II. Stratification in human societies
IV. The micro and macro perspectives
X. The theories applied to the abortion issue
This paper will address a controversy in contemporary social theory. Specifically, the paper will consider the stratification of women in modern society and will seek to determine why women are accorded lower status than men are in the social hierarchy. The paper will consider the viewpoints of various schools of social theory in regard to this issue, with special emphasis on the views of contemporary feminist theorists. The issue of abortion rights will be utilized in order to demonstrate the applied nature of this controversy in relation to the role it plays in the stratification of women in society.
It is generally agreed that stratification in one form or another is inherent in all human societies. Karl Marx was one of the first sociological theorists to identify stratification as a result of class or economic inequalities. Max Weber took this idea a step further by indicating that social stratification may also result from inequalities in status or power (Ritzer, 1988, p. 24). The conflict theorist Ralf Dahrendorf commented on the role of power in social stratification by noting that those in power have the ability to either reward or punish those who are the followers. According to Dahrendorf, power groups in society tend to use this ability in order to maintain the established norms of society. Thus, social stratification is maintained because "the person who will be most favorably placed in society is the person who best succeeds in adapting himself to the ruling norms" (Dahrendorf, 1978, p. 174). Dahrendorf was among the many sociological theorists of the twentieth century to consider social stratification an inevitability. This perspective acknowledges that both the structural elements of society and the personal attitudes of the individuals making up society contribute to the exist...