The Gender Revolution: Uneven And Stalled By Maudia Wland Analysis

Paula England, the author of “The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,” sheds light on how the gender system has progressively become unbalanced. England 's main focus for this article is to provide the reader with an understanding of how women 's drive to change hasn 't just affected their labor, but men 's labor as well. She states “Since 1970, women increasingly majored in previously male-dominated, business-related fields, such as business, marketing, and accounting; while fewer chose traditionally female majors like English, education, and sociology; and there was little increase of men’s choice of these latter majors” (England and Li, 2006, 667-69). This quote supports the fact that women have been branching out in the workplace, however

Stone (2007) conducted “extensive, in depth interviews with 54 women in a variety of professions-law, medicine, business, publishing, management consulting, nonprofit administration, and the like- living in major metropolitan areas across the country, half of them in their 30’s, half in their 40’s” (p. 15). Keep in mind these women Stone (2007) focuses on are “highly educated, affluent, mostly white, married women with children who had previously worked as professionals or managers whose husbands could support their being at home” (p. 14). Her findings revealed women are strongly influenced by two factors: workplace push and motherhood pull. “Many workplaces claimed to be “family friendly” and offered a variety of supports. But for women who could take advantage of them, flexible work schedules (which usually meant working part time) carried significant penalties” (Stone, 2007, p. 16). This quote represents the workplace push, where women are feeling encouraged to continue their rigorous careers with little to no family flexibility being offered from workplaces. The motherhood pull is a term used to describe the way mothers feel when they face the pressure of staying home to raise their children while still expected to maintain a steady job. “Motherhood influenced women 's decision to quit as they came to see the rhythms and

Story’s article, “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood,” introduces Cynthia Liu, an ambitious student at Yale who plans on going to law school. However, she expects a different future by the time she is thirty. Cynthia states, “My mother always told me you can 't be the best career woman and the best mother at the same time” (Story, 2005, p. A1). This particular situation sets up the rest of the article, focusing on this idea that the nation 's most elite colleges say they 've already decided to set aside their careers to take care of their children instead. The article further supports the situation of working women in the past couple decades, and how this influence has changed over time. “What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children” (Story, 2005, p. A1). This is evidence supporting why gender in the workplace has worsened in the past two decades, because women are being stressed to make decisions based on other people 's judgement instead of their own. The article continues to talk about this trend of women 's set career paths to motherhood, but they also address how social change plays into the decision making.