Americans today have a hard time fitting in feeling equal. The right job and the right payment will help you successfully fit in with the people who feel better than you. The attitude towards men being created equal, the explanation of homeless to the american dream.The representation of nickel and dimed and why it’s a vital part of this paper.How the new generation feels about this and how hard times effect the attitudes toward being created equal.How the rich and poor react differently on this subject. All of these will be thoroughly explained in my paragraph. What will you do to feel equal to the standard that society has set. Attitude towards men being created equal is based on the position on the person in their social class , how they were raised. How your raised is how you will turn out to be in the future and how you will be treated. Equality is basically a since of how people think about you, in the book nickel and dimed it states that “Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow.” This is talking about how a working class person ( because their are social classes in america) can not support her self by working as hard as she does. Although a person who is born into a name of wealth can support himself by doing nothing. Knowing this that a person born in a family of a working class , has to work to get somewhere and a man with no job but supported by the money of his family does not have to work to support himself. This is an attitude towards the idea of all men being created equally. Most attitudes are based on the thesis of equality is insight from the poor or the rich. These two social cl... ... middle of paper ... ...asy. In Barbara Enriches word’s “What you don't necessarily realize when you start selling your time by the hour is that what you're actually selling is your life.” This means that you are wasting your time making money that will only get you through the next day. So in conclusion are all men created equal yes but no, created equal but they are not treated equal they are treated the way , that social class accepts them, to be treated and how they portray they are treated. If your poor your treated less than equal to the rich, and vice versa. The way you are treated is determined on your social class. So yes everyone is created equal but not treated equal. Works Cited Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed. Holt: New York, 2001. Print. People Like Us: Social Class in America. Dir. Louis Alvarez and Andy Kolker. Center for New American Media, 2001. Film.
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
Gregory Mantsios advocates more on the struggle to proceed from one class to another in his essay-“Class in America”. Mantsios states that, “Class standing has a significant impact on our chances for survival....
Sumner, William Graham. What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1883.
Some men believe women are inferior to the male species; however, that is not the case. Both men and women are both capable of achieving greatness if given half the chance to do so, unfortunately, this means equality. In “From A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, Mary Wollstonecraft dispenses her thoughts on how unfairly women are treated in the 1700s, in addition to expressing her opinion on the issue in her essay. Wollstonecraft stated that “Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.”, this statement is very true, no matter what times you are living in. Women are unique and equal creatures that can offer many things to society if given the same proper education and training
In America, are all men created equal? No, in America not all men are created equally. Some people are rich, and can live lavish lifestyles, while others are barley getting by. America is an extremely segregated nation with many social classes.
Warner, W. Lloyd. "What Social Class is in America." In Social Class in America, pp.3-44.
Rothenberg, P. 1998. Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. New York: St. Martin's Press.
In the United States, true equality has never existed. From the Declaration of Independence to modern times, the U.S. legal system has failed in any attempt at equality. The ideology of "all [men] are equal but some [men] are more equal than others" has been present throughout the history of the U.S. (Orwell). Inequality has always existed in the United States legal system and continues to exist today; however, the inequality presently in the system is not as blatant as what it once was, but the system has come to depend on inequality. Since the very beginning of a legal system in the United States, there has been inequality.
One would expect that social equality would just be the norm in society today. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Three similar stories of how inequality and the hard reality of how America’s society and workforce is ran shows a bigger picture of the problems American’s have trying to make an honest living in today’s world. When someone thinks about the American dream, is this the way they pictured it? Is this what was envisioned for American’s when thinking about what the future held? The three authors in these articles don’t believe so, and they are pretty sure American’s didn’t either. Bob Herbert in his article “Hiding from Reality” probably makes the most honest and correct statement, “We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around” (564).
In the United States, true equality has never existed. From the Declaration of Independence to modern times, the US legal system has failed at any attempt at equality. ‘...all men are created equal...’ may be what the Declaration says, but ‘some men are more equal than others’ is how the legal system really interprets that phrase. The actual reality of the Declaration of Independence is that all free, white, landowning men are created equal. Therefore, inequality has always existed in the united States’ legal system and continues to exist today; however, the inequality presently in the system is not as blatant as what it once was. Slavery continued in the United States for nearly ninety years after the Declaration, and African Americans still feel the sting of inequality today.
Paul Krugman, in his article “The Death of Horatio Alger” suggests that social mobility among classes in the United States is becoming more difficult by the day. Krugman explains that the idea of the American Dream and moving from class to class was once semi easily attainable; but is now seemingly impossible. Although America is thought of as a classless society, the country has a whole is moving into a caste society run by the rich.
Social and economic class is something we as Americans like to push into the back of our minds. Sometimes recognizing our class either socially or economically can almost be crippling. When individuals recognize class, limitations and judgment confront us. Instead, we should know it is important to recognize our class, but not let it define and limit us. In the essay, “Class in America”, Gregory Mantsios, founder and director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education at the School of Professional Studies, brings to light the fact that Americans don’t talk about class and class mobility. He describes the classes in extremes, mainly focusing on the very sharp divide between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor. In contrast, George
“Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman opens our eyes to the fact that, in America, we are becoming more and more unequal based on our standing in society. Our standing in society is directly related to the amount of money that we make and what class our parents were in while we were growing up. However, being judged based on parents’ status is not justifiable. America is full of injustice when it comes to the social structure of it’s’ citizens. The majority of America used to belong to the middle class, now there is less middle class and a widening gap between the high class and the low class of people.
Kerbo, H. R. (2012). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical, comparative, and global perspective (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.