Socialization is the unequal distribution of power, wealth, income and social status between individuals and groups. This distribution is not random, it is patterned and structured. Three important axes of global inequality are gender, race and ethnicity, and class. These inequalities are on a global scale and are found in virtually all societies. It wasn't until relatively recently, however, that a caste system developed to include race and ethnicity among class and gender. Since imperialism and the conquest of the America's, a number of social changes have occurred, and, as a result, the dominant groups today are not only higher in the social order, in terms of rank, but they are considered better as well. According to Winant, there …show more content…

But throughout historic time and place, there has been "a clear division of labour in the allocation of economic tasks between men and women." This division "has always been partly justified in terms of… biological differences." However, many feminists argue that "we learn, through culturally specific socialization, how to be masculine and feminine and to assume the identities of men and women." Due to that fact that many societies proclaim masculine characteristics to be more socially ‘useful' and generally ‘more important' than feminine ones, a social structure often results where there are highly unequal gender relations. Even if women attain social/political rights equal to those of men it's unlikely that all the sources of oppression of women will be removed. How is that fair?! We are more biased today than ever before, at least there was some justification during the middle ages for why women couldn't be knights. But today mental capacity should be the major basis in the workplace. Why are women so under represented in government? Why do they get paid less than 80% of what men get paid to do the same job? Why are women discriminated against today?
Essentially, the social constructs of race, gender, ethnicity, and class are all the same thing. They all are ways to divide people and put certain people on top. Not unlike capitalism where someone is on top and others are on the bottom (it's also not