4.6 Conclusion

Systems of power socially constructed beliefs, practices, and cultural norms that produce and normalize arrangements of power in social institutions. Issues of social control, hegemony, intersectionality, culture wars, and gender are all part of this story and why systems of power are so essential to understand. All of these issues can come together to either unify a group or force individuals into obedience.

As the story of David Remier’s experience at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates, there can be serious and tragic consequences to cis-heteronormative, patriarchal systems of power. Thinking critically about how gender-based systems of power shape our lives can help us better understand the injustices of our history and the inequities we live with today. Understanding how these socially-constructed systemes connect to our every-day lives can give us insight and inspire us to imagine and move towards a better, more just future.

4.6.1 Key Terms

  • Capitalism: a competitive economic system of power in which limited resources are subject to private ownership and the accumulation of surplus is rewarded.
  • Colonialism is a system of power based on the conquest of populations and the control of territory by a state or empire.
  • Cultural appropriation: is a practice of domination in which the cultural artifacts, including intellectual property, traditional knowledge, of a subjugated society are first marginalized, then exoticized, and finally taken out of context to be repurposed for the benefit of the dominant group.
  • Gendered institution: a social organization in which men and women are tracked into into different, and differently valued, social spaces or activities
  • Hegemony: the influence or authority that one dominant social group holds over others. It is also the political, economic, social, and military predominance of one state over other states.
  • Heteronormativity: a stratified system of power based on socially constructed ideas about sexuality that normalize and privilege heterosexuality as the preferred sexuality over all other sexualities.
  • Implicit bias: a subconscious preference acquired through socialization.
  • Microaggressions: statements that indirectly reference racist stereotypes and assert the racial dominance of the aggressor. Use of the term has expanded to include the casual denigration of any subaltern group.
  • .Patriarchy: a social system in which men dominate over genders in all aspects of society.
  • Privilege: advantages exclusively available to one group, often to the detriment of other groups.
  • Racism: a stratified system of power, based on socially constructed ideas about race that create and normalize racial inequity.
  • Social Institution: an organized and established system in a society that performs a basic need for the society.
  • Sexism: prejudice or discrimination based on one’s sex or gender
  • Subaltern: Describes groups of people who have been excluded from full civic participation or otherwise disempowered within stratified societies. The term generally applies to the socio-political status of indigenous or native residents in colonized territory.
  • Symbolic annihilation: is the erasure, underrepresentation or negative representation of groups of people or their experiences in media and public spaces.
  • Systems of power: socially constructed beliefs, practices, and cultural norms that produce and normalize arrangements of power in social institutions.
  • White supremacy is a racist idea that people who are racially categorized as White are superior to people who can be identified by darker skin and other racialized characteristics.

4.6.2 Licenses and Attributions for Conclusion

“Conclusion to Systems of Power” by Dana L. Pertermann is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

“Key Terms” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

“Symbolic Annihilation definition” by Jane Forbes is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

License

Sociology of Gender Copyright © by Heidi Esbensen. All Rights Reserved.

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