The authors argue that women's dependence on men plays a key role in muting challenges to gender inequality, and they explore that argument through an analysis of gender-related attitudes in five countries. Women's dependence at both the societal and the individual levels is associated with less egalitarian gender attitudes; such dependence especially affects women's attitudes, drawing them toward men's less egalitarian views. Societal-level dependence also strengthens the impact of individual-level dependence on egalitarianism. The authors conclude that women's dependence discourages egalitarian (...) gender attitudes, thus suppressing challenges to the gendered status quo and legitimating gender inequality. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to investigate how sex segregation, social class, and gender are analytically related to occupational stratification. Recent discussions of women and men in the labor force revolve around whether a sex-segregated model in which sex of the worker affects placement, a pure social class model using classical criteria, or a gendered social class model in which social organizational processes of a gendered social class structure affect positioning in the stratification system. This article addresses the influence (...) that social class and gender have on stratification in the labor market. Data from the 1972-82 General Social Survey on 371 occupations, representing 7,541 male and female workers, are used to formulate a social class scheme based on all workers' characteristics. In comparing the models, the analyses show that an integrated gendered social class perspective is consistent with the empirical differentiation found among women and men in the labor force. (shrink)