Gender's_Power

Power of Gender Maria Cole says the inequality of woman in positions of power is easy to see when comparing the United States and Poland from economic, political, education, and ideological viewpoints from the end of 19th century to the early 1930s. In the United States, the industrial growth increased rapidly. She looks at the developed policy was in decentralized structure and limited suffrage. The women’s education is restricted and women held a lower career stature. On the contrary, in Poland, the capitalism was limited and the economy was weak. For her, the policy was liberal democracy and universal suffrage, women’s education was less restricted, and women were on a higher stature. The study shows these historical causes are the basic reasons between the uneven status of men and women. This has lead to the unequal power of gender. The American economic and political effect is the basic cause to the unequal balance of gender power. The development of collective industrial power increased in the 19th century, which turned America into a powerful nation. She examines the strong cooperative economy is based on middle-class American men, who support the family and is dominate in the household. Therefore, men have more power over women and this power leads to the control of women’s suffrage, career, and education. The second economic effect of the gender power is that economic growth helps most middle-class American men have enough money to provide their families so that women do not need to work for money to maintain the household. She explains the fact that men control the cash gave men the gender power. She argues the political structure is another cause that separated men and women. These political differents caused gender inequality .The concept of socialism by which men and women were equal lead to social unrest and upheaval at that time. Until this time the two sexes were segregated. Men have the right to vote what they think is right and what is beneficial to them, but the women could not vote. She says that men had advantage over women in the aspects of political policy. “The confederal state makes political power decentralized and extensive, more widely exercised in society- mostly by middle-class white males ”(212). At that time, the democratic political system which was mainly male dominated in professions and education was continued on the level of state and local government. Therefore, political and legal policy practices by the middle-class men resulted in supporting their right to the higher professions and education. The result of this policy practiced by the middle-class men controlled women’s chances to study in higher professions and also limits women in varied educational fields. She believes this developed policy shapes American men to be professional and well educated. On the contrary, women have limited chance to study and be a professional field. In America history record, American women education starts in separately all-women’s colleges, which segregate the gender spheres and the scholar competition between men and women, and their majors, are mostly center on home economics, nursing, library training, and secretarial work. Today, women in the United States “heavily concentrated in a few fields of study and in a few lower status professions such as nursing, librarianship, or social work, and why they have been drastically underrepresented in the higher status professions of medicine, law, and engineering” (207). The concept of separate education was the caused by the historic political practice. For this reason, she analyzes democratic policy leads to education and professional segregation of men and women. She says the development of ideology to the separate sphere between genders is attributed by the economy growth and the form of democratic policy. For her, the distinction is clear- cut not only between the thought of men and women, but also between the actions of them. The ideological restriction on the development of women’s freedom, that lead people to think women need to be housewives and stay at home. Men think women should help make for better homes and be the homemakers which were also agreed by most women. “In the long run, though, values and stereotypes characteristic of the ideology of domesticity appeared to be more efficient weapons in the hands of opponents of women’s emancipation” (213) defined the thought of society between gender characters. Society thinks women have more compassion which made them not suitable in neutral professional fields. In the 19th century, Poland was under Russian rule and has the opposite view in the economic, political, and higher educative for women. She compares these differences in gender ideology were not as restrictive as those imposed on American’s women. The economy in Poland in 19th century had weak capitalism and industries were infirm due to the November Insurrection, which was exercise persecution and restriction on policy and the economy by Tsarist authorities, and two world wars. Consequently, women joined guerrillas and wore uniforms as men did. Also, the wars caused lengthen absence of men in family so that women needed to dominate the household. She says the economic power of Polish men was low that women did not depend on men as American women did. “since many women and children were left without any means of support, women had to support themselves and their families, and in this way they were forced to support themselves and their public domain”(216) that women need to participate to the occupation in order to support family. Policy in Poland is liberal democracy and universal suffrage. She says Polish women had the right to vote which blurred the distinction between gender powers. “Between the wars, a large proportion of intelligentsia, estimated between 50 and 60%, were state employees. The state also controlled the professions, including the so-called free professions, though the regulation of their working conditions and the rights of professional organizations” (219) shows participation of occupation proves that women can have the more chances to perform in higher standers and to be professionals. Also, women have more chance to play a part in public activity, which was rooted in the unapparent difference in the gender spheres. In comparison to the policy of the United States, where after men could vote for one century, now the women were able to vote, which is different from the policy of Poland. In the 19th century, Polish women studied in co-educational schools, which are dissimilar to American women study in segregated women’s schools. She discusses that Polish women mainly studied in medicine and others studied in the natural and social sciences, which is a higher status career. The fact that women largely dominated in dental field in Poland is not the same as to the women in America, where only 1-2% of dentistry women graduate. Moreover, Polish women study in mathematics and natural science are emphasize during the two world wars time. The increasing percentage of women in male-dominated fields, which are medicine, law, and science, correlated to the higher income that women have equal position as men in society. On the other hand, she contrasts the United States divides male and female to the fields of study that caused the separate spheres to the genders and lower position to women. Polish gender ideology has less distinction between the men and women that she attributes to women are more independent and participant in society. Another reason to the less distinction gender power is women partake in military and help male to struggle in the war by giving virtues to the male during the war. “These virtues undermined the role of gender ideology as a justification of the separate spheres for men and women” (220) proves the important of virtues during the war to polish sociality. Moreover, the higher educated Polish women had the ability to occupy these higher level jobs and higher payment let women to be less dependent on men. In the historical study, the sex segregation in the United States and Poland are entirely different based on Cole’s focus is the different backgrounds including the economy, policy, and ideology of these two countries in 19th century. The gender spheres are distinctive between the two countries. Oppositely, Polish women have a more equal gender status as Polish men. Polish women have higher education and higher status careers than American women had. She attributed these different backgrounds to the reasons to the segregation among men and women. Work Cited Gender and Power: Sex Segregation in American and Polish Higher Education as a Case Study “http://www.jstor.org.libdb.smc.edu/stable/684744'&Search=yes&term=slowly&term=jobs&term=accept&term=worker&term=women&term=Journalism&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dslowly%2Baccept%2Bwomen%2Bworker%2Bin%2BJournalism%2Bjobs%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3DJournalism%2Bjobs%2Bslowly%2Baccept%2BAmerican%2Bwomen%2Bworker%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=7&ttl=115&returnArticleService=showArticle”