Gender as an Organizing Force in Social Relations: Implications for the Future of Inequality

A lthough it has hardly disappeared, gender inequality in the labor market has declined noticeably in recent decades, by most standard indicators. Inequality is declining in labor-force participation rates, wages, and occupational sex segregation, even though considerable sex segregation remains, especially at the job and firm level (Jacobs 1999; Petersen and Morgan 1995; Reskin and Padavic 1999). A debate now centers on the nature of the forces behind these changes and their implications for the future. Are the forces that have been and are undermining gender inequality now unstoppable, as recent arguments posit (Jackson 1998)? Is the significance of gender as an organizing principle of inequality in society declining as a consequence? If there are forces that continue to reproduce gender inequality, what do they consist of and what is their future? With others (Jackson 1998; Reskin 2000), I am persuaded that the growth of bureaucratic and economic rationalization and the consequent spread of universal legal rights and organizational procedures are major forces underlying the recent erosion of gender inequality. My view, however, is that gender inequality is not declining as rapidly as it would be if these forces were not slowed by powerful processes that conserve gender inequality, even if in reduced form (Ridgeway 1997). Robert Max Jackson (1998), too, recognizes that resistance to the decline of gender inequality is present in contemporary society, but he argues that this resistance must lose in the long run because no compelling force continually reproduces gender inequality. I argue, however, that Jackson has overlooked a powerful set of ongoing social processes that work to maintain gender inequality in the face of equalizing forces. These processes derive from the deep-seated role gender plays in the fundamental organization of social relations between individuals and from the stereotypes, status assumptions, and cognitive biases that result from