Gender Contract
Gender contract – the dominant pattern of gender relations, encompassing both everyday practices and their symbolic representation, at a particular stage in the development of a gender system.
For example, under the dominant gender model associated with industrial capitalism in the first half of the twentieth century, the public sphere was represented primarily as a domain of male activity, whereas the private sphere was associated with women. Market values established the primacy of the public, male, and industrial sphere, while the private, female, and domestic sphere was regarded as secondary, subordinate, and supportive.
This arrangement sustained a hierarchy of gender roles commonly described in feminist theory as patriarchal. The basic gender contract prescribed for women was the housewife contract, while the corresponding contract prescribed for men was the breadwinner contract.
In post-industrial societies, changes in cultural values and social organization have also transformed the gender system. The classical gender contract has gradually been challenged and, particularly among the middle classes, partly displaced by an equal-status contract. Under this model, the patriarchal hierarchy is replaced, at least as a normative ideal, by greater equality of rights and opportunities for women and men in both the public sphere — including politics, education, employment, and cultural life — and the private sphere, including household labour, childcare, and sexuality.
See also: Gender System of Society, Gender Order, Gender Division of Labour, Patriarchy.
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