Gender Inequality In Australia

Gender is a social construction that creates the identities and separates the social, physiological and cultural differences between men and women. These differences form a hierarchy whereby the ideologies of ‘masculinity’ are considered superior to that of ‘femininity’, placing women as subordinate to men in social structures within Western culture. Contemporary society is considered a patriarchal system whereby social, cultural, political and economic institutions and structures operate to favour men, creating a gender order, placing women second in the gender regime and giving male advantages within everyday society. The gender order not only creates social differences between men and women, it also creates different life experiences which lead to inequality. Gender inequality is prevalent within the Australian society, whereby men still dominate women in almost every area of social, political and cultural life, which contribute to the oppression of women, even in postmodern times.
These differences create a social hierarchy, where men dominate women in all aspects of social and political life. Through patriarchal dominance in social and political arenas create a gender order, reproducing roles and stereotypes that reinforce the ideologies where being male is seen as superior to being female, which contributes to gender inequality faced by women in contemporary society. Through discussion, I have applied social theory to support and explain how gender is used a vice of social stratification, whereby women are subordinate to men in all social, political and economic structures and arenas. Moreover, through theoretical analysis, it is clear that patriarchal dominance on western culture creates a divide between the notions of what it means to be female and male, thus shaping and recreating gender inequality in contemporary