Feminism has been born through decades of ignorance and misguidance, a perception of a weaker sex, and a belief that equality is not truly meant for all. Because of this deprivation of equality and privileges that exist exclusively for men, decades of work have been put forth from the feminist movement to ensure that no woman will any longer be held back or have opportunities revoked simply for having the status of a “weaker” gender. Before taking this class, I was hesitant to ever label myself in such a manner and questioned those who had, but after reading Penny Weiss’ revealing piece “I am not a feminist, but …” I no longer have that same reluctance.…
Gender pay gaps persist not only in the United States but also around the world. The gender pay inequality is the reason why female in America makes 78 cents per 1 dollar of males’ salary. The gender is still the factor when it comes of determining a salary for an employee. Woman always placed with wage discrepancies and difference compared to what men earn. Unseen and often not acknowledged barriers that stop a woman from rising to upper position regardless of their achievement or qualifications. These patterns shows acceptance and power of social structure in our society.…
In today’s society, women continue to desire to be seen as equal to that of men, yet the ideology of individuals has not changed, which leads to inequality and unjustifiable treatment towards women. Until the twenty-first century, women were not able to express their opinions and portray this prominent issue passionately, as there has been a rapid increase in movements for progressive change. The reason for this is that women have finally felt safe and free to expose the nature of society and its negative impact on the rights of women. King states that, “Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicine of air and light, injustice must be exposed with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured” (4). This quote displays how injustice must be exposed in order for it to resolve and lead to a more enhanced society. This can be seen in a statistic by the International Labour Organization in that equality in pay has improved in the United States since 1979, when women earned about 62 percent as much as men; however, in 2010, American women, on average, earned 81 percent of what their male counterparts earned.…
For thousands of years human societies have functioned with various forms of social injustice and oppression. But the largest and most long lasting system of oppression is the patriarchal system. In which, women are not afforded the same economic, social, and educational opportunities as men. For example, in America today full time female workers still only make seventy-eight cents for over dollar their male coworkers make (Hill 1). However the tireless work of women’s rights advocated like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul has led to landmark equality legislation and real measurable strides towards greater gender equality. Because…
Today’s society continues to argue about the subject of social inequalities even in cosmopolitan and first world countries like United States. Gender inequality is a subject that have been forgotten eventually since the women civil rights movement developed and they started gaining an equal right for work. Still, in U.S history, gender inequalities remain till today in relation to the workplace to some degree. The Gender Wage gap is considered a gender inequality, but could be also a result of the interaction of many factors such as education, hours of work, career, etc. Indeed, by definition it is a “statistical indicator” of the amount of money women’s earn in relation to men’s work salaries and calculated by dividing the median annual earnings of women with the median annual earnings of men (Brunner and Rowen, 2012; OECD).…
This essay, published by The New York Times and written by the journalist Claire Cain Miller, establishes a counter argument for the position that many people have taken on the issue of the gender pay gap. Miller and Harvard labor economist, Claudia Goldin, established the view that the pay gap is because of gender and not because of comparisons between the different jobs that males and females take. Being informed is essential to finding solutions for an issue and in this essay Miller informs her audience and shows how information can lead to meaningful solutions. “Occupations that most value long hours, face time at the office and being on call-like business, law and surgery – tend to have the widest pay gap.” Miller establishes in what occupations…
The idea that women earn less than men in the work place is no longer a subject for debate. Study after study has shown that women earn less than their male counterparts. In 1998, for every dollar a man makes, a woman earns .73 cents (CNN, 2000). Since then it has gotten better but not by much. As of 2010 women earned .79 cents to every dollar earned by men. The gender wage gap is a statistical indicator used to show the status of women 's earnings relative to men 's. This nation, unfortunately, has a history of making gender inequality legal. Laws pass early in the 20th century showed that the view that many in the country did not believe that women could not do the same amount of work that men did. This gave way to wage disparity.…
No one can forget the history lessons, as they remember Susan B. Anthony fighting for women’s suffrage in the early 1900s, her face plastered on the silver dollar. Further down the line, women used feminism to break away from their traditional gender roles as matrons of the house, as females all across the country went to work in the ammunitions factories while the men were at war (think Rosie the Riveter). These concepts were seen as first-wave feminism, essentially the foundation for both second-wave and third-wave feminism, both of which go hand-in-hand. These particular ideals are founded upon the notion that women should have the same pay, opportunities, and playing field as men. The feminists you see today, are of the third-wave of feminists. Third-wave feminists are of the mindset that their bodies are their own, that they own exclusive rights to who and what enters their bodies. They strive to maintain that they deserve as much as men. They are perhaps distinguished as the most “crazy” of the bunch, seen as misandrists; but this is, of course, a generalization of all feminists. Perhaps they believe the only way for them to prove their point is to take it to the…
For example, time and time again, women have fought hard to have equality among men and to be included and counted as equals in society. From women’s suffrage, where they actively fought towards becoming eligible to vote in the passing of the nineteenth amendment, to equal pay in the workforce, a battle that still is being fought, women have inspired change through their promotion of equality and yearning for an egalitarian society, concerning the impartiality and even-handedness between men and women. The inclusion of women in society has stimulated change and caused the world to grow through several aspects that may have never been thought of if some restrictions of inequality still remained on women. For example, women had a part in the passing of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which was intended to prohibit sex-based wage discrimination.…
In the modern United States of American society, there has been a huge disagreement on whether there is still inequality between men and women. From the late 1840’s till 1970’s woman have struggled to be counted as equal among men, to have the same rights that they have. Even still, to this day there are plenty of inequalities between men and women. One example of this would be in the workplace. It is said that women earn only 77 cents for every dollar that men make. Another statistic claims that women earn “only 72 percent as much as their male counterparts” (The Biggest Myth About the Gender Wage Gap- The Atlantic). From these facts alone, it proves that there is most definitely a system of inequality in the United States. This system of…
Classism, an issue of oppression which exposes the ever-increasing differences and inequality between social classes in our society, and primarily measured by the wealth possessed and the amount of income a family or an individual earn, is every day more evident. For the last, few years we have witnessed the financial gap between wealthier and middle-class Americans widen as the years go by, but never as rapidly than after experiencing the last financial crisis of 2008. The effects of that financial crisis were disastrous, especially in the middle class. Americans lost millions of jobs, and wealth evaporated by the loss in value of real estate properties…
This gender pay gap myth will, unfortunately, continue to be a part of feminist propaganda for a long time. We will always hear this ‘77%’ figure come up in feminist discussions for years to come. The truth is, the gender pay gap is NOT real. The evidence against it will be overlooked and…
One of the major problems sexism causes is differences in wages and benefits. Sexism creates a divergence in the wages of men and women. Anti-feminists argue that it is the women’s faults for not being paid as much. They believe that if a woman worked harder, she would be paid more. However,…
Over the past hundred years, women’s participation in the workforce has grown significantly. Today’s women are getting college degrees which was not common before the mid-twentieth century. More of them than ever are taking jobs that were originally run by men. Many women are going into medicine, engineering, and law which was nearly impossible fifty years ago. Their ability to get into these fields allows them to pursue careers they could never before. However, there is a major gender pay gap. Men are still to this day paid way more than women. Although men have a large impact on our nation’s workforce, women perform job tasks just as effectively, therefore they are completely worthy…
The Equal Pay Act was of 1963 prohibited sex-based wage discrimination by employers for equal jobs done by men and women. However, it is the year 2016, 53 years later, and women in the workforce in America still earn lower wages than men across and within almost all occupations. The median wages of women are lower than that of men irrespective of whether the income is measured based hourly, weekly or annual earnings (Costello and Hegewisch, 2016). There are many people that believe that the gender based wage gap is a myth. Some experts attribute the wage gap to the choices women make such as choosing occupations that do not pay higher wages, taking time off to have children, and not working long hours like men due to family responsibilities.…