Tuesday, November 16, 2010

News flash 2

It is no secret that there are many differences between men and women. These differences are talked about everywhere from schoolyard playgrounds to Oprah. Even though there are fundamental differences between the two sexes should annual income be one of those differences? Gender inequality refers to the obvious or hidden disparity between individuals due to gender. Gender is constructed both socially through social interactions as well as biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences. While we live in a progressive society we still have a long way to go in terms of equality. We live in a male dominated society; women are still fighting stereotypes about how they should remain in the house. This is a significant social problem to understand because we live in a society that is constantly striving towards equality. Whether that is race, gender, or sexual equality we are constantly striving to create a level playing field. It appears that job opportunities and ones career path comes down to more than just credentials and resumes. The glass ceiling effect is also considered a possible contributor to the gender wage gap. This effect suggests that gender provides significant disadvantages towards the top of job hierarchies, which become worse as a person’s career goes on. The term glass ceiling implies that there is an invisible barrier that exists which prevents women from advancing within their jobs or receiving promotions. This is not right, job opportunities should be based solely on how qualified the applicant is, the applicants sex should not come into play.

The article Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling in the Washington Post HYPERLINK "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html" www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072900827.html

Women make only 75.5 cents for every dollar that men earn. Crittenden talks about how the most disadvantaged people in the workplace are women with children. This trend is called the “mommy tax”. Corporations are not sensitive at all to women with children. Crittenden also cites the example of Virigina Daley Daley was fired from her job as an interior designer after she had a baby and attempted to create a more flexible schedule. Women are told that they are supposed to have a successful career and be a homemaker. Yet when they attempt to do both they are penalized. This sends mixed messages to woman and to a certain extent makes them have to choose between the two.

I am a firm believer that ones mindset has a lot to do with determining their end result. A lot of times you can speak things into fruition and in order to speak it you have to believe it. According to "Gender Differences in Anticipated Salary” Women go into jobs with much lower expectations then men do. Women, on average, ask for 30 percent less money than males. Women do not feel like they have as much leverage as their male counterparts so therefore they are less likely to negotiate. 20 percent of women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary. Why is this? It is because of the social framework that we have in place tells women that they should expect to be subordinate to men. Naturally with men and women being different it is natural to think that they have different values. This article “examined the relationship between endorsement of two work-related values (family and power), anticipated work commitment, and expected peak pay among 229 undergraduates at a southeastern U.S. university.” For both genders, valuing power predicted higher expected peak salary and valuing family predicted lower anticipated work commitment. A majority of the undergraduate students that were interviewed who valued family were women, linking to the social framework that tells women that they should value family over their career.

Women often get the short end of the stick. In Orgasm Inc women are made to think that they have a medical condition if they are not able to have an orgasm during intercourse. When in fact a majority of the women that had trouble-having orgasms had mental issues, body image problems or physical abuse, not physical issues. Instead of educating men on these issues doctors and financial advisors diagnose women with this disease that is neither proven or researched. Many of the times in the corporate world women are jus as qualified if not more qualified than men are but are often over looked when competing for the same position as a man. Recently we read several pieces that dealt with Abortions. As Arcana describes in her article titled "Abortion Is a Motherhood Issue", the decision whether or not to abort a "fetus” is a decision that should be left up to the mother. This goes back to the two conflicting images women strive to attain, CEO and homemaker. This is very difficult but it is proven that not only to women make less money than men but women with kids make less money than women without kids. Women who are considering abortions have to deal with the social stigmas and opinions and judgments of others when making their decision.

What do abortions and orgasms have in common? They both have to do with empowering women. And that is basically what the article is about. There is no doubt that a glass ceiling for women exists. I do not think that complete equality for men and women will ever be reached at least not in my lifetime. There are to many social constraints placed on women and the social framework that we have place in today’s society makes it very difficult for women to be successful in her career and have a family they almost have to choose which is more important to them. It shouldn’t be like that but I do not see this changing in the near future.


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