gender stratification

gender stratification

any process by which gender becomes the basis of SOCIAL STRATIFICATION, in which the perceived differences between the genders become ranked and evaluated in a systematic way Stratification by gender was often rendered invisible, or misrepresented, by earlier sociologists. Frequently, gender stratification has been subsumed under social class or ethnicity. The importance of gender as a system of stratification, particularly as a system in which feminized persons are ranked and rewarded below masculinized persons, has been mainly stressed by sociologists influenced by feminism (see FEMINISM, FEMINIST THEORY). Feminist sociologists, for example, have employed the concept of PATRIARCHY in conceptualizing and analysing the present and historical oppression of women.