Conferência no ISCTE-IUL, Lisboa

O mestrado em Família e Sociedade do Departamento de Sociologia do ISCTE-IUL tem o prazer de convidar todas e todos a assistir à certamente estimulante Conferência da Professora Rae Lesser Blumberg, Professora de Sociologia na Universidade da Virginia nos Estados Unidos da América e também Professora Emérita de Sociologia da Universidade da California, San Diego.

Conferência Rae Lesser Blumberg
Dia 16 de Dezembro, quarta-feira, 18.30
Sala 329 (Piso 3 da Ala Autónoma).

The "Feminine Mistake": How Textbooks Worldwide Stereotype Women and Ignore their Economic Roles (As Well As How They Combine Work and Family)

Abstract

Here are three facts: 1. For almost all of human history on Earth, women have combined crucial economic roles with raising their families. 2. In recent decades, female labor force participation and the proportion of women earning income have been rising worldwide and, according to The Economist, have been driving global economic growth. 3. In 2009, women became a majority of the U.S. labor force.  But if you were a visitor from another galaxy and you looked to children’s textbooks to understand about human females and males, you would be convinced that almost no women did anything beyond domestic drudgery and childcare.

Today I’ll present the results of two studies I’ve published in 2009.  One is my UNESCO research on gender bias in children’s textbooks around the world and the other is a cross-historical, cross-societal look at women’s crucial roles in technology and in providing economically for their families.  There is an enormous gulf between these two pictures and, most disturbingly, the one portrayed in the world’s textbooks can be termed the “feminine mistake” for its ignoring of the economic side of women’s dual lives.  And what is perhaps the most amazing is that, except for Sweden, studies of gender bias in textbooks in every country and since 1970 paint the same distorted and inaccurate view of women as almost inconsequential for any human endeavor beyond taking care of house and children.