Gender | AQA A-Level Sociology

Aug 15

19 min read

Updated: Aug 31

For Specification 7192

AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes

Estimated study time: 75-90 minutes

Gender is a major dimension of inequality within AQA A-Level Sociology. This Gender A-Level Sociology revision page examines how gender can form a basis of social differentiation and stratification, including inequalities in employment, economic resources, status and power. You will also compare sociological explanations of these patterns, particularly feminist approaches and their alternatives. The topic develops your understanding of social stratification [Social stratification and differentiation] and prepares you to explore gender differences in life chances [Social class, gender and life chances]. AQA specifically requires sociological explanations of stratification and differentiation by gender.

Learning Objectives 🎯

By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:

Define gender as a basis of social differentiation and social stratification.
Explain how gender may be associated with inequalities in status, power and economic position.
Examine patterns of gender inequality in employment and domestic responsibilities.
Explain how gender socialisation and discrimination may contribute to inequality.
Analyse feminist explanations of gender inequality, including the concept of patriarchy.
Evaluate the extent to which gender remains an important dimension of inequality compared with other social divisions.

Revision Notes 📚

Gender A-Level Sociology revision overview

Within Stratification and Differentiation, AQA requires students to study:

stratification and differentiation by gender
dimensions of inequality, including status and power
differences in life chances by gender
gender in relation to occupation and social class
patterns of social mobility

The revision plan separates these broad specification requirements into several lessons. This page concentrates on gender as a basis of inequality and sociological explanations for these inequalities. Detailed examination of gender and life chances follows in gendered life chances [Social class, gender and life chances], while the relationship between gender, occupation and class measurement is developed in occupation and social class [Occupation, gender and social class].

Gender as social differentiation

Social differentiation means distinguishing between different social groups or categories.

Gender is one characteristic through which individuals may be differentiated. Sociologists can therefore investigate whether gender groups experience different:

occupational positions
employment patterns
economic resources
levels of status
levels of power
domestic responsibilities
opportunities for social mobility

Simply identifying a difference does not necessarily demonstrate inequality.

For example, if two groups perform different social roles, this shows differentiation. If those roles are associated with unequal rewards, status or power, they may form part of stratification.

Gender as social stratification

Gender stratification occurs where gender differences are associated with structured inequalities.

AQA assessment material has repeatedly connected gender to unequal:

earnings
employment opportunities
access to senior occupational positions
workplace power
financial independence
household decision-making
social status
opportunities for social mobility

For example, AQA's 2024 Paper 2 linked women's greater likelihood of taking time away from paid employment for childcare and men's greater representation in senior positions to differences in social status.

A useful distinction is:

Gender differentiation	Gender stratification
Identifies differences associated with gender.	Identifies structured inequalities associated with gender.
May involve different social roles or employment patterns.	Involves unequal resources, status, power or opportunities.
Does not automatically imply that one group is disadvantaged.	Involves unequal social positions or outcomes.

📌 Exam tip: Do not answer a question about gender inequality by simply listing differences between women and men. Explain how the difference creates an advantage, disadvantage or unequal social position.

Gender inequality and employment

Employment is one important setting in which gender inequality can be examined.

AQA assessment material identifies several relevant patterns:

women being less likely than men to be in full-time employment
women taking career breaks because of caring responsibilities
greater female participation in part-time work
employment discrimination
differences in access to senior positions
differences in job security
interruptions to employment affecting promotion opportunities

The 2025 mark scheme, for example, identifies domestic responsibilities, career breaks, discrimination, low-skilled employment and women's lower representation in senior roles as possible explanations for differences in full-time employment.

These patterns can contribute to wider stratification because employment affects economic resources, occupational status and power.

Caring responsibilities and paid employment

One explanation of gender differences in employment concerns the unequal distribution of caring and domestic responsibilities.

AQA assessment has repeatedly linked women's employment patterns to:

childcare
family responsibilities
domestic responsibilities
career breaks
reduced availability for full-time employment

If women are more likely to interrupt paid work to perform caring responsibilities, this can affect their position in the labour market.

A possible chain of analysis is:

greater caring responsibilities → interrupted or part-time employment → reduced occupational opportunities → lower income or status → gender inequality

AQA's 2024 gender and status question explicitly used women's greater likelihood of taking time away from paid work to care for children as a route into analysing gender differences in status.

The domestic division of labour

Gender inequality may also involve the domestic division of labour, meaning the way household and caring tasks are divided.

Relevant concepts accepted in AQA mark schemes include:

traditional gender roles
domestic division of labour
dual burden
triple shift
financial control
decision-making
patriarchy

A dual burden refers to combining paid employment with a substantial share of domestic work.

The idea of a triple shift adds another dimension of responsibility to this combination.

These patterns matter to stratification where unequal domestic responsibilities restrict access to employment, income or occupational progression.

However, gender relationships should not automatically be assumed to be completely unchanged. AQA's assessment material also recognises changes towards greater sharing of domestic responsibilities and increased female employment.

This creates an important evaluation point: the extent of inequality can change.

Gender inequality and economic resources

Gender inequality may involve unequal access to economic resources.

AQA has repeatedly used differences in earnings as evidence students can analyse sociologically. Its 2022 Paper 2 stated that women earned less on average than men and asked students to consider the consequences for power.

Lower earnings may affect:

financial independence
consumption opportunities
economic security
power within relationships
ability to accumulate resources
wider life chances

For example:

lower average earnings → fewer independent economic resources → reduced bargaining or decision-making power → gender inequality

This shows why inequality in one dimension can create inequality in another.

Gender and poverty

Gender may also be related to the risk of poverty.

AQA mark schemes recognise the concept of the feminisation of poverty when discussing gender as a dimension of inequality.

Work-related factors identified by AQA include:

lower-paid employment
insecure employment
employment gaps
family commitments
reduced access to employment benefits or pensions
marginalisation from the labour market

This demonstrates that gender inequality is not limited to occupational prestige. Employment patterns can also affect material living standards.

Gender inequality and occupational status

Status refers to an individual's or group's social position or standing.

Gender may influence status if women and men have unequal access to particular occupational positions or if their employment patterns are treated differently.

AQA's 2024 mark scheme identifies two clear mechanisms:

Women may be less likely to work full time because of responsibilities such as childcare, reducing income and financial independence.
Men may be more likely to occupy senior occupational positions associated with higher social prestige.

Status inequality can therefore emerge from employment patterns as well as differences in earnings.

You will explore how status relates to other dimensions of inequality in class, status and power [Class, status and power].

The glass ceiling

The glass ceiling refers to barriers that restrict access to higher occupational positions despite these barriers not always being formally visible.

AQA uses the concept in mark schemes dealing with:

women's occupational status
women's power
social mobility
gender inequality

For example, women may enter an occupation but encounter barriers to reaching its most senior positions.

This can affect:

income
prestige
organisational authority
career progression
social mobility

📌 Exam application: If an item refers to men being more likely to occupy senior positions, do not stop at "this gives men higher status". Explain why senior positions provide greater prestige or authority and how restricted female progression reproduces gender stratification.

Gender inequality and power

Power concerns the ability to influence decisions or outcomes.

AQA specifically requires students to understand power as a dimension of inequality, and gender can affect access to power.

Gender inequality in power can operate in several settings.

Workplace power

AQA assessment has recognised that women may encounter barriers to senior management and executive positions.

Reaching these positions can provide power to:

make organisational decisions
control resources
influence employment decisions
exercise authority over other workers

If access to such positions differs by gender, gender differentiation becomes gender stratification.

The 2022 mark scheme also recognised situations in which men occupy positions allowing them to make hiring or dismissal decisions.

Power within households

Economic inequality can also affect power within personal relationships.

AQA's 2022 mark scheme accepted the argument that lower average female income can lead to reduced power in family decision-making.

This demonstrates an important relationship:

employment inequality → income inequality → differences in financial independence → differences in household power

Gender stratification therefore operates across different social institutions rather than in only one area of life.

Gender and social mobility

Social mobility involves movement between social positions.

AQA requires students to study the nature, extent and significance of mobility and recognises that opportunities may differ by gender.

Gender-related barriers such as:

interrupted employment
discrimination
the glass ceiling
unequal caring responsibilities

may affect opportunities for upward mobility.

The 2024 mark scheme includes concepts such as the glass ceiling, discrimination, gender and patriarchy as relevant to debates about social mobility.

However, social mobility is a separate specification area and is examined in full in movement between social positions [Social mobility].

Gender socialisation

Gender socialisation refers to the process through which individuals learn expectations and behaviours associated with gender.

Gender socialisation appears explicitly in AQA mark schemes on gender inequality.

Socialisation can contribute to stratification if expectations encourage different social roles and these roles have unequal consequences.

For example, expectations that women should perform a greater caring role may contribute to:

different employment choices or opportunities
greater likelihood of part-time work or career breaks
differences in income and occupational progression
differences in status and power

Gender socialisation therefore provides one possible explanation for how patterns of inequality can be reproduced.

However, sociologists differ over whether socialisation creates fixed outcomes. Gender roles and identities may change, and individuals do not necessarily accept all the expectations placed upon them.

Discrimination

Discrimination involves unequal treatment of individuals or groups.

AQA mark schemes identify workplace discrimination as one possible explanation for gender inequality, particularly in relation to:

access to full-time employment
promotion
senior occupational positions
earnings
power

Discrimination provides a different explanation from individual choice.

For example, two individuals may possess similar ambitions but encounter different opportunities because organisational practices favour one gender.

This shifts the explanation from:

"women choose different jobs"

towards:

social structures and practices may restrict the choices available.

Patriarchy

A central feminist concept is patriarchy.

In sociological explanations, patriarchy refers to patterns of male dominance and female subordination.

AQA's specimen material states that feminist theories seek to explain gender inequalities and that feminists agree that women experience subordination, although different feminist approaches disagree over its causes and how it can be overcome.

Patriarchy appears repeatedly in AQA mark schemes concerned with:

gender inequality
employment
family relationships
power
poverty
media representations

For feminists, patterns such as unequal domestic labour, occupational barriers or differences in power may therefore be connected rather than isolated problems.

Feminist explanations of gender inequality

Feminism places gender inequality at the centre of analysis.

AQA's specimen assessment explicitly identifies several feminist approaches, including:

liberal feminism
radical feminism
Marxist feminism

It also states that feminist theories differ in the aspects of women's lives and life chances they emphasise and in their explanations of how women's subordination can be overcome.

The shared starting point is that gender inequality requires sociological explanation.

Feminism and social structure

Feminist approaches draw attention to patterns of inequality across different institutions.

These may include:

paid employment
household labour
income
occupational status
organisational power
socialisation
cultural expectations

The concept of patriarchy enables these patterns to be interpreted as part of a wider structure of inequality rather than as unrelated individual differences.

Liberal feminist approaches

AQA mark schemes recognise liberal feminist interpretations of workplace patriarchy and discrimination.

This makes issues such as changing opportunities and barriers useful when considering whether gender inequalities are declining.

Evidence of improved female access to employment or occupational positions may challenge claims that inequality is fixed.

However, continuing discrimination or unequal access to senior positions suggests that gender may still affect social position.

Radical feminist approaches

Radical feminist explanations place strong emphasis on patriarchy and male dominance.

AQA mark schemes have, for example, recognised radical feminist interpretations of pressures surrounding femininity as forms of oppression.

Within stratification, a radical feminist approach directs attention towards inequalities that may operate across several parts of society rather than reducing gender inequality entirely to economic class.

This provides an important criticism of theories that treat class as the fundamental social division.

Marxist feminist approaches

AQA accepts Marxist feminist approaches as part of theoretical debates about inequality.

These approaches make it possible to consider relationships between gender and social class rather than assuming that either operates completely independently.

Concepts accepted in AQA material include the reserve army of labour, where women's position in employment may be connected to the needs of the labour market.

This approach is useful because gender inequality can have both economic and patriarchal dimensions.

Evaluating feminist explanations

Feminist explanations have several strengths.

They draw attention to inequalities that could be overlooked by explanations focused only on social class, including:

gendered domestic responsibilities
workplace discrimination
differences in power
barriers to senior occupational positions
gender differences in economic resources

AQA has directly assessed the claim that gender may be the most important dimension of inequality, showing that students are expected to compare gender with other forms of stratification.

However, feminist explanations can also be evaluated.

Gender inequalities have changed

AQA assessment acknowledges that women's social position has improved in some respects.

Changes can include greater female participation in paid employment and changing domestic roles.

This may challenge approaches that present gender inequality as completely fixed or unchanged.

The important question is therefore not simply:

"Does gender inequality exist?"

but:

"What is its nature, extent and significance today?"

Women do not all occupy the same social position

Gender is not the only dimension of inequality.

The specification also requires students to examine:

social class
ethnicity
age
disability in relation to life chances

A woman in an advantaged social class position may therefore have different opportunities from a woman in a disadvantaged class position.

Similarly, ethnicity may interact with gender to produce different experiences.

This means a complete sociological analysis should avoid treating all women as one homogeneous group.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality refers to the idea that different social divisions can operate together.

AQA mark schemes recognise intersectionality within sociological explanations of gender, and examiner reports have praised answers that consider how gender can combine with other inequalities rather than treating it in isolation.

An intersectional analysis might therefore examine how:

gender + class + ethnicity

can combine to shape an individual's social position.

This provides a useful evaluation of explanations claiming that one dimension alone is always the most important.

Functionalist explanations

Functionalist theories provide an alternative way of understanding inequality.

More generally, functionalists explain stratification in relation to:

division of labour
socialisation
role allocation
value consensus
social order

Applied to gender, this perspective can interpret differentiated social roles as connected to the organisation of society rather than automatically treating every difference as evidence of oppression.

AQA material on families, for example, recognises the concepts of instrumental and expressive roles when discussing traditional gender roles.

Evaluating functionalism

Feminists challenge approaches that treat unequal gender roles as socially necessary.

A division of roles may appear functional while still producing unequal:

income
power
status
employment opportunities

The issue is therefore whether differentiation genuinely benefits society as a whole or whether it advantages particular groups.

AQA examiner reports show that evaluation becomes weaker when students simply describe functionalism and feminism separately. The competing perspective needs to be used directly to test the explanation under discussion.

Marxist explanations

Marxist theories place social class and capitalism at the centre of inequality.

From a Marxist perspective, economic class may be more fundamental than gender.

This provides an evaluation of feminist explanations: inequalities experienced by women may partly reflect their class position rather than gender alone.

However, feminist approaches criticise class-based explanations when they fail to explain inequalities specifically affecting women.

AQA's 2023 stratification question explicitly presented gender as a possible alternative to Marxist claims that social class is the basis of stratification.

This creates a major debate:

Class-focused explanation	Gender-focused explanation
Social class is the main source of inequality.	Gender is a major independent source of inequality.
Economic ownership and resources are central.	Patriarchy and gendered power are central.
Inequalities between classes affect both women and men.	Class analysis may overlook inequalities specifically affecting women.

A strong evaluation can argue that class and gender may interact rather than insisting that only one can matter.

Postfeminist and changing-gender arguments

AQA's mark schemes also recognise concepts such as postfeminism and genderquake when evaluating contemporary gender inequality.

These ideas direct attention to social change.

Traditional patterns of inequality may weaken as:

gender roles change
employment patterns change
women's opportunities increase
identities become less fixed

This challenges theories that portray gender relations as completely static.

However, continuing differences in earnings, senior occupational positions, caring responsibilities and workplace power suggest that social change does not necessarily mean inequality has disappeared.

A strong answer therefore distinguishes between:

reduced inequality

and

the complete disappearance of inequality.

Is gender the most important dimension of inequality?

This is one of the central evaluative debates.

AQA has directly asked students to evaluate the view that gender is the most important dimension of inequality. Its highest-level mark scheme expected students to compare gender with other dimensions such as social class and ethnicity.

Arguments that gender is highly significant

Gender may affect:

employment patterns
occupational progression
earnings
economic independence
domestic responsibilities
status
power
social mobility

These inequalities can be interconnected and may reinforce each other.

Arguments that other dimensions matter

Social class may affect resources and life chances for women and men.

Ethnicity may create additional inequalities.

Age may also influence status and opportunities.

An individual therefore occupies several social positions simultaneously.

A balanced judgement

The strongest sociological judgement is unlikely to claim that one dimension explains every inequality.

Instead, ask:

Which outcome is being explained?
How strong is the evidence of gender inequality in that area?
Does class or ethnicity provide an alternative explanation?
Do different dimensions interact?
Have gender inequalities changed over time?

This creates a much more analytical answer than simply stating that "gender matters".

Applying gender inequality in an examination

Consider the following context:

In an organisation, women and men enter employment in similar numbers. However, women are more likely to work part time after having children, while most senior managers are men.

A weak response might say:

"Women have less power because men are managers."

A stronger sociological application would develop the process:

unequal caring responsibilities → greater female part-time employment → reduced access to promotion → male concentration in senior positions → unequal occupational status and organisational power

You could then evaluate this by considering:

whether workplace patterns are changing
whether domestic labour is becoming more equal
whether discrimination also explains the pattern
whether class or ethnicity modifies the effect of gender

This is the difference between description and analysis.

Key Words 🔑

Key word	Student-friendly definition	How it may be used in an exam
Gender stratification	Structured inequality associated with gender.	Use when connecting gender differences to unequal status, resources, power or opportunities.
Patriarchy	A pattern or system of male dominance and female subordination.	Use when explaining feminist interpretations of gender inequality.
Gender socialisation	The process through which people learn gender-related expectations and behaviours.	Use to explain how gender roles and inequalities may be reproduced.
Discrimination	Unequal treatment of individuals because they belong to a particular social group.	Apply to barriers in employment, promotion or occupational position.
Glass ceiling	Barriers that restrict access to higher occupational positions despite not always being formally visible.	Use when analysing women's access to senior roles, power or social mobility.
Domestic division of labour	The way domestic and caring tasks are divided within households.	Link caring responsibilities to employment, income or power.
Dual burden	Combining paid employment with substantial responsibility for domestic work.	Use when explaining gender inequalities between paid and unpaid work.
Feminisation of poverty	The idea that women are disproportionately vulnerable to poverty.	Link employment, income and caring responsibilities to material inequality.
Intersectionality	The idea that different social divisions may combine to shape inequality.	Use when evaluating explanations based only on gender.
Genderquake	A concept used to describe significant changes in women's social position and gender relations.	Use when evaluating whether traditional gender inequalities are declining.

Hints from the Examiner Reports 💡

Examiner hint: Make your two points genuinely different. In the 2024 gender-and-status question, some students produced two answers that overlapped. Separate mechanisms, such as employment breaks and access to senior occupational positions, are easier to develop fully.

Examiner hint: Do more than say that women experience a disadvantage and men do not. The 2024 report noted that some points about men's status were limited to saying that the barriers affecting women did not apply to them. Explain the positive consequence, such as greater occupational prestige or authority.

Examiner hint: Consider change as part of your analysis. Examiners noted that relatively few students used changes in the workplace or changes in the balance of domestic labour to develop their gender-and-status answers. These can provide useful analysis of the extent of inequality.

Examiner hint: Apply every point to the precise context named in the question. In the 2022 question on women's power in the UK, strong answers linked lower earnings to household decision-making and blocked promotion routes to power within businesses. Answers focused on other countries could not receive credit because the question specified the UK.

Examiner hint: Do not turn evaluation into separate summaries of theories. The 2022 report found that some essays drifted from the question into general descriptions of perspectives. Use feminism, Marxism or functionalism to directly evaluate the explanation or claim in the question.

Examiner hint: For a 10-mark analyse question, use the two item "hooks" explicitly and develop each into a sociological explanation. For a 20-mark essay, use the item as a starting point but add selective knowledge of your own rather than attempting to include every theory you know.

Common Mistakes ⚠️

Mistake: Treating every gender difference as gender inequality

Why this is incorrect: A difference becomes a stratification issue when it creates unequal resources, status, power or opportunities.

How to improve: Complete the sentence: "This creates inequality because..."

Mistake: Describing women's employment patterns without explaining the consequence

Why this is incorrect: Saying that women are more likely to work part time is descriptive. It does not show why the pattern matters sociologically.

How to improve: Develop the chain:

part-time employment → reduced earnings or promotion opportunities → lower occupational status or financial independence

Mistake: Giving two versions of the same point in a 10-mark question

Why this is incorrect: AQA examiner reports identify overlapping points as a limitation because students then struggle to demonstrate two distinct lines of analysis.

How to improve:

Choose two different mechanisms, for example:

caring responsibilities affecting employment
discrimination affecting promotion

Mistake: Assuming all women experience the same degree of inequality

Why this is incorrect: Social class, ethnicity, age and other dimensions of inequality can also shape social position.

How to improve: Use intersectionality or compare gender with another dimension when evaluating a general claim.

Mistake: Using "patriarchy" as a label without explanation

Why this is incorrect: Simply writing "this is because of patriarchy" does not explain the social process.

How to improve: Identify the mechanism, such as unequal workplace power, discrimination or gendered domestic expectations, and then connect it to patriarchy.

Mistake: Assuming gender inequality has either completely disappeared or never changed

Why this is incorrect: AQA material recognises both continuing inequalities and changes in women's social position.

How to improve: Evaluate extent. Ask which inequalities persist, which have weakened and which may have changed form.

Mistake: Writing a feminism essay when the question asks whether gender is the most important inequality

Why this is incorrect: The focus is the relative importance of gender, so other dimensions must be used to assess the claim.

How to improve: Compare gender explicitly with social class, ethnicity or another relevant dimension rather than simply describing different feminist theories.

Exam-Style Questions ✍️

Questions

1. Identify one concept used by feminists to describe gender inequality.[1 mark]

2. Identify one workplace factor that may contribute to gender inequality.[1 mark]

3. Explain the difference between gender differentiation and gender stratification.[4 marks]

4. Explain two ways in which unequal domestic responsibilities may contribute to gender inequality.[6 marks]

5. Outline and explain two ways in which gender may affect an individual's occupational position.[10 marks]

6. Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.

Item A Some employees interrupt their careers or reduce their paid working hours because they take greater responsibility for caring for children. Senior positions within the same organisation are associated with greater prestige and authority, but these positions are occupied mainly by employees who have experienced continuous full-time employment.Gender may affect an individual's status.

Applying material from Item A, analyse two ways in which gender may affect an individual's status.[10 marks]

7. Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.

Item B Feminist sociologists argue that patterns of inequality in employment, domestic work and access to power are connected to women's subordinate position. However, gender relations have changed and women have greater opportunities in some areas than in the past.Other sociologists argue that inequalities based on social class may be more important than gender.

Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate feminist explanations of gender inequality.[20 marks]

8. Read Item C below and answer the question that follows.

Item C Gender can affect employment patterns, economic resources, occupational status and access to positions of power. These differences may give women and men unequal opportunities.However, individuals also occupy class, ethnic and age positions, and the importance of gender inequality may vary between different groups and areas of social life.

Applying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate the view that gender is the most important dimension of inequality in society today.[20 marks]

Mark Scheme

Question 1

Award 1 mark for one appropriate concept, for example:

patriarchy
female subordination
gender discrimination

Question 2

Award 1 mark for one relevant factor, for example:

discrimination
glass ceiling
caring responsibilities
career breaks
part-time employment

Question 3

Award up to 4 marks.

Indicative content:

Gender differentiation identifies differences between gender groups.
Gender stratification involves structured inequality associated with those differences.
A developed answer should connect stratification to unequal status, power, resources or opportunities.

Example answer: Gender differentiation means identifying differences associated with gender, such as different employment patterns. Gender stratification exists when these differences create unequal positions, for example if one group's employment pattern leads to lower earnings, status or occupational power.

Question 4

Award up to 6 marks for two developed explanations.

Possible answers include:

Employment

Greater domestic or caring responsibilities may make continuous full-time employment more difficult. This can reduce access to promotion or senior occupational positions, creating inequality in status.

Income and power

If domestic responsibilities encourage one partner to reduce paid employment, their income and financial independence may decrease. This may contribute to differences in economic resources or household decision-making power.

Higher-mark answers should explain the relationship between domestic responsibilities and inequality, rather than merely describing who performs household work.

Question 5

This is an outline and explain question. Students should develop two separate ways.

Indicative content may include:

caring responsibilities leading to part-time work
career breaks affecting promotion
employment discrimination
the glass ceiling
unequal access to senior roles
gender socialisation affecting employment patterns

For each point:

Identify the gender-related factor.
Explain how it influences occupational position.
Develop the consequence for inequality.

Evaluation is not required.

Question 6

Students must explicitly apply the two hooks in Item A.

Way 1: Caring responsibilities and interrupted employment

Item A refers to employees interrupting careers or reducing working hours to care for children.
If these responsibilities are gendered, one group may experience less continuous employment.
This may reduce opportunities for promotion.
Reduced access to higher positions can lower occupational status.

Way 2: Senior positions and prestige

Item A states that senior positions provide greater prestige and authority.
If one gender is more likely to reach these positions, gender affects both status and power.
Unequal access to senior occupations therefore contributes to gender stratification.

For the highest marks, both item hooks should be developed rather than copied.

Question 7

This is a 20-mark evaluative essay.

A high-level response should demonstrate accurate knowledge of feminist explanations and use Item B throughout.

Arguments supporting feminist explanations may include:

patriarchy
female subordination
gender socialisation
employment discrimination
unequal domestic labour
dual burden
differences in earnings
glass ceiling
unequal access to power
feminisation of poverty

Different feminist approaches may be compared, including liberal, radical and Marxist feminist approaches.

Evaluation may include:

improvements in women's social position
changes in employment and domestic roles
postfeminist arguments about changing gender relations
class-based explanations of inequality
intersectionality
differences between groups of women
the possibility that gender and class operate together rather than separately

A strong conclusion should judge how useful feminism is for explaining contemporary gender inequality, rather than merely stating that feminism is right or wrong.

Question 8

This essay requires a direct comparison of gender with other dimensions of inequality.

Arguments supporting the view may include:

gender differences in employment
unequal caring responsibilities
differences in earnings
occupational segregation
glass ceiling
differences in status
unequal workplace and household power
barriers to social mobility
feminist explanations based on patriarchy