The Role Of Feminism

As cited in An Introduction to Sociology in Ireland, Webb and Tossell (1999, p47) defined gender as ‘the word used to describe social and personality differences between women and men’. Whereas, ‘a person’s sex is determined by the physical characteristics’ (Korgan and White, 2014, p151)The social construction of our gender begins at birth and within our family, the first place we learn about our gender and our first ‘society’ as such. From this early stage and throughout life we are thought social norms, roles and behavior’s for our gender for example my aunties telling me things such as, little girls wear dresses on Sundays or girls don’t climb trees. This type of social discourse, though quite subtle, can have a lasting effect on children

Taking Feminism for example and how such movements can effect society on a macro level and therefor on a micro level individuals of such societies. There are many types of feminism. ‘Feminism can be defined as being a critique of society based on the inequalities that exist through gender roles and assumptions. Feminism does not see women as being treated equally in terms of access to education, jobs, incomes, politics and power.’(McDonald, 2014, p37) In order to makes these changes there needs to be more open-mindedness, changing needs of society and also through developments of social policies such as the minimum thirty per cent quota of female candidates in Irish politics. These types of polices may be needed to change societies preconceived ideas of women in politics and eventually women will become the norm in politics too. Hugely influential women such as Sheryl Sandberg are encouraging women, through motivational talks and videos, to think outside the societal norms and apply for those higher roles that women are not. According to a report by The Irish Times ‘Irish women account for only 18% of the most influential professional roles in Ireland’ (The Irish Times, 2013) However, there are more than 950,000 in Irelands labour market with approximately 500,000 of those having children. (European Commission, 2014) Clearly changes in society are happening albeit at a slow pace. Such changes will impact on how future generation are perceived although I think that some of the most important changes will happen first in the