Femininity Culture: Masculinity Vs. Femininity

Elizabeth Brumfiel was a leading scholar of Aztec archaeology and professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, who was responsible for bringing the study of social and economic inequality to the forefront of archaeological research. In “Weaving and Cooking: Women’s Production in Aztec Mexico, Brumfiel discusses how ethnohistoric documents provide a view into the activities common in the day to day lives of Aztec women. However, these documents do not dig deep enough into the subject matter. Brumfiel questions their overall usefulness. One of her main arguments is that “having defined women’s work as weaving and cooking, they do not comment upon the ties between these activities and other demographic, economic, and political structures

Outline and define key sociological concepts: Hegemonic masculinity, gender socialisation and patriarchy from primary and secondary sources.

While researching, I learned about several similarities and differences between gender roles in the Hispanic culture and the Indian culture. In both cultures, the men work to provide for the family, whereas the women care for the children at home. For example, in The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s father works while her mom cares for Esperanza and her siblings. In addition, men enjoy privileges that are denied by females in both cultures. For example, education is an area where men and women are not treated equally. In my own family in India, the men are highly educated, whereas the women do not receive as much education. I believe a major cause for this similarity is because the main expectation of women in both cultures is to provide for the family. In the Indian culture

Society has clearly defined boundaries between what is considered to be male or female. The development of an individual’s gender role is formed by interactions with those in close proximity. Society constantly tells us how we should look, act and live based on gender, as well as the influence of family, friends and the media have a tremendous impact on how these roles are formed and the expected behavior of each gender role.

In recent years, gender has become a hot topic of discussion. Gender is defined as “the state of being male or female”, however, some gender theorists suggest that gender is a social construction that was not founded on sex. According to gender theory, the term gender is not expressing the state of being feminine or masculine. Many suggest that the separation between gender and sex has to deal with dominance being associated with gender as opposed to physical characteristics being associated with sex. Until the rise of industry in the West, the strong divide of gender was not prevalent. To support this factor, many ancient texts reveal evidence of gender bending, such as during the story of ‘Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas’ when Perpetua faces death as a man. Furthermore, evidence of the breaking of gender roles can also be found within the Bacchae.

From what we have learned in class about the 1950’s, it is clear to say that this period stands out for being the dawning of a greater desire for masculinity for men as the war time had produced a change in gender dynamics due to the unavailability of men to do jobs that were then given to women. Hence, upon their return, men, began to produce these feelings of masculinity because of the changes that had been put in place along with the hardship of returning to regular life during the postwar time. This also made them develop a desire to define their role in the modern family, which lead them to begin marrying women. These ideas lead into the gender roles set up by society and its citizens during this time. Moreover, from these ideas we obtained

The case “Alpha – Beta” is a very interesting case, which could be considered as one of my most favorable cases so far. What interested me was the fact that we had to act totally different from our conventional style. In fact, we were asked to behave collectively, formally, indirectly, patiently, unemotionally and passively. Although we could not make the deal, we all found this outcome understandable and predictable. What we learned from the exercise was to be aware of the existence of cross-cultural differences as well as how these differences affect our negotiation outcomes, then find out what should we do in the similar negotiation in our future.

Feminist scholars use a conflict approach to analyze general themes of gender relations as well as the influence of the family. Scholars of feminist approach examined the role of the family in maintaining inequalities in male-females relations. The liberal feminist’s uses conflict approach in terms of inequalities faced by females and privileges enjoyed by male in every aspect of society. Because of decision making power that leads to oppression of women. (Wollstonecraft, Marry.1792).

Power Distance Index of China is higher than United States’ by 40. This implies that the number of people without high power in the society who agree and realize that there is uneven distribution of power among the society is higher in China compared to the United States. In other words, Chinese are okay with inequality in powers than Americans.

For example, consumers are becoming more similar in terms of lifestyles, income, aspirations and education. In order to clarify my statement, I would like to apply Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture. Masculinity and femininity is one of the Hofstede’s dimensions. The dominant values of masculine culture are achievement and success while dominant values in feminine cultures are caring for quality of life and others. The country that possesses the most masculine culture is Japan, which scores 95 (Geert and Mariake de, 2002). The presence of market driver caused nations to trade internationally in the global marketplace. Different countries possess with different type of working place, masculinity and femininity. For example, Japan is a country that possesses the most masculine culture while Iceland is the most feminist country. Market driver has provided a stage for nations to conduct international trade. Meanwhile, nations are able to converge their cultures with other countries (for example, working attitude) as they have to learn and adapt to the culture of other countries in order to conduct international trade

The ability to have an influence can give an individual a sense of where they stand in society (Mahaffy, 2004). Social influence can be correlated to whether or not you are able to persuade someone to hire you for a job, give you a promotion, or take you stance on a political issue (Carli, 2001). Social Influence can have an impact on an individual and on a community of like individuals. Things that can affect your social influence may stem from inequalities that exist in our society, such as gender, and race. Studies show that gender plays a role in how influential a person is, particularly when considering how women influence men. Race can exacerbate the effect that gender has

These are the key aspects that can affect the organisation and management structure of a firm, all these interpersonal communication, management attitude, and social norms have yet been taken into consideration for Porter’s diamond framework. Moreover, Porter’s diamond framework does not cover how national culture will then affect the competitiveness in the national business system (Bosch & Man, 1997). Porter also mentioned that in firm structure and strategy, Japan business system prefers to maintain long-term relationship with their suppliers in the automobile industry is not based on their cultural perspective but rather it is due to pressure under those economic circumstances. This sentence is proven wrong by Whitley (1991), Japanese culture is well known for close connection and long-term employment in order to make their business system unique. Businesses in Japan have strong bonding with their partners to create strategies in reducing uncertainties, likewise these cultural factors is the action that leads to keiretsu being formed in Japan business system (Earley & Singh,

Furthermore, Hofstede’s scale does not account for the blending and evolving of cultures mentioned earlier in this essay. These, among other problems of quantitative data etc. have led to the creation of a fifth dimension - the long-term versus short-term orientation. This refers to „the degree to which people and organizations defer gratification to achieve long-term success“ (Tiernan 2012). If you take a look on table one you can see that the US is just a bit higher long-term orientated than the average of the Arabic world, but both have a relatively low score compared to a country such a China. This means that cultures such as the US and the Arab cultures are less focused on years and decades and more on weeks or

Masculinity refers to the qualities, personality traits and roles that are associated with the male gender. In the 21st century, there has been a movement, a drive in the more socially aware sections of the world to equalize or balance out masculinity and femininity. Feminism or, at least the main stream feminism aims to find equality for the females in social, political and economical fields. Even today, as we work forward to find a middle ground for the two genders, masculinity is seen as the superior quality that only men are privileged to have. Hence, main stream feminism is so focused on emancipating women by encouraging them to let go of the ‘weaker’ feminine qualities and roles and fit themselves in a Man’s world by embracing masculinity

Communication flow are affected by three factors, individual, organization, culture. In the business communication, these three factors are described as interpersonal communication, intercultural communication and organizational communication. By handling problems that bring by these factors, the communication within the group will be more efficiency. In a group working, an effective communication can help us have a better understanding of others’ opinions, this is the fountainhead of productivity and efficiency. In addition, effective communication is one of the most important factors that can influence the result of team’s work. Whether there is a good result of group’s work