Toward an Integrative Study of Women

Abstract

In an attempt to organize the overwhelming literature on women, this paper presents a conceptual scheme, which, hopefully, contributes toward an integrative study of women. Two major dimensions are taken into account: social structure (spatial) and the life cycle (temporal). Women, placed in social structure, are characterized in terms of two contrastive tendencies of role distributiom : polarization and neutralization. Under polarization, women assume sex-bound roles which are dichotomous with male roles, involving (1) role specialization (domesticity) , (2) asymmetry (inferiority) , (3) segregation (inaccessibility) , and (4) gender personality (femininity) . Neutralization, counteracting polarization, refers to the pressure toward sex-role transcendence or sex-role reversal. Explanatory of neutralization are : (1) polarization itself, in that its extreme subsumes its opposite ; (2) subsistence ; (3) ideological egalitarianism ; and (4) ritual or extraordinary roles. It is contended that women's roles and behavior should be understood in light of the confluence of polarization and neutralization. Viewing a three-person system as the minimal unit of social stucture, women are further placed in triads that are differentiated into six forms : mediation, rivalry, coalition, indirect rules, compensation, and permeation. Cutting across social structure is the dimension of the life cycle. A life cycle is a composite of many cycles including the biological and several role cycles. Role cycles are categorized as domestic and extradomestic, and the latter further categorized into a set of three dichotomies : primary and secondary, performance and clientage, and individual and collective. The hypertrophy and atrophy in the domestic role cycle must be accommodated by withdrawal from and participation in extradomestic roles, or by the cycle-coupling of two or more cross-generationally related women for a lifelong interdependence. Degrees of polarization or neutralization vary depeding upon one's life stages. Finally, socialization, as a link between social structure and the life cycle, is analyzed with a particular focus on modes and contexts which may reinforce either sex-role polarization or neutralization. Seven characteristics of adult socialization are identified as relevant to women.