Social Construction Of Social Inequality

As a society who mostly possesses rather progressive mindsets, a common concern amongst individuals is the existence of inequality. Throughout our world’s history, we can see countless groups of people from all different eras facing tremendous inequality, with an even greater number of people questioning the existence of said inequalities. Some may just accept society for the way it is, assuming that inequity in imposed by a higher being. However, this is not plausible, for inequality is a social construction that is a direction result of the process of stratification. As defined by Merriam-Webster, stratification is “the state of being divided into social classes” (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, n.d.). This can be observed when people …show more content…
This, in turn, promotes the suffering and struggling of certain groups over others. For example, when it comes to the stratification of wealth, the bottom 20% of U.S. households who only earn 3.2 percent of all income are faced with nothing but problems. These families live in poverty and struggle to keep a decent standard of living, all because income in the nation is unequally divided. Women, on the other hand, are essentially excluded from certain job positions and are even barred from opportunities available to men. Those classified as “others” in the gender stratification system are discriminated against more so than women, possessing even less opportunities. Because of this, we can state that social stratification has nothing but negative effects on those not at the top of the hierarchy in the various systems. In addition to this, regardless of its type, social stratification divides our society and turns us against each other. People from groups who are better off on the hierarchy scoff at those who are below them, and those who are low on the totem pole resent those above them. This division, a direct effect of social stratification, causes unrest and tension in our society. More often than not, these tensions result in the outbreak of violence and social issues in our society. From this, we can conclude that social stratification also effects society negatively, much like it does to a variety of groups. Overall, social stratification produces negative effects on both groups and society, and creates the socially-constructed issue of inequality. And while we may work to dismantle one stratification system, new ones will only emerge over time, repeating the never-ending vicious cycle of