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Gender
3/26/2014








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The article Patriarchy provides a framework for viewing how male-
centric, male-privileging culture oppresses females on the basis of biological sex
and socially constructed gender, and provides a lens through which to read the
experiences of nurses in Profits and Prejudice (Johnson 2004). This is not to
say that all males hate females, practice misogyny or have real clout in society,
nor to say that females have not been complicit in misogyny and gender-based
abuse of other females because of internalized misogyny and in order to survive
(2004). However, while race, class and gender are intersectional and together
act to modify ones experience of privilege and/or oppression, society is
structured into a more or less cohesively male-identified, misogynistic system

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which, in varying degrees, conceives of all females as other and less than
(2004).
Together the articles Patriarchy and Profits and Prejudice highlight
some of the forms misogyny or woman-hating as a result of patriarchy take in our
society; each article lends support in its own way to the idea that males have
unfair, socially constructed and systemically rooted advantages over females in
all sectors (2004) (Gordon 2000). However, the articles do contrast in their
respective willingness to actually identify the primary problems facing women and
girls as being gendered or patriarchal in nature.
On its own, Patriarchy lays bare the workings of culturally and legally
sanctioned male privilege and female oppression point blank, describing in
scathing depth how they are constructed, maintained and enacted on a broad
scale (Johnson 2004). In Profits and Prejudice the focus is on the disparities
between doctors and nurses, how they are conceptualized and treated as
illustrated by general and pervasive lack of respect for nurses as opposed to

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doctors, the wage gap between nurses and doctors, as well as nurses
victimization by their employers as exemplified by inhumane overtime
requirements and overall lack of union protection, etc. (Gordon 2000).
In contrast with Patriarchy, Profits and Prejudice does not overtly state
that the demeaning and unfair treatment (low wages, lack of union protection,
inhumane work hours) of nurses takes place because of the male-centric,
misogynistic bent of our society, how it conceives of and treats women (2000).
Indeed, the looming fact unaddressed by Profits and Prejudice is that the
majority of nurses are female, while the majority of doctors are male (Hull 1982).
Considering this, it is not far-fetched to conjecture that the titular prejudice
experienced by these nurses is a product of patriarchal ideology (as described in
Patriarchy) in action.
Despite contrasts between the two articles, the four components of
oppression: expendability, compartmentalization, blaming the victim and

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containment are evident in Patriarchy and the accounts of the life and work
experiences of the nurses in Profits and Prejudice.
In Patriarchy women are expendable in that the laws protecting (or failing
to deal with) what a man does to his wife or daughter (or other female), whether it
be rape, battery and/or psychological abuse (Johnson 2004). Under patriarchy,
females are compartmentalized and stereotyped as nurturing, emotive, needy
and weak, to name a few (2004). Females are blamed for the abuse and
derogation of their persons at the hands of males and patriarchal institutions, like
healthcare and the legal systemabuses and derogations incurred because of
their femaleness not because of the wrongdoing of males or patriarchal society.
Women and girls are contained in caregiving roles: relegated to the home and/or
helping professions where they have little to no power or say in their communities
or societies at large (2004).
In addition, Profits and Prejudice shows how the very nurses who
provide care for people who are ill are treated as expendable, in that they are not

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widely protected by unions, are paid considerably less than doctors and are
subject to forced overtime and unfair working conditions (Gordon 2000). They are
compartmentalized by pervasive ideological brainwashing, socialization that
perpetuates the idea that nurses are somehow inferior to doctors (2000). They
are blamed for not having attempted to get their PhDs, instead settling for a less
powerful and less respected career as nurses, and therefore possibly incurring
any demoralization or ill treatment they may suffer in their chosen career (Gordon
2000). They are also contained in the workplace environment by pay cuts, forced
overtime and a lack of representation and visibility (2000).
History validates the existence of factors like expendability and
containment which contribute to the oppression of women and girls under
patriarchy; it is a fact that women/girls have earned (and continue to earn) less
money than men in similar professions, that women/girls have had less access to
education, have suffered high rates of domestic abuse and have been
overwhelmingly saddled with unpaid housebound duties (i.e. childcare and

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housework) (Gimenez 2005). Men, on the whole, have contained and controlled
womens bodies further through the restriction of womens reproductive freedom
and reaped the benefits of womens unpaid work in the home (2005). Many of
these conditions persist. Certainly, the treatment of women and girls throughout
history shows that men and women have never been equals, a fact which carries
into the present day and is still met with protestations to the contrary.
Compartmentalization, as a factor in female oppression and indicator of
the patriarchal stranglehold on ideas and information, affects the
conceptualization and treatment of women socio-politically, as well as personally.
As early as childhood, women are socialized to identify and behave as
caregivers: loving, empathic and receptive (hooks 2001). Gendered stereotypes
attributed to women, such as being submissive, subordinate, childish, irrational,
and inferior, further serve not only to restrict and subordinate women, but also to
perpetuate divisiveness between males and female, binding both to certain
behaviors, roles and arenas (Johnson 2004) (Hull 1982). Feminine traits are

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conceptualized as polar opposites of masculine traits. Men are supposed to be
dominant, logical, unemotional and hard, among others (hooks 2001). While
women have typically borne the brunt of the damage caused by perpetuated
gender disparities, both genders are cheated by such polarized identifications in
the form of exclusion from certain behaviors or realms of activity (1982).
Therefore, patriarchy is harmful to females and males because it restricts them
both.
To summarize, both articles address the oppression of females within a
patriarchal system, which glorifies and validates maleness and masculinity but
suppresses and belittles femaleness and femininity, whether directly or indirectly.
Both articles illustrate the four components of oppression. On its own, though,
Patriarchy seems to move toward solutions, offering further insights into
potential barriers to dialogue about, as well as obstacles to acceptance of the
reality of the oppression of women and girls, sexism/misogyny and male-privilege
in our society (Johnson 2004). Patriarchy also points out the intricacies of how

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gender, race and class intersect and interact (2004). Patriarchy takes race and
class into account when discussing patriarchy and the oppression of females,
offering a more three-dimensional view of the complex identities and multiple
othernesses of women and girls. For example, a white upper middle-class or
even lower-class woman enjoys white privilege, although she is oppressed as a
female under patriarchy. Unlike the white woman, a lower-class African-American
woman is oppressed on the basis of not only race and gender but class as well.
A male may be oppressed because of his race and class, but not because of his
gender (Johnson 2004). Without calling a spade a spade, Profits and Prejudice
shows how the patriarchal ideology described in Patriarchy manifests on an
institutional level, in the realm of healthcare, illustrated by the disparity of wages,
treatment and concepts about nurses who are devalued and mistreated (typically
females) versus doctors who are valued and idealized (typically males) (Gordon
200) (Hull 1982).

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Lastly, the four main components involved in female oppression under
patriarchy (expendability, containment, blaming the victim and
compartmentalization) are exemplified in both readings, and are supported both
by historical fact and anecdotal experiences. Unfortunately, they continue into the
present day in the form of unequal pay for women, unequal access to education,
male control of female reproductive freedom, male control of information and
ideas and womens relegation to caregiving and unpaid housebound duties, as
well as socializing both genders as children to accept and perform polarized
gender stereotypes, just to name a few (Gimenez 2005) (hooks 2001). Until
patriarchy and male privilege and the resulting institutionalized, systemic
misogyny and oppression of women/girls are acknowledged and openly
discussed as facts in need of remedy and rebalance, unequal treatment and
negatively prejudicial regard for females will probably continue to be the norm, to
the detriment of not only women, but our society as a whole.


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Resources

Gimenez, M. E. (2005). Capitalism and the Oppression of Women: Marx
Revisited. Science & Society, 69(1), 11-32.

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Gordon, S. (2000). Profits and prejudice: The undervalued work of
nursing. Dollars and Sense.

hooks, B. (2001). All about love. New York: First Perennial.

Hull, R. T. (1982). Dealing with sexism in nursing and medicine. Nursing
Outlook, 30(2), 89-94.

Johnson, A. (2004). Patriarchy. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, Class
and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study (6 ed.). Worth Publishers.





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