Final answer:
Society creates gender stratification through socialization in family, education, peer groups, and media, leading to unequal access to resources and roles for men and women. It is perpetuated in part by gender segregation in schools and biased representations in advertising.
Step-by-step explanation:
Research indicates that society creates gender stratification through various means, especially via the socialization process, where children learn and perform gender roles. These roles are reinforced through four major agents: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. For example, advertising often portrays women in traditional roles such as cooking and cleaning, while leadership and intelligence are attributes more commonly associated with men in media representations.
In educational settings, there has been a history of gender segregation, with girls being encouraged towards humanities and boys towards math and science, thus perpetuating gender stereotypes. The sociological perspectives provide various frameworks to understand this, including the age stratification theory, which, while addressing age, has been criticized for its inattention to how gender may intersect with age and other forms of stratification.
Stratification leads to unequal access to valuable resources and harms both men and women in the workplace and other spheres. Addressing these disparities requires conscious efforts to lessen gender bias, promote equitable representation, and challenge the traditional roles and stereotypes at all levels of society.