Gender Essay, Research Paper

Gender Issues: Have Woman?s Rights Improved?

Twenty-five years ago, when my mother was little she had three career

choices available to her, a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary. So as the I was

growing up my mother made sure that I knew that I could be whatever I wanted

to be, when I grew up. With this belief in mind I set my goal as becoming the first

woman President of the United States, but as I started to work towards this goal I

realized that what she did not tell me about were the obstacles that I would have

to overcome to succeed in a ?man?s world?. There are three main barriers

standing in a woman?s way to achieve her career goal they are men, the media ,

and American society.

According to Bob Enyart ?Women were not made to run things. Men were

made to run things. When women try to run things and usurp the authority from

men they mess things up.? This type of attitude from men is what keeps woman

from surpassing them in the world. Most grown men view women only as

housewives, incapable of nothing else. In the minds of some men women were

meant to stay at home and clean the house, raise the children, and cook the

meals. Even when woman decided to join the work force they had few careers to

choose from. It was not until the late 1980?s that woman were accepted in to

higher paying careers by the men that were already dominating the workforce.

Even today when they are accepted into the workforce they are still not paid as

much as men for doing the same work. A 1998 study shows that a woman in the

same job as a man with the same expectations and responsibilities, the woman

is paid ten to fifteen percent less then the man.

The media or television programs are also to blame for the image that is

given to woman. Women play passive roles, in movies and even TV sitcoms. For

example in the sitcom Dharma and Greg, which is about a young married couple,

the man is a successful lawyer from a wealthy family, while Dharma is a cute little

unemployed blonde that cracks jokes. Another example is in the sitcom Friends,

in which the men Ross and Chandler have very successful jobs as an accountant

and a anthropologist, while the women on the show are employed as a cook and

the other women is a buyer for the department store Bloomingdales. So even on

today?s TV sitcoms woman are casted in to careers that have gender stereotyped

such as woman belong at home, in the kitchen or shopping.

American society can be very temperamental on their belief system and

unwilling to change their mind. Using politics as an example, there has never

been a woman President or Vice President. This is because of American

societies unwillingness to change their views on this type of discrimination. To

further prove thiks statement John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the first Catholic

President, is a great example. America was founded as a Protestant country and

it took over 150 year to be able to accept and elect a Catholic president to office

and even then it was a close race. Until the society as a whole changes then

woman the discrimination against woman will continue.

So due to men, the media, and American Society women in the past and

still to this day remain our countries largest percentage of second class citizens.

Often many of today?s women raise, house and feed their families without the

help of men, on an income of less than two thirds of that men doing the same

job. For women to become equal in this society they need to earn equal pay for

equal work and have all men accept them in the work force. When this happens

we will have reached true equality between men and women.