Cultural Hegemony

Following the discussions in class, I wanted to talk about the concept of hegemony. I’ve heard many people argue that the problems we discuss in class are no longer applicable. I’ve heard people say, “The documents we are reading are old,” or, “That may have been true in the past, but that doesn’t happen anymore.”

I wanted to introduce the concept of Hegemony. Cultural hegemony is the idea that society is ruled by one dominant social class, that manipulates culture in such a way that their beliefs become the norm. The lower classes then follow this new ideology, believing that it benefits all of society, when in fact, it only benefits the upper class.

For example, the concepts of capitalism, property ownership, and such are ingrained in our behaviour all during life. To this day, women still do not receive equal pay, but we fail to rectify this problem because many people do not think about this.

In 2007, women's median annual paychecks reflected only 78 cents for every $1.00 earned by men. Specifically for women of color, the gap is even wider: In comparison to men's dollar, African American women earn only 69 cents and Latinas just 59 cents. ¹

In 1963, when the Equal Pay Act was passed, full-time working women were paid 59 cents on average for every dollar paid to men. This means it took 44 years for the wage gap to close just 19 cents -- a rate of less than half a penny a year. This narrowing of the gap has slowed down over the last six years, with women gaining a mere two cents since 2001. ²

from now.org

This is due in part to cultural hegemony negatively portraying women in the media. Many women don’t identify with feminists because of this. For example, a quick google search pulls up images like this:

Because hegemony diverts attention away from large problems, we fail to see the big picture, instead focusing on smaller, personal problems instead of societal ones.