Contemporary Society Offers More Opportunities for Individuals and Groups, but It Also Involves More Fear and Uncertainty’

In this essay I will look at how the effects of gender in contemporary society have given women more opportunities and agency in the UK today which in turn has challenged the uncertainty in the male genders identity in society today which had contributed to male aggression and the fear of crime in the UK. First of all what do we mean by a contemporary society. Societies are groups of people interacting with one another through identifying their interests, and cultural beliefs with one another. Contemporary life is often seen as within the last fifthteen years.

If we want to look at the gender roles in society today we need to travel back to 1950’s where the family in Britain was known as ‘nuclear family’ the stable fabric of society. This was a period where power lines between the man and the woman were very distinct. The man held the power he was head of the family, the bread winner going out to work interacting with the outside world while the woman’s main function was often confined to her reproductive abilities, the homemaker, caring for the children, and having very little interaction with the outside world. If we take a look at the two photographs (Hughes, G. & Fergusson, R, 2004, p. 48). Both pictures show us family bliss. The first: The mother perched knitting, the children playing and the father sat at the head of the table, organizing paper work. The second pictures shows us the family enjoying tea. The woman sits with her apron on, the two girls sit dressed in nurse uniforms. the father again sits head of the table. As Erving Goffman, the sociologist suggests, We act out in a whole range of different roles which are rather like parts in a play. (Woodward, K, 2004, p.14). In the pictures we can clearly recognize the gender roles being played out, but we also we see the transference of the roles onto the daughters who are role playing as nurses. When the female gender started to break away from this patriarchal oppression, they had the opportunity for the first time to voice their opinions and anxieties on the family home, politics, the environment it was a slow road more opportunities started to open up for women. They looked at how girls were being affected by this role play and oppression. They noticed inequalities in schools which gave girls restricted opportunities, they were also under achieving. With constant campaigning from individuals and groups this changed and now girls are now out performing the boys with better grades in their exams and it now normal for girls to have opportunities to go to the big Universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. This is illustrated by a national headline (Woodward, K, 2004, p. 62).
In the UK today women’s equal rights still campaign for more opportunities for themselves which takes them away from the stereotype of the nuclear family. Today we have many diverse opportunities in living arrangement. Women today are now seen in the work place competing for the jobs that were normally set aside for men even though they are not paid the same salary as the man doing the same job. Many women have held and hold position’s of power such as Margaret Thatcher and globally we have had presidents and prime minsters such as Kim Campell of Canada and Mary McAleese of Ireland who succeeded another woman.

Today we have many new diverse opportunities in how we want to live. We can re –marry, women have the right to get a divorce, they don’t have to put up with domestic violence. They have a choice to move out of this environment and independently decide to bring up the children by themselves . So marriage today does not mean sticking together to the day we die, women can choose to break this bond if the need arises. The UK now has a diversity of different types of families living together or not together, we have step families, unmarried parents, same sex couples, mixed marriages, the intergration of ethnic groups and single parents. Today we have a lot of single parent mothers who go out to work part- time, their choices are limited and usually the jobs on offer to them are an extension of the traditional family chores like cleaning, caring, nursing and managing money. Some single parent families who have no support from their fathers are either unemployed or find it hard to go out to work even if they do have good education. Getting back into the market place for jobs is very tough as they still feel penalized for bringing up a child alone and that employers feel that they wouldn’t be able to commit to the job fully as they need to look after their children. Employers providing crèche facilities for single parents have gradually come into place but are very few, these however do not exists in the top end of market place. This is reflected in an article “Costly childcare ‘keeps mothers out of work’ (Hughes, G. and Fergusson, R. 2004, p.76). This article reflects a single mum being constrained by the present laws, and she finds it impossible to get work unless her earnings are high enough to afford private childcare. With the Labour governments legislation on tax credits for single mums this has helped a little but they are still restrained by the jobs available, and the wages paid to them often keeping them above the poverty line.

New opportunities for women groups have formed like the environmentalist group ‘eco-femininism’ who challenge the idea of ‘anthropocentrism’, the human being is the centre of our world, and that everything including the environment, living animal that roam the earth has to evolve around the human being. They feel this has become ‘andocentric’ which means that all these views and ideas are dominated and powered by men’s insecurities, and that the women’s views are put to one side and are deemed not important or irrelevant. Here we have another case of male domination and power. The eco- feminist Vandana Shiva argues that ‘women’s values of nurture and care, as distinct from the ‘male’ values of dominion and control, provide a more appropriate model of reverence for nature and of ecological care. (Goldblatt, D, 2004, p.110). Here she is reflecting on how the motherly instinct of generations of care in bringing up children is the right approach in dealing with some of the environmental issues we face to day unlike the males attitude of self interest, progress and the refusal to engage in a debate with both genders on an equal platform.

These new opportunities have brought uncertainty on the males position in the UK today. It has created uncertainty and fear amongst themselves as they feel de-maculated by the emergence of equal rights for women and girls. This is illustrated by the article ‘ Death of the Dad’ by Melanie Phillips ‘The fragmentation of male identity, caused by both unemployment and the progressive and willed destruction of fatherhood, is creating widening spirals of despair, irresponsibility and violence among men and boys’ (Hughes, G. and Fergusson, R. 2004, p. 62). Men are finding very difficult to find their place in society today, many are unemployed, and the jobs are very few with the disappearance of the industrialized nation, with the closure of coal pits, steel works, ship building and the manufacturing of cars all seen as a male dominant industries has caused much unemployment. They are no longer hold the power, the purse strings of being head of the family. They are confused have lost a sense of control which has caused an identity crises for them. This unstable state has transferred into the younger generations and is causing concerns of the violent conduct we are now witnessing in our social order.

With this break up of the social order we are witnessing a rise of crime. If we look at the table ‘Recorded crime between 1945-2000’ (Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. Pg.17). The table illustrates an alarming increase of crime from nearly half a million offences in 1945 to five million by 1990, with a slight decrease in 2000. In the 50’s we had the ‘nuclear’ family which held the social fabric of society together and with break up of this unit there has become uncertainty and fear of crime in the UK. We are being fed by the media we are ‘ a society engulfed in a tidal wave of cime in which a secure past has become an insecure and uncertain present, crime is something to be feared. (Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. 2004, p.10). The ‘good old days’ as they were known where we had the local friendly bobby walking down the street, and to today we have police being called out wearing flak jackets. The media portray men raging with violence at football matches, drunks on the street, rape, sexual assaults all of which pin-point the man as the main culprit of crime. So with these images from the media portraying men in this light it’s of no surprise why boys are role playing these males figures.

To conclude then contemporary society offers new opportunities for women and girls on many levels but in turn it’s created uncertainty in the male population which has led to aggressive violent behavior which has had knock on effect with crime related incidents. Uncertainty should be embraced as it does bring about change from the old social structures we create but with mans diminishing power and identity as the breadwinner this has had a negative effect on out society. Society needs to recognize this change and encourage men that’s it’s not a personal attack from the female gender but men need to change and be more flexible with the issues and debates that uncertainty brings. Some have embraced we see more single fathers, this is positive start but much more needs to be done. However men in the UK today are still the dominant gender in the and women still have along way to go before their voices are heard, and the power lines are on an equal level.

Word count: 1703

References:

Sherratt, N. and Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Family: from tradition to diversity,’ in Hughes, G. and Fergusson, R. (ed.) Ordering lives: Family, Work and Welfare, London, Routledge. The Open University.

Woodward, K. (2004) ‘Questions of identity,’ in Woodward, K. (ed.) Questioning identity: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, London, Routledge. The Open University.

Grove, J. and Watt, S. (2004) ‘Identity and gender,’ in Woodward, K. (ed.) Questioning identity: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, London, Routledge. The Open University.

Bromley, S. (2004) ‘Political ideologies and the environment,’ in Goldblatt, D. (ed.) Knowledge and the Social Sciences: Theory, Method, Practice, London, Routledge. The Open University.

Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Beyond common sense’ in Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (ed) Introductory Chapter. Tales of Fear and Fascination: the crime problem in the contemporary UK, London, Routledge. The Open University.

Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Tales of Fear and Fascination’ in Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (ed) Introductory Chapter. Tales of Fear and Fascination: the crime problem in the contemporary UK, London, Routledge. The Open University.

References: Sherratt, N. and Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Family: from tradition to diversity,’ in Hughes, G. and Fergusson, R. (ed.) Ordering lives: Family, Work and Welfare, London, Routledge. The Open University. Woodward, K. (2004) ‘Questions of identity,’ in Woodward, K. (ed.) Questioning identity: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, London, Routledge. The Open University. Grove, J. and Watt, S. (2004) ‘Identity and gender,’ in Woodward, K. (ed.) Questioning identity: Gender, Class, Ethnicity, London, Routledge. The Open University. Bromley, S. (2004) ‘Political ideologies and the environment,’ in Goldblatt, D. (ed.) Knowledge and the Social Sciences: Theory, Method, Practice, London, Routledge. The Open University. Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Beyond common sense’ in Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (ed) Introductory Chapter. Tales of Fear and Fascination: the crime problem in the contemporary UK, London, Routledge. The Open University. Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (2004) ‘Tales of Fear and Fascination’ in Mooney, G., Kelly, B., Goldblatt, D., Hughes, G. (ed) Introductory Chapter. Tales of Fear and Fascination: the crime problem in the contemporary UK, London, Routledge. The Open University.