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The effects of gender inequality
The effects of gender inequality
Gender equality and society
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Despite the great lengths society has overcome in regards to gender inequality, social issues regarding the difference between men and women still exist. Women in today’s society still continually earn less than men in almost every single occupation. Women were given the right to vote in 1919, yet in 2016 they still have not achieved full equality in comparison to their male counterparts. Gender equality related to equal pay is concerning not only in my own community, but the entire nation. Analyzing the earning of men vs. women reveal women earning only 79% of what a man earns in the same occupation. The issue at hand is shocking considering that women have transitioned throughout history, leaving behind the stereotypes of stay at home moms and have become CEO’s, business owners, and more. Inequality in pay based on gender is simply discrimination. Factors like education do not …show more content…
Ballantine defines the sociological imagination as “the complex interactive relationship between individual experiences and public issues.” Through this concept one can view a personal experience in light of large scale social issues. A women who knows that a man in her company who holds the same level of education and position but receives a higher stipend for his duties may blame herself for letting this happen. However, when she views the social issue regarding the pay gap she will realize that this is indeed not solely her fault. Ballantine suggests that individuals fail to recognize the connection between events and troubles in their life and the social forces shaping these events in society. 8 The issue of pay inequality amongst gender is not a problem for just certain women. Statistics show that a woman will have to work more in order to earn the same amount in comparison to a man. Sociological imagination shows that pay inequality is clearly a social issue in our
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
In “Exploiting the Gender Gap” Warren Farrell argues that the issue of disparity between men and women’s wages does not exist. Farrell provides multiple statistics and research that contradict the ever prominent “fact” put out by the media that women are paid less than men. He then covers a range of personal examples that strengthen his argument. He, subsequently, moves beyond the simplicity of wage disparity and brings the focus of his attention to the focus on discrimination.
The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women continue to earn less than men. Countless arguments have promoted that wage inequality has changed and that everyone finally receives an equal amount of pay. “For women of color, the gap is largest of all: In 2006, black and Hispanic women earned 86 and 87 cents on the white man’s dollar, respectively,” (Mcswane 2). If a woman is lucky enough she will get an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. But it is challenging for a woman of a minority background to achieve this. Not only are women paid less because of their sex, but also because of their race. There seems to be a mentality that because someone is a woman and a minority that they cannot do the same job as men or that women do not have the same education as the men, so employers do not have to pay them the same. “When the numbers are broken down by district, they 're pretty hard to ignore. Women in Texas are being utterly screwed financially, according to the data compiled by AAWU, with women earning anywhere from 66 percent of what men do in some districts, to the top end of things, which is about 89 percent,” (Leicht 4). The proof cannot be ignored. It i...
“Nationally, women earn 79 cents for every dollar men take home” wrote Nora Caley in a July/August ColoradoBiz Magazine entitled “Women and the Persisting Pay Gap”. This may not become equal until 2057. Now, when you think about those numbers, you might go, “there’s no way” or “how does that happen?” or even “is discrimination really the reason?” I’ll go more into this later, but discrimination of wages is not the leading factor. In “The Complex Causes of the Gender Pay Gap”, gender differences in occupation and industry choice alone, can explain up to 50% of the wage gap. Joelle Martinez the Executive Director at the Latino Leadership Institute of the University of Denver says that women only make up 4.4% of all CEOs of fortune 500 companies (Nora Caley). For those of you who don’t know, fortune 500 companies are the 500 largest companies in the US, and that list is updated annually. Right now the top three are Walmart, Exon Mobile, and Apple. Let’s think about that, 4.4% of CEOs are women. That means that 488/500 CEOs are men. The stat that women make 78 cents t every male dollar is accounting for every job, so Instead of putting all jobs in the
Additionally, we believed men deserved to have higher power by getting more money than women. After some research, we think it’s not fair that women make less than men who have the same education and the same job. In the long run, it can make it hard for women to support their families. We found out that the gender pay gap is a “complex issue with many causes”, which are often inter-related. It seems that the direct cause of this issue is discrimination. We also found out that inequality starts early; just one year out of college, college-educated women working full-time earned $32,000 compared to $42,000 for college-educated men working
The social injustice I chose was the Gender Wage Gap. That means that there is a huge difference of one gender getting paid less than the other. A women makes 78 cents an hour while men make a dollar. In my piece, I chose to make both gender symbols doctors who perform the same job, the same amount of work hours,and that they both save lives. This shows that they equally do the same thing but why do the women get paid less than men? Another reason why I chose this is because I am a female and I want to be a doctor who is very successful. It would not be fair that I could be performing my job better than some male doctors but still get paid less. I want to be able to be recognized as a professional and educated who knows what she is
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).
There are many factors used to determine how much someone’s work is worth; like: education, experience, the ability to negotiate your salary, the type of job and industry chose, discrimination, and so forth. However, sexual discrimination is nearly half of the deciding factor; reports show that in 2014, women earned 79 percent of what their male counterparts earned. But that does that really mean? What other factors are responsible for how much women actually bring home and are women to blame? Since the 1970s there have been substantial improvements in closing the pay gap between men and women and women have come a long way in the workforce. However, it is still a difficult subject because there are so many factors that can also play a key role; factors like race and demographic location. The gender pay gap does not only affect the woman receiving the lower pay, gender pay discrimination effects the family, economy, and the community. Republicans in the Senate have continuously blocked a Democratic bill that would assist with strengthening equal pay laws for women. The bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act is critical legislation that addresses several gaps in the Equal Pay Act. Republicans have been under scrutiny lately for blocking the bill, therefore earlier this year on March 26, 2015, the women senators of the GOP proposed a bill of their own called, the Workplace Advancement
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).
Women are more than half the work force and are graduating at higher rates then men and continue to earn considerably less then men. There are several contributing factors to the gender wage gap. Women experience gender discrimination in the work force even though it’s been illegal since the Equal Pay Act in 1963. One of the challenges for women is uncovering discrimination. There is a lack of transparency in earnings because employees are either contractually prohibited or it’s strongly discouraged from being discussed. Discrimination also occurs in the restricting of women’s access to jobs with the highest commission payments, or access to lucrative clients.
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.
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
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).
In today’s society, it is an understatement that women have come a long way from earlier generations in achieving gaining equal rights with men. Gender roles have evolved greatly throughout history; women can even be known as the breadwinners. However, discrepancies still exist when it comes to equal pay for equal work. This issue has the potential to have an impact on all women including myself, as I hope to one day join the workforce and become a financially independent businesswoman. While some argue that the issue is not relevant to today’s society there are still cases where women’s pay does not match up to men for doing the exact same work.