Gender Gaps Analysis

Superior Essays
Jacquelin Camacho
Professor Noonan
SOC 120
13 July 2017
Finding Balance: Changing Gender Gap and Marriage
While much advancement has been made in recognizing women’s rights in giving them more social, economical and political representation in the world, there is still room for improvement in the balancing of men and women’s gender roles and the institutions that affect them. In “Gender Gaps,” Stephanie Coontz discusses the rewards and stagnation society has experienced as a result of women joining the paid workforce without societal changes made to maintain women’s former roles. She challenges society and researchers to not think of the gender gap as an issue in which equilibrium needs to be reached, rather it would be better to monitor
…show more content…
Marriage for thousands of years was not based on the notion of love. It was about protection, oppression, “to get in-laws,” military alliances, to consolidate wealth, business alliances, or to expand the family labor force (“Stephanie Coontz: On Marriage”). The idea of love was seen as too irrational to be considered within the institution of marriage. In the late eighteenth century, however, love generally became known as an important factor in marriage in most of the Western World. The Enlightenment asserted that older generations should no longer dictate the actions of the younger generation, and revolutions across the Western World stressed the individual’s right to pursue happiness (“Stephanie Coontz: On Marriage”). Marrying as parents dictated or as a transaction no longer seemed to make sense, and people began to marry for love. People equated marrying out of love to “finding happiness.” This was generally a positive change for society, because unhappy marriages and those of abuse were no longer tolerated. With respect to the rebalancing of gender roles, Coontz discusses the benefits of women joining the workforce in the late twentieth century in “Stephanie Coontz: On Gender Gaps.” Their representation in the paid labor force was followed by trends of increased literacy rates, …show more content…
In mainly developing nations but also in developed nations, there has been a trend of falling birth rates since 1970. As discussed in the textbook, falling birth rates have negatively affected countries like Japan where the elderly no longer have a younger population to sustain them economically (Seccombe 180). Though developed nations have led the way of integrating women into the paid workforce, they are also guilty of perpetuating a pattern of a lack of advancing women’s rights. For example, the U.S. did not have sexual harassment laws until 1993 (“Stephanie Coontz: On Gender Gaps). Equal opportunity laws also took time to be developed, allowing for sexist practices to exist such as women only being hired for their appearances or only being allowed to work in certain types of jobs. Paid maternity leaves are nonexistent, which have further contributed to the trend of falling birth rates. Western European countries also perpetuated a lack of women’s rights with laws that enabled men to have the final say in how money was spent in households. Since women have entered the paid labor force, there has been a surge in divorce rates in socially conservative countries, and two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women (“Stephanie Coontz: On Gender Gaps). This trend exists because women are finally given some type of power

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Women's Rights Movement

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages

    For hundreds of years, women were seen to be inferior to men. Men and women had different obligations and rights at first. Women’s roles were solely focused on household area, and they were prohibited from voting, having a job, getting education, and much more. Women nowadays have different roles and responsibilities due to the changes that happened in the last hundred years. Since the globalization era and women’s rights movements, females and most males stood up to defend women’s rights and their equality to men.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Wage Gap

    • 2329 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Running Head: Economically Oppressed: How the Wage Gap is Effecting Men and Women. Economically Oppressed: How the Wage Gap is Effecting Men and Women. Ellyssa Smith Western Michigan University Running Head: Economically Oppressed: How the Wage Gap is Effecting Men and Women. Gender issues affect all areas of life for men and women. One of the areas greatly affected is the area of economics and the work force.…

    • 2329 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Wage Gaps

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Despite significant progress in recent decades, American women remain disadvantaged in terms of pay, promotion prospects and work-life balance,” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2013 report on women’s earnings). It is evident that equal treatment between men and women is present. Women are marginalized because they face many challenges such as unequal pay and the greater likelihood of being victims to domestic abuse. The gender wage gap is a prominent issue in today’s workplace.…

    • 532 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Wage Gap Analysis

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The gender wage gap in California has been know about for many years, but no one is willing to step up and say something about it for fear of retaliation by employers. People have tried to put changes in place in the past, but they all failed when tried to get passed. Finally on Tuesday, California’s first wage equality measure was passed and signed into law. The act says that women in the state have to be paid the same as their male counterparts. In the past, women were paid as little as 84 cents to the dollar that men earned.…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While it did bring awareness to the issue, the gap is still not gone. Some employers did take steps to minimize the gap, but as a whole the gap remained intact. Women still remained less to their male counterparts despite the legislative changes during the time. “Most women started working full time in 1970” (3). More women began working harder even though they were already established and considered less (2).…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Within the article, “Why Gender Equality Stalled” from the New York Times, the author Stephanie Coontz, seeks to demonstrate why the revolution for gender equality has stalled within the United States. Coontz begins by providing information regarding past and present working preferences between men and women. In 1977, studies showed the majority of Americans believed the role of men was to provide for their…

    • 1658 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history many stereotypes have been exiled and thrown into unjust situations . In order to solve inequality there is a three step plan. First one must claim the problem at hand, then asses the issue while establishing a plan, but lastly the plan must be put into action. Starting in the late 1800’s, to the early 1900’s, women began to surface in the workplace. Prior to their appearance the working class was dominated by men.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    In addition to societal views and “The Glass Ceiling,” the wage gap difference tremendously affect women based on the amount of education each gender has acquired. The gender gap exists because society believes that a man’s work is more valuable than a woman’s (Kulow 385+). The wage will continue to exist because employers believe women to appear as the weaker sex (Finn n.pag.). Individuals argue that the wage gap is stark evidence of women not achieving equality (“Women’s Rights” n.pag.).…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Wage Gap Analysis

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages

    If a male and a female were to graduate from the same school with the same major and a take a full-time job in the same occupation, the female would be earning seven percent less than the male in the one year they were out of school. The question at hand is whether completely closing the wage gap between male and female workers, which ranges from a 37.5% to a 3.5% difference in a study of forty countries, benefit a country’s economy, specifically the GDP. A nation’s GDP is the gross domestic product, it is the total dollar value of goods and services that are produced during a specific time period. The GDP effects the state of a nation’s economy, meaning that if the gender wage gap increased the GDP, then a country could become more economically stable. Depending on the other factors influencing a country's economy, closing the gender wage gap completely could either increase the GDP and boost the country’s economy or have little to no effect.…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    She gives three common assumptions people have about the gap: women are paid less for the same amount of work, women are disheartened to aim for higher-paying occupations, and gender discrimination hinders women in all fields. Then, she goes on to argue that the so-called existence of the gap is based on inaccurate information because it puts together men and women working in the same profession, but working different amount of hours. Also, she notes that women tend to go into careers that help people, such as nursing or teaching, while men go for more rigorous, physical work, like engineering or construction. She justifies her argument even more by saying that men take up higher positions because they do not care for leisure time nor strive to work for fewer hours. Unlike women, who typically like to have flexible hours in case of emergency matters and personal time that has no relation to work.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gender Gap Impact

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The economic impact of the gender wage gap reaches beyond the 18 cents lost to men for every dollar earned by women. The far-reaching impact starts at home but ultimately affects the economic growth of the entire United States. According to www.fastcompany.com, in 2013, women were the main breadwinners in four out of 10 American households with children (Dishman, 2015). Today’s “breadwinners” are not only single mothers, they are married and either the main breadwinner or a co-breadwinner to support today’s American lifestyle. For most American families the days of the full-time, stay-at-home mom are long gone.…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gender Wage Gap Analysis

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The discrepancy between men’s and women’s wages has become a popular subject recently. In December 2014, as a result of the infamous hack of entertainment company Sony, it was revealed that Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence was paid less than her male counterparts for her role in 2013’s Oscar-nominated movie American Hustle (Needham, 2013). Just last month, actress Patricia Arquette fervently called for wage equality in the United States while accepting her own Oscar for her role in Boyhood. This series of events brought the issue of the gender wage gap to the forefront of America, demonstrating its effects on all women from Hyde Park to Hollywood.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Essay On Women Equal Pay

    • 1710 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In society there are many stereotypical roles that have developed in our culture. The key entity to remember about stereotypes is that they do not apply to all, but are just a way for people to come to judgements faster (Brewer). Unfortunately, these stereotypes, particularly those describing women have hindered their ability to be treated equally to men. Many of these stereotypes have to do with the work place and home life.…

    • 1710 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Starting from the time a baby is born, he or she hears a series of different compliments. Infant boys often hear “What a strong guy” or “Look how smart you are!”. Girls often hear “What a gorgeous girl!” or “All the boys are going to chase after her!”. The boys compliments tend to focus on active qualities while the girls compliments focus on appearance or passive qualities.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Many People don’t know how awful gender inequality is. People may think that it is being handled but its just spreading. Women don't have as much rights as men do. Yes, it has been better than the old days, but its still atrocious in business and at home and in some countries, women can't even walk outside without a man. This paper will be talking about when gender inequality started To happen, why genders can’t be equal, what will happen in the long run (will genders ever be equal?) and some solutions To help make genders equal.…

    • 1996 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays