjoy the freedom drawn from prostitution. They draw great satisfaction from turning the tables of traditional sexuality. However, some are sold into it and some simply make poor choices out of abuse of drugs and wrong peer influence. Some of them do it for quick money which could sum up to approximately $170, 000 US p.a. for escorts who claim to be the gurus, earning more than a hundred dollars per shift of which the minimum they go is six (neogaf, 2011).

Conclusion

Feminists have been resisting postmodernism due to their belief that discarding the traditional rationalization of total truth of androcentric science means disposing of social theory. However, postmodern feminism, when in   discourse form which is different from postmodernism criticizes as well as modifies several core assumptions of postmodernism. Metanarratives, a postmodern critique, employ one particular standard yet claim to represent a worldwide experience. In addition, postmodern feminism disregards all formal narratives terming them essentialist and ahistorical (Connell, 1987).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Adam, B. D. (1987). The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement. Boston: Twayne Publishers.

Berger, J. (n.d.). The Social Construction of Gender. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth200/gender.html

Bi Writer’s Association. (2007). Bi Writer’s Association. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from

Connell, R. (1987). Gender and power:society, the person, and sexual politics. California: Stanford University Press.

Fernández-Kelly, P. (2005). The Effects of Economic Change on Masculinity and. Fall: Princeton University.

Gordon, A. A. (1996). Transforming capitalism and patriarchy. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publisher.

Jagose, A. (n.d.). Queer Theory. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Dec-1996/jagose.html

Maharaj, Z. (1995). A SOCIAL THEORY Of GENDER. Feminist Review , 49, 50-65.

Maynard, S. (1998). Homosexuality, Masculinity (Psychology), Labor, History, Men. Labour (42), 183-197.

Mitchell, C. ( 1997, April 15). Same Sex Marriage in Hawaii. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://www.cbn.org/nes/stories/970415.htm

neogaf. (2011). Prostitution in the 21st century. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=404084

Nobelius, A.-M. (2004, June 23). What is the difference between sex and gender? Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html

The World Bank. (2011). MENA Can Better Achieve Its Growth Potential With Greater Inclusion of Women in the Economy. Retrieved July 21, 2011, from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20128365~menuPK:34466~pagePK:64003015~piPK:64003012~theSitePK:4607,00.html