For years now I’ve thought the same way that many people
have about gender. I always thought that gender was basically that you are
either female or male but really it’s about the personal traits and social
positions that people in society attach to being either female or male. This
being said, gender has been on a constant change because as new generations
come in, they are starting to add different aspects of traits and behaviors
that belong to each sex.
One of
the biggest issues regarding gender, is gender stratification. There are a lot
of inequalities regarding wealth and power between men and women. For example,
women see a lot of negatives when it comes to having equality in the work
force. Many women are sometimes seen as weaker and not as intelligent just
because they carry those women qualities. And because of this, women are known
to get paid less than males even when they have the same exact qualifications
as them. According to the National Women’s Law center, “the typical American woman
who works full time, year round is paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to
her male counterpart.” This statistic is absolutely mind boggling. How does
being a woman give you the disadvantage to be paid a whole 23 cents less than a
man?
Gender
roles is also another thing that causes conflict within society. Over many
decades, society attached different manners and activities to each sex. For
example, men are supposed to play manly sports like football and Hockey were as
women are supposed to be either cheerleaders or dancers. Now if a woman tried
to play a man’s sport like football, they are judged because it goes against
the cultural norm and society links men and football together not woman and
football. These types of issues arise a lot within school. Many kids are being
picked on because they are not embracing those gender roles that are set within
the society. I personally went through problems in grade school and middle
school because of the way I acted. All my life I knew I was gay and because of
that I acted in what people said was more of a ‘gay’ manner. I was able to
dress so well so because of that my sexuality was questioned. Most people
believe that guys aren’t able to dress nice so sometimes whenever society sees
a man who can dress well, they start to question them.
After
learning about gender stratification in Chapter 13, I was able to put the
different pieces together of what I’ve noticed in society about gender and what
I learned in lecture. I know that gender is a really big aspect in everyday
life. It causes a lot of inequalities and problems within society. These
problems will not get fixed until people stop trying to attach all these
different attitudes and behaviors to a certain sex. This being said, I honestly
don’t see much changing within the next couple of decades, but there is a
change if we start changing the way we think about gender.
http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/poverty_day_wage_gap_sheet.pdf
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