Equal Pay for Equal Work Gender is a structure embedded into every aspect of life. Today, women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, yet the average working woman earns only 79 percent of what the average working man makes. This statistic compares the median earnings of men and women who work full time. Sadly, despite the educational efforts and workforce participation from women, the gender pay gap still persists to today, hindering women from reaching the top. Equality can only be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect. Therefore, we must explore the social and cultural structures embedded in the gender pay gap debate. First, we must understand the premise of this issue starting with the Equal Pay Act …show more content…
According to sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway, author of Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in the Modern World, status inequalities are reflective of the positional inequalities in the workplace. Status inequalities are rooted in the beliefs about the inherent nature of men and women. Ridgeway states “the status implications of gender stereotypes associate men with greater overall competence” (Ridgeway 88). These stereotypes posit women and men into different roles by granting certain sexes special privileges. Ridgeway shows how gender stereotypes effect the workplace through her study of women in corporate businesses and occupations that are male dominated. As a result, we see the implicit bias that occurs at the workplace that are shaped by gender beliefs and assumptions. When women pursue higher authority positions, she puts herself at risk of resistance and hostility from those around her because she is seen to be “violating her status position” (Ridgeway 115). Hence, employers whom are predominantly white-males view their ideal workers as the stereotypic men more so than they view the stereotypic women. Dominant groups in a society occupy more powerful positions by definition, and have more control over workplace organizations than do subdominant groups. This gendered workplace culture helps reproduce and maintain the sex-segregation of the job. These gendered cultural structures cause us to think that men are “more socially esteemed and generally more competent than women” (Ridgeway 12). Thus, women and minorities experience positional inequality in their daily lives, from being placed into lower ranks, having smaller job titles and earning less for doing jobs of comparable worth. Although women earn more than half the Bachelor’s Degree, half the PHD’s and half of the professional degrees, they are still seen as subordinate to men (Ridgeway 16). Therefore,
Though any pay disparity between women and men is a pressing issue, the “wage gap” is much more complicated than people believe because of misleading statistics, unaccounted for variables, and the different social and economic choices of men and women. The common idea that women make 77 cents on every dollar men make in the workplace is very misleading. It is true, however, this statistic ignores any factors that justify different pay. The wage gap is just the difference
Lips, Hillary M. "The Gender Pay Gap: Challenging the Rationalizations. Perceived Equity, Discrimination, and the Limits of Human Capital Models." (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
Social inequality consists of members of gender, sexual orientation, and race being isolated or not treated as equally as others. Individuals who identify as being a different sexual orientation than what is considered “normal”, like homosexual or transgender, face discrimination when it comes to children, healthcare, housing, and work. Women face many challenges as well, like being paid less than men: seventy-nine cents to every man’s dollar. If one is looking at positions of power, it can be seen that women hold significantly less positions than men. The average CEO, or the people in charge of a company, are more commonly men than women, as women are not taken as seriously when it comes to business. “For example, media often reinforce negative stereotypes about women such as dumb blondes, passive Asian Americans, or pushy African Americans,” (Shaw and Lee 61) which paints women in a bad image and is where this negative connotation of women is stemmed
When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 into law, he hoped that it would allow working women to finally earn the same amount of money as men; however, more than half a century later, men continue to out earn women in almost every field of work (Lipman para. 4). Male dominated fields tend to pay more than female dominated fields at similar skill levels. In 2012, women earned an average of $691 per week while men earned an average of $854 per week. Furthermore, the majority of women remain unaware that they are earning less than their male colleagues (Hegewisch para. 1).
The Equal Pay Act (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act), forbids employers to compensate women differently for jobs that are “substantially equal”, that is, almost identical. Traditionally, women have worked in different occupations than men; these occupations tend to be substantially different, pay less and confer less authority.
The United States has one of the highest gender pay gaps among the developed countries. In the country, the gender pay gap is measured as the ratio of female to males yearly earning among workers in full-time, year round (FTYR) earnings. In 2009, female FTYR earned 77% (0.77) as much as the FTYR male workers (US Census Bureau, 2013). The history of Gender Gap earning reveals USA has made big strides towards reducing the gender pay gap from 1980. For instance, in 1980 the gender pay gap ratio was 0.62 while in 1990, the gap stood at 0.72. Further from 1990 to 2000, the gap reduced to 0.73 and then to 0.77 in 2009. Currently, the gender pay gap stands at 0.76 and continues to persist (US Census Bureau, 2013).
This statement raises an interesting view on how women have been socially constructed with regard to their place in the work force. Does this also mean that men have been constructed toward a different position in the workplace? Although women have progressed, as far as occupational status is concerned, patriarchy still persists in our modern society. The subject area that will be focussed upon in this paper is the social construction of gender. The purpose of my paper is to explore how the social construction of gender has produced inequalities among men and women at work. The direction this paper will take is to discuss the differences of status, wealth and power between men and women in the work place. The sociological theory that I will apply is gender as a sociological construction. The key element of this theory is sex dimorphism where traits are conceptualized as typically male and typically female normative patterns and these as cultural norms (Hale, 1995).
Due to various countries initiatives to shrink the wage inequality between men and women wages in the work force, the gap has narrowed, respectively, which may have helped form such opinion. However, stating that the gender pay gap does not exist in today’s society, anywhere, is completely unlikely. Seeing that the gap has loosened its grasp in the working world, in other countries, the gap between pay has widened or remained stagnant. One cannot help but wonder why the gap remains consistent, even with such substantial progress made in countries where the gap has decreased. Reasons as to why gender wage gap exist so heavily, slightly differs from country to country, but the overall effect from the wage disparity is wholly evident.
It is very important to be concerned about the issue because it is constantly increasing throughout the United States. It upsets me that women are paid less than men because women have the same ability and work ethic as men do, but they are looked at differently. According to AAUW, women make 77 percent of what men make. This rate hasn’t changed since 2002 (Hill, 2013). Statistics show that women will never make as much as men due to the thought of never being comparable to men (Williams, 2013).
For many decades, women have faced inequalities in the workforce. At one point, they were not allowed to work at all. Although women's rights have improved and are now able to work alongside men, they are still treated unfairly. According to the 2012 U.S. Census, women’s earnings were “76.5 percent of men’s” (1). In 2012, men, on average, earned $47,398 and women earned only $35,791. This is when comparing employees where both gender spend the same amount of time working. Not only do women encounter unfairness in work pay, they also face a “glass ceiling” on a promotional basis. This glass ceiling is a “promotion barrier that prevents woman’s upward ability” (2). For example, if a woman is able to enter a job traditionally for men, she will still not receive the same pay or experience the same increase in occupational ability. Gender typing plays a huge role in the workplace. It is the idea that women tend to hold jobs that are low paid with low status. Women are not highly considered in leadership positions because of social construction of gender. Society has given women the role of “caretakers” and sensitive individuals. Therefore, women are not depicted as authoritative figures, which is apparent with the absence of women in leadership roles in companies. Furthermore, sex segregation leads to occupations with either the emphasis of women in a certain job or men in a certain job. In 2009, occupations with the highest proportion of women included “secretary, child care worker, hair dresser, cashier, bookkeeper, etc.” (3). Male workers typically held job positions as construction workers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, etc. (3). Sex segregation represents inequality because the gender composition for these jobs depends on what ...
Today in the United States, men make more than women in various sectors, including education and other trades favoring women workers. The gap gets bigger when comparing the wages earned by men to those of women in jobs favoring men workers such as construction or other physically demanding jobs. Women are less likely to work those jobs, therefor; men have the advantage of having more experience and get paid better. In addition, employers would rather hire a man instead of a woman because they believe that a man will be able to sustain the difficulty of the job and work longer hours which crate a disadvantage for women because they are unable to gain experience and become skilled in that certain field. Gender pay gap based on this information is explained as the result of the discrimination of employers toward the feminine sex in terms of pay, which discourage them to work certain jobs leading to create a bigger gap due to the lack of
Gender Inequality at a Workplace Historically, males and females normally assume different kinds of jobs with varying wages in the workplace. These apparent disparities are widely recognized and experienced across the globe, and the most general justification for these differences is that they are the direct outcomes of discrimination or traditional gender beliefs—that women are the caregivers and men are the earners. However, at the turn of the new century, women have revolutionized their roles in the labor market. Specifically in industrialized societies, the social and economic position of women has shifted. Despite the improving participation of women in the labor force and their ameliorating proficiency and qualifications, the labor force is still not so favorable to women.
Despite government regulations to promote equality within the workplace, women’s salaries continue to lag behind males in similar career with similar experiences. According to research performed by Blau & Kahn (2007) “women salaries averaged about 60% of men’s until the 1970s and rose to nearly 80% by the 1990s” (as cited in Bendick, Jr. & Nunes, 2012, p.244). Today, women on average earn approximately $.81 for every dollar that men earn in the United States (Guy and Fenley P.41 2014).
Many have tried to conceptualize the intersectionality between class, gender and the racial relations of inequality in the workplace, and although women have made great strides in the workplace in recent years we find that inequality continue to persist. According to a PEW Research, about four-in-ten working-women (42%) in the United States say they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender. They report a broad array of personal experiences, ranging from earning less than male counterparts for doing the same job to being passed over for important assignments (PEW Research Center, 2017). Much of the discrimination felt by women have not only been in the social aspect, but in the professional
Gender inequality theories identify that women’s place in society not only differ but is unequal to men. For centuries, men have had a greater amount of rights and privileges as oppose to women. The US census recently updated their statistics stating that women earn 77 percent of what men earn and for the same amount of work. This statistic has been updated as of last month, February 2014 . This is merely just one major example of how women are treated less equal to men because women can work just as hard if not harder than men at a same job and yet receive around ¾ of the men’s pay. Women also often face what is known as a ‘glass ceiling’ many times when it comes to promotions. This is apparent when you examine the lack of women in le...