QUESTION 1

Women and the workplace

Even as Western Europe and the US struggle to emerge from the global recession, China and India are surging ahead. China is projected to become the world's largest economy within the next decade; India could leapfrog Japan into third place in individual country GDP rankings as early as 2012. One of the chief engines of these explosive economies: educated women. Educated women are pouring into the professional workforce in China and India, with profound implications for national and multinational corporations. Yet even as employers rely on this growing cadre of "white-collar" women, many have little understanding of the complicated career dynamics of this rich tranche of talent. The first broad-based generation to assume the right to a career confronts entrenched social mores that both sustain and sabotage them as they create new roles. Communism's egalitarian legacy left the expectation that Chinese women would work, regardless of marital or maternal status. In contrast, more than half of Indian women experience pressure from their spouses and in-laws to quit working when they get married. Even after having a first child, only 35 per cent of Chinese women were pressured to "drop out", while 52 per cent of Indian women were criticised for continuing their career. Childcare issues drag down the career dreams of Indian and Chinese women to a far lesser degree than their western sisters. Working mothers in China and India are able to think big thanks to a robust matrix of hands-on extended family, inexpensive domestic help and an increasingly wide range of daycare options

Cultural constraints limit women's mobility and hamstring their career potential. Because of societal disapproval of women travelling alone nearly 75 per cent in both countries report difficulties Indian and Chinese women often eschew customer/client-facing roles which involve frequent business trips, even though these roles are the fast track to professional success. Furthermore, more than 50 per cent of Indian women feel unsafe on their daily commute, causing them to skip the after-hours functions where career-boosting contacts are made. (Source: Times of India, 15 September 2010)

(a) Explain why the feminist Ann Oakley (1974) explicitly rejects the views of George Peter Murdock (1949) and Talcott Parsons (1955) of any natural or inevitable division of labour or allocation of social roles on the basis of sex. Support your answer with relevant examples

(b) With reference to the above case study, discuss the effects of culture on sexual division of labour among Indian, Chinese and Western women in today's society

QUESTION 2

Exposure to mass media is the cultural universal that defines the modern world. Critically analyze the impact of mass media on gender roles in today's society

QUESTION 3

Structural and institutional powers reside in the forms of access to educational, economic, and political resources and opportunities. Explain how the differences in male and female gender roles are related to the power differential between men and women. Support your answer with relevant examples

QUESTION 4

Very often when men and women are actually communicating with each other, there are some elements of conflicts in opinions and ideas. Discuss six common areas of conflict giving examples in each case