Analyzing Gender Domination: A Sociological Perspective Essay

This essay examines the concept of gender domination, drawing upon the works of Kate Millett and Sheila Jeffreys to analyze its impact on society and business practices. It explores Millett's feminist perspective on sexual politics, highlighting the historical context of male dominance and the commodification of women's sexuality. The essay contrasts Millett's observations with contemporary issues, such as the rise of the sex industry and its influence on corporate culture, including the normalization of prostitution in business settings. The author critiques the degradation of women's roles in the workplace, the acceptance of brothels and strip clubs as business venues, and the resulting ethical and social degradations. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for workplace diversity and equal opportunity, highlighting the threats posed by gender-based exploitation to humanity.

Running head: GENDER DOMINATION
GENDER DOMINATION
Name of the student:
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Author Note:

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Article 1.
In the article ‘Kate Millett's Sexual Politics: 40 years on’ the author Sheila Jeffreys
has referred to the feminist viewpoint of Kate Millett. Kate’s book ‘Sexual Politics’ was
published in the USA (Jeffreys, 2011). This book has explained the concept of sexual politics
which gave birth of the social theory of feminism as well as the effect of male domination in
the society. The author of this article Sheila Jeffreys regards that this book which once taught
the society to perceive the incidents from a feminist perspective is essential to reveal the
actual facet of the male dominated progressive society. Kate’s work was so very powerful
that The Time magazine termed her to be the Mao Tse Tung of the liberation of women.
However, this changed era has buried Kate’s work and predominately because she revealed
the practice of sexual dominance in subordinating of women that she developed as pro-sex
feminist politics in her work.
The author of this article has referred to the importance of Kate Millett’s work as this
focused on the sexual practice erected out of the patriarchal power relations. It both reflected
as well as served to uphold the male domination in the progressive society. The book by Kate
Millett was writer before the invention of video pornography. She had written in the era when
the women sexuality was used as an object of trade in various magazines but in 21th century
the position of women has been much degrades as their sexuality is being presented as a
merchandise.
Millett’s work raised the voice of women to attain sexual freedom which was
originated from the concept of women suppression and masculine biases in the sections of
anthropology, history, sociology even in literature produced by the prominent male writer of
that time. In the works of these male authors there were several instances that Kate found and
criticised scatological language used against women. This article has referred to the novels

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and other works of the contemporary authors of Kate and exemplified the concern of Kate
Millett. On the other hand, Jeffreys has perceived and harmonized misogynist concept with
the contemporary pornography industry.
The time when ‘Sexual Politics’ was written, this pornography industry was in
infancy and frequented by a smaller group of men with putrid psychology. Jeffreys has
demonstrated the extent to which this has been introduced into the mainstream sections of the
society. The dominance of sexuality and pornography have been entering into the day to day
business of the major corporations including the fashion industries, entertainment and music
industries.
Article 2:
This article ‘The sex industry and business practice: An obstacle to women's equality’
by Sheila Jeffreys clearly points to the deep connection between the sex industry and business
success (Jeffreys, 2010). After the world wars, the society has been transformed greatly but
the situation of women is in the same darkness. This article focuses on the concept of
rewarding the successful employees with entertainments like visit to the brothel and strip
clubs. The author has contrasted the effort of normalisation of the prostitution industry with
the struggle for equal opportunities of women in the contemporary society. With the growth
of industrialisation and globalisation, the prostitution industry has been accepted as one of the
most significant place for personal and business growth.
The author has denoted the prostitution industry to have some aspects that are
immensely powerful to shift the focus from the issues like equal opportunity of the women in
their workplaces to growth of opportunism in business. The brothels and strip clubs have
become a place for business conference and conventions where the women are being
employed to entertain the male executives. These women working as prostitutes, are hired to

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conduct successful business deals. Beforehand, the corrupt executives were being satisfied
with sumptuous amount of money but now they are bribed with prostitutes to satisfy them.
Despite the fact that there has been a considerable number of laws and regulations to tern
escort services to be illegal, but rewarding and recognising with escorts have been
continuously growing in the society (Greenbaum et al., 2015). Hence, as the author has
pointed out, a social, psychological and ethical degradation has been pointed out in the
society.
In addition to this, prostitution industry has been proved to be a greater barrier of
women empowerment and opportunities in the workplaces. As this industry chiefly focus in
entertaining the male executives who are being recognised and rewarded with pleasures, the
women employees are being suppressed day by day. Hence there has been a clear difference
in the workplace where the efforts of the men employees are being rewarded in spite of being
inferior to their female counterparts (Andretta et al., 2016). This discrimination against
women in the aspects if payments and promotions has been effecting the total performance of
the organization.
Moreover, this concept of rewarding and promoting the successful executives with
escort services in the brothels or strip clubs, the organizations are indirectly supporting the
women harassments in the workplaces. The men employees are harassing women both
physically and psychologically where women are tolerating crude gender biased comments
from their superiors and it is gradually growing in every sector. The author finally concludes
with the concept of glass ceiling where brothels are accepted to be gender spaces for male
dominance as well as creating an implicit women exploitation (McAlpine, Hossain &
Zimmerman, 2016). This concept of recognising the employees in the organization are
creating problems in building a workplace diversity as well as equal opportunity for all based
on ethics and social responsibilities. It is a threat to the entire humanity.

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Therefore, it can be concluded that both of these articles have focusses on the
deteriorated position of the women in the contemporary society. From the articles it can be
derived that the author has concerned about the sexuality of women that are being
transformed as commodity for business. In judging this situation, the author has mentioned
about the ideology of pornography that has been building a separate industry in the society
that is changing it transgressive, by hitting below the belt. The author has found reasons of
society’s negligence to such feminist concepts and burying them. However, as the author
have pointed out that from ancient time, women sexuality has been under the male
domination and there is no change.

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References:
Andretta, J. R., Woodland, M. H., Watkins, K. M., & Barnes, M. E. (2016). Towards the
discreet identification of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) victims
and individualized interventions: Science to practice. Psychology, Public Policy, and
Law, 22(3), 260.
Greenbaum, J., Crawford-Jakubiak, J. E., & Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect. (2015).
Child sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation: health care needs of
victims. Pediatrics, 135(3), 566-574.
Jeffreys, S. (2010, May). The sex industry and business practice: An obstacle to women's
equality. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 274-282).
Pergamon.
Jeffreys, S. (2011, January). Kate Millett's Sexual Politics: 40 years on. In Women's Studies
International Forum (Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 76-84). Pergamon.
McAlpine, A., Hossain, M., & Zimmerman, C. (2016). Sex trafficking and sexual
exploitation in settings affected by armed conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle
East: systematic review. BMC international health and human rights, 16(1), 34.