by Andrea Waling

Created on: July 03, 2007

Western Society is a patriarch. For those who have not studied any form of sociology or anthropology, a patriarchy is a society goverened by men. A matriarchy is a society governed by women. To this day, sociologists and anthropologists have not found a society that can be defined as a matriarch.

Does society favour men? Well, of course it does, because society is governed by men. It is not just about women's ability to make decisions or be leaders, it is about the entirety of the oppression of the female sex. Why are women oppressed in such a manner?

The term "gender stratification", located in many Soci/Anth texts and dictionaries comes to mind. Gender stratification occurred when band societies began to shift to tribes, chiefdoms and state systems. A Band society tends to have very little gender stratification, for they are "hunter-gatherers". They all take turns hunting and gathering food in equal partnerships. Though women are in technicality 'weaker' in their ability to exert physical strength, they are not considered lesser than equals to the men of these societies. They all play valuable roles. Tribes and chiefdoms which follow agricultural, pastoral and horticultural practices tend to have gender stratification due to the strenuous work. Women are unable to perform CERTAIN tasks due to their child rearing or lack of strength. Women can be strong, but they do not have that natural ability of building muscle that men have. This is because women carry a layer of fat that aids their ability to bear children. It is more difficult for a woman to build muscle because she lacks a large amount certain hormones that men have, mainly testosterone. Men have the ability to seriously harm and rape women at a moment's notice with physical strength, and though women can harm men, it would be very difficult for them to rape a man unless they had the situation planned to a degree where the man cannot fight back.

The cause of gender stratification is the shift from hunting and gathering to pastoral and horticultural practices, and then in turn to intensive agriculture, which leads to not only gender stratification but social stratification of all races, sexes, orientations, ages and the like.

Not only does society favour men, but it also favours men who are heterosexuals, Caucasian, Christian and have some form of wealth and education.

To this day, there are women's movements, more equal positions in the workplace and more respect for women; however, there is still a vast influence of male dominance everywhere, from magazines and media to the workplace, education and family. Women still only earn 66% of what men earn in most working establishments. Their ability to learn is often scorned because statistically, women tend to be (but not always) more inclined for success in the arts and humanities, where men are more inclined to succeed in maths and sciences. Right now, its maths and sciences that uphold a degree of high intelligence, not the arts (though back in the Renaissance, languages and other humanities like Philosophy were considered the high forms of education).

The media industry constantly displays fragile women in vulnerable positions, sexualizing the violence of women and displaying more muscular and masculine men.

Men are favoured in society because in essence, they rule it.

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