Gender inequality has been a prevalent issue in our world from the very beginning of time. In the United States especially, women have been faced with such problems as unequal payment, discrimination in certain fields of work and sexual harassment, particularly in college campuses.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women earn much less than men in the workforce for the same occupation. According to their calculations “in 2013, female full-time workers made only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 22 percent. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio” (IWPR). While this is certainly unconstitutional and a violation of human rights, many workplaces, especially corporations practice this form of monetary discrimination in their own cities.
In terms of the types of jobs women usually obtain, there is a major gap in occupations that accept women in the fields of sciences and mathematics. According to the ISeek Careers website, women are faced with such problems as shortage of mentorship, lack of acceptance from coworkers in STEM jobs that keep many women from obtaining math and science related occupations. This can be seen as IStem says, “for example; just 17 percent of chemical engineers and 22 percent of environmental scientists are women. But that doesn’t mean it’s hard for women to get jobs in those fields. In fact, many companies want to hire and keep qualified women for STEM jobs” (ISTEM) This means as well, that though there are jobs, which are available for women, women are not well informed of these job openings. This shows that as well as a lack of opportunities, women do not receive enough information about opportunities available to them in these occupations.
Lastly, women face large amounts of sexual harassment. This can be seen most clearly in college campuses across the United States. According to the AAUW “sexual harassment and sexual violence disproportionately affect college women and impede their ability to participate fully in campus life. Both sexual harassment and sexual violence are forms of sex discrimination covered under Title IX. Title IX protects students from sexual harassment and violence that occur in the course of a school’s education programs and activities” (AAUW). Situations like this have occurred recently in the news in many campuses such as Wesleyan University and UCLA.
While many steps can be taken to help fix these issues, I believe that these three problems will be difficult to eliminate without a change of attitude towards gender inequality on a large scale. Because sexism is an underlying principle both on an individual and social level, and a principle that influences both women and men, it will take a radical change in culture as well as individual thought to fully reach gender equality.
Sources
http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination
https://www.iseek.org/careers/womenstem.html
http://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/legal-resources/know-your-rights-on-campus/campus-sexual-assault/
I agree that there is a significant problem regarding the limitation for women that are majoring in STEM fields. As a science major myself, it is upsetting to learn that women are not able to practice their fields just because of their gender. Also, as much as companies and businesses want to hire women, it is true that they are not marketing opportunities enough. That is why there is such lack of females in work forces. If they do want to hire more women for STEM jobs, they should promote it more and make it known. Furthermore, I believe sexual harassment is definitely a big problem in regards to gender inequality in society. However, as important as it is, there are not enough publications of such problems to make people more aware of the issue. Sexual harassment is a big deal and more people should be conscious of the frequency of such events. Also, just because females are reported more often for being the victim of sexual harassment, it does not mean males are not harassed. Sexual harassment of both genders should be more made known to the society.
I definitely agree with you in that a woman receiving less pay than men is a very large problem. This problem is probably very detrimental to single mothers who are trying to support a family on a single person’s income. It is difficult enough to support a family by yourself, but having a deduction in wage due to gender is very unfair. I do not agree with you when you say that the problem with the lack of women in STEM fields is due to the lack of knowledge of positions, mentorship, and coworker acceptance. This may be a factor, but I believe that the problem is more related to the number of women actually pursuing these jobs. I myself am a computer science major. I have seen only two female computer science major in all of my classes. While companies are looking forward for women to work for their companies, women do not appear to be pursuing these fields as much as we think they are. I, however, agree with the problem we see in sexual harassment. It is definitely a big problem and I feel like it going to take a lot to fix these types of injustice. For sexual harassment, the problem is with the people that are committing these injustices. In the end, there is not much we can do but use propaganda and pass laws.