Social Context and Masculinities Lecture 2 Nayab Javed

Social Context and Masculinities Lecture 2 Nayab Javed Department of Gender and Development Studies Lahore College for Women University, Lahore

Social Structure & Organization • Social context refers to the social and situation specific realities that influence how people view themselves and interact with others. • For example to make sense of psychosocial experience , we will need to know what it happened , where it happened, to whom it happened , who described how to happened and host of others factors that might influence what that experience was like for those involved.

Example of Psychosocial Experience • A man expressing his concern for another person could be interpreted and experienced differently if that ‘other’ were an adult male as opposed to a young child. • He may be understood differently if he expressed concern at home, at work, or at a party. • He may be understood differently if the person to whom he expressed concern were of a similar or different racial group, nationality, and so on.

Many variables ultimately contribute to the context and meaning of any given psychosocial event.

Subject of Interest • How social context affects men, how they view themselves as men, how this may influence their interaction and relationships with others. • Sociologists define the specific social context as social structure of a society.

Social Institutions • Every human group has some form of organization within it. This organization consists of social institutions , which have designated roles to ensure a society’s survival. • Each institutions operates under certain rules that both define what a particular institution is and what its relationship is to other institutions.

• Societies have institutions such as government, education and religion that all play a part in the functioning of any society within a set of rules. • The institutions and their relationships to one another make up the social structure of society.

Examples of Social structure • Monarchy , Ruled by one (As of 2016, there are 43 sovereign states in the world with a monarch as Head of state ). United Kingdom Canada Australia New Zealand Denmark Oman, Kuwait, Suadia Arabia, Bahrain , UAE. Sweden Japan Norway Bhutan Malaysia

Matriarchy • Matriarchy is a social system in which females (most notably in mammals) hold the primary power positions in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property at the specific exclusion of men - at least to a large degree.

• Pass property and political succession from mother to daughter—typically, the youngest daughter inherits her mother's property. Much like the Akan and Garo. • However, the society is matrilineal but not matriarchal: the men govern the society and manage property.

Matrilineal Societies around the globe • • • MOSUO (border of Tibet in the Yunnan) MINANGKABAU (West Sumatra, Indonesia) AKAN (majority in Ghana) BRIBRI GARO NAGOVISI

Patriarchy • A patriarchal society is a male-dominated social system wherein males are the supreme authority figures and hold primary and maximum power. • Patriarchy means 'the rule of the father'. In a patriarchal family, it is the father who controls every economic, social, and moral decision regarding everyone else in the family.

Characteristics of a Patriarchal System Sociologist Allan G. Johnson (1997) defined patriarchal cultures as those that are male dominated, male identified and male centered. • Male Dominance: In a patriarchal system, men make all decisions in both society and in their family unit, hold all positions of power and authority, and are considered superior.

• Male Identification: Men are concerned with identification that includes qualities of control, strength, power, rationality, strong work ethic, and competitiveness. Each of these qualities contribute to male identification in a patriarchal system. • (These constructs has been determined by men who portray women as substandard and inferior).

• Male Centeredness, that what the members of the culture largely focus on are the activities of men. Patriarchal cultures keep men and men’s ways of being at the center of attention and others in margins. • Heroism, Moral, Courage, Strength, Power. • The Media , a cultural institution , often portrays men as active people and the main characters of the story, while women are more often than not secondary to the storyline.

• Obsession with Control: Men living in a patriarchal system or society must be in control at all times. They have a desire to control all social and family situations and must make all decisions regarding capital and education.

• In recent times, women are breaking barriers and taking on different roles. But patriarchy still exists in the mindset of the society. It is up to us to realize when and how we're pushing women into the background, and strive to avoid that. • An ideal society cannot be one where a woman rules or one where a man rules. An ideal society is one where both are given equal importance, only then can we say we're civilized, in the true sense of the word.