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The Perception of Inequalities

A Gender Case Study

Marie Lam

Open University of Hong Kong

While we know much about structural types of inequalities or the inferred principles of justice that the public use to evaluate inequality, we do not know much about the empirical and direct link between these structural locations, people’s principles and sentiments.Through interviews with 28 contemporary Hong Kong single middle-class educated women in their 20s, I explore how people understand and explain their (un)equal experiences in their immediate milieux and society with explicit reference to their principles of justice. This study of how and why these women endorse, accommodate or oppose gender inequalities illuminates how structural locations and principles of justice channel respondents’ feelings of acquiescence or resentment. It exposes the structural barriers that prevent respondents from perceiving, and hence resenting, inequalities. It specifies who is being equal to whom, what goals respondents value, and what principles of (in)equality they apply to various contexts. Respondents use the principles of equality or differentiation between the sexes to legitimize and de-legitimize unequal opportunities, although the gender gap in income is rarely identified as a critical type of inequality that arouses discontent.

Key Words: consciousness • gender • Hong Kong • inequality • justice • middle-class women

Sociology, Vol. 38, No. 1, 5-23 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038504039355
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