Gender Inequality In Canada

1620 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender equality

The status of male and female are central in the lives of humans. While people hold many statuses at any given time, gender constitutes an element status. Its’ recognition begins so early, its’ socialization is so intense, and its’ imposition on all other components of human development and status achievement is so total – that one could term gender a core status (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). Gender inequalities are visible in politics, religion, media and in the workplace. Everywhere we look, we can see the concrete manifestations of gender inequality. Despite gains over the last thirty years, gender inequality continues to be a reality and an issue in Canada (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). Gender inequality is often assumed to be …show more content…

Gender inequality, long predates capitalism (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). The Bourgeoisie inherited a social system with a long history of gender inequality and a deeply held set of beliefs and values that justified and maintained it. Nonetheless, the capitalist owning class has benefited from this already-exiting inequality and as a result has had little motivation to eliminate it (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). For example, the unpaid labour of women provides huge profits for the employer. While wage differentials are universal in all capitalist societies, the actual extent of it may vary. Nonetheless, capital in general does benefit from wage inequality. More women than men are unemployed, underemployed, or work part time, ready to take whatever work is available out of economic need (Statistics Canada, 2015). This underpayment of women exerts a downward pressure on all wages, further enhancing profits. Most anthropologists agree that the development of classes led to the growth of the state, warfare, a changing religious system, and the development of the patriarchal family (Cichocka, Golec de Zavala, Kofta, & Rozum, 2013). All of these played a role in magnifying gender inequality (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). While men’s higher statue does lead to some male privilege, most men have little structural power. The real power is help by the capitalist owning class (Kendall, Murray, & Linden, 2014). Traditionally men have had greater access to these positions of

Show More
Related

  • Brenda J. Allen's Article On Gender Matters

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book Difference Matters, Brenda J Allen, begins writing about how gender matters in society. One of the main topics that she talks about is how in today’s society the male gender is the more predominate gender. As the reader, she has brought to mind many new ways to view how males earn more money then females, how we classify jobs as masculine or feminine, and also how society excepts males’ vs females to act and preform in the work force.

    Read More

  • Gender Wage Gap In Canada

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    Policy statement: Women should receive equal pay for work of equal value. It is recommended that the Canadian government should design and pass a compulsory and proactive pay equity law, which would ensure that all Canadians receive equal pay for equal work.

    Read More

  • Second-Wave Feminism and Labour in Canada

    2849 Words  | 6 Pages

    Canadian workplaces today seem to be a fairly diverse place, with a blend of many religions, ethnicities, and genders present. However, although people preach affirmative action and melting pots in current times, many inequality and power issues still abound. One strikingly noticeable example is gender discrimination. Women in the workforce face many challenges like smaller wages, harassment, male privilege in hiring or promotions, and lack of support when pregnant or raising children. One half of the planet is women, and it can be assumed the same for Canada, but they still face judgment at work because they lack the authority to dispute against big corporations or even their male supervisor. It cannot be argued that Canadian women’s status has worsened over the past hundred years, of course, thanks to feminism and activism. However, their status is not as high as it could be. Women as a group first started fighting for workplace equality during the second wave of feminism, from the 1960s to the 1990s. Legislation was approved during the second wave to try to bring gender equality to the workplace. Feminists both collided and collaborated with unions and employers to ensure women received fair treatment in an occupation. Quebec had the same issues, only the province approached the conflict differently than English Canada with its own unique viewpoint. It became clear that women were entering the workplace and did not plan on leaving. Second-wave feminism in Canada shifted power from the government and businesses to women in order to try to bring equality, although the discrimination never completely disappeared.

    Read More

  • Gender Pay Gap In Canada

    743 Words  | 2 Pages

    Following extensive research and in-depth evaluation of various SMO strategies, this project challenged and elevated my sociological imagination, which produced a real-world perspective regarding the issue of gender inequality, its structural roots and the power imbalances that are responsible for this persistent issue. After realizing how deep-rooted the issue of gender inequality goes in the modern world, I have started seeing the sense in the World Economic Forum’s prediction that gender parity will not be achieved until 2133 (Patel, 2016). However, after evaluating some of the proactive strategies that have been adopted and implemented by SMOs, and after assessing their passion and commitment to this cause, I am optimistic that Canada can achieve this social justice dream earlier. This experience has reprimanded me for my past passivity in social change. It has also reminded me that it’s never too late to play your role and effect social improvement; you just need to take the first step. It was really

    Read More

  • The Equal Pay Act

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a quarter of all national businesses and earn more than one point two trillion dollars (“Assessing the Past, Taking Stock of the Future” 6). Since many women are now becoming are the primary sources of income in the household, making less that a man does not only negatively affect families, but also the overall economy suffers as well. These women, among many others, are the ones who end up purchasing the supplies that go toward improving communities and stimulating the economy. There is no reason that the general public should stand for this. Women should be treated equally to men in today’s American society based on their biological compositions, psychological profiles and contributions to history.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of Gender Inequality In Society?

    1683 Words  | 4 Pages

    For centuries now, males and females have never been viewed as equals. Males receive better wages, more opportunities, and greater praise compared to women. Equality is a goal throughout society, yet we are very far from achieving it. It is evident throughout society that women are not yet equal to men, when women are constantly objectified by people in our society. Gender inequality refers to unequal treatment and perceptions of individuals based on their gender (Trevino). The state of the problem plays a large role in how women are treated throughout our society. It is seen throughout countries all over the world. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF) report, the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report measured the disparities between men and

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality According to Functionalist and Marxist Feminist Perspective

    886 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...present today. Both the functionalist and Marxist-feminist perspectives provide reasons for this inequality, however, none of them provide a solution. The functionalist perspective believes men and women have distinct qualities that separate them thus the inequality. The Marxist-feminist perspective believes the inequality between men and women in due to the power gained by men as a result of the surplus of their crops. The film Missrepresentation, by Jennifer Newsom exhibits these inequalities and provides disturbing statistics that illustrate how bad this inequality is in reality.

    Read More

  • Collins' Theory of Intersectionality

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gender order according to our text is labeled as “hierarchal” (2008), stating that “Men dominate women in terms of wealth, power, and social position, but not all men dominate all women” (2008). While this may be true, it is creating a divide between the two genders. This divide is apparent by looking at the pay scales between men and women, and even how the genders are looked at in terms of jobs or college admissions. Looking at today’s society however, women are slowly rising to compete with their male counterparts, in many ways, from education, government, and even television, for example Oprah Winfrey.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality

    1840 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is only recently that sociology has begun to explore the topic of gender. Before this, inequalities within society were based primarily on factors such as social class and status. This paper will discuss gender itself: what makes us who we are and how we are represented. It will also explore discrimination towards women throughout history, focusing mainly on women and the right to vote, inequalities between males and females in the work place and how gender is represented in the media.

    Read More

  • The Feminization of Poverty

    1792 Words  | 4 Pages

    Feminists are constantly trying to decrease the wage gap through activism. Women are more educated now than they have ever been, but even women who are university graduates are earning less than men. Frenette and Coulombe reached the conclusion that this was often due to their degrees being in gendered fields of study, such as the arts and humanities (as cited in Gaszo, 2010, p. 224). Women also tend to work in fields associated with lower pay, which includes service and sales work (Gaszo, 2010). In the garment industry, women, especially immigrants and women who work at home, are routinely taken advantage of by companies such as Wal-Mart and paid far too little (Ng, 2006).

    Read More

  • The Effects of Gender Stratification on Women

    1273 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are deemed to be proper in the eyes of the society. They are as a matter of fact proper but as time move on, the mind-set of women changes as well, women also want to move on. However the institutional stratification by the society has become more insidious that the stereotypical roles have created a huge barrier between men and women. These barriers has affected women in many aspects such as minimizing their access on a more superior position in workforce organization, limits their ownership of property and discriminates them from receiving better attention and care.

    Read More

  • Marxist Feminism

    405 Words  | 1 Pages

    These questions and the objective of my paper are significant to explore because they will help me to better understand my current status as a women in our capitalist economy. Understanding the origin of women’s economic oppression, and other inequalities, is a part of reaching an idea of how to remedy our current situation as women. It is important to me to answer the questions I have laid forth in order to take small steps in personally and possibly publicly, changing the current position of women.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality at a Workplace

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    The opportunities available to women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life. There is no denying that the salary of men is far more than that of women’s. In the Great Britain (and other parts of the globe), there are pieces of evidence which suggest that gendered practices of participation in the labor force still have significant impact on the economic security level that men and women develop over the course of their lives (Warren 606).

    Read More

  • Gender Equality within the Household

    3156 Words  | 7 Pages

    Gender is an important aspect of our social life; it comprises of power relations, the division of labour, symbolic forms and emotional relations (Connel, 2000).

    Read More

  • Patriarchy Essay

    1858 Words  | 4 Pages

    Women’s subordination within the labour market is seen by Marxist feminists as suiting the needs of capitalism as women are considered a ‘reserve army of labour’ as they are a more disposable part of the workforce. According to Beechey (1986) women are a cheap ‘reserve army of labour’ that are brought in during economic booms but then thrown out during slumps. Women are often not members of trade unions and are prepared to work for less money as their wage could be a second income. This benefits capitalism as a group of unemployed people looking for work creates competition and exploitation. Employers are given an advantage which allows them to reduce wages and increase the rate of exploitation. Benston (1972) supports this as women are used to benefitting the operation of the capitalist economy by carrying out unprepared work in the home. This proves that patriarchy dominates women which leads to women’s subordination. Hartmann (1981) believes that patriarchy and the economy both play a crucial role in explaining and understanding gender inequality. Historically, men have controlled women especially by control of labour power. This can come through legislation that operates economically to the benefit of men, for example Maternity and Paternity Rights. This proves that patriarchy and economics together explains gender inequality. However, Walby (1986) argues that women staying at home can actually harm capitalism because if women were to compete for jobs with men this would lower wages and increase profits. Women who earn also have superior spending power which would boost the economy and benefit

    Read More

More about Gender Inequality In Canada

Open Document