I recently read an article from The Washington Post called the “Study Ties Wage Disparities To Outlook on Gender Roles”, which was very interesting. The article is dated September 22, 2008 and the author is Shankar Vedantam. Vedantam says, “Although men with a traditional outlook earned the most, women with a traditional outlook earned the least. The wage gap between working men and women with a traditional attitude was more than 10 times as large as the gap between men and women with egalitarian views”, which shows that men make more with either view except that even men with egalitarian views make less than traditional viewers. Women are at the bottom in either view.
Why are women making less? Vedantam has many reasons why women make less. Vedantam says, “The critics argue that more men choose higher-paying professions such as law and business and more women choose lower-paying professions such as education and social work, and men tend to work longer hours”, which illustrates that women may not be reaching for the high rank careers. Men are out numbering the women in high paying professions. Vedantam finds information that “Traditional-minded men might negotiate much harder for better salaries, especially when compared with traditional-minded women. Alternatively, it could also be that employers discriminate against women and men who do not subscribe to traditional gender roles”, which shows that people stereotype and people are taught to live this way. In my opinion women are taught to be quiet, polite, and not to be pushy so women do not fight for higher salaries. People also discriminate women and do not think women are as intelligent or as strong as men are so they do not always get hired. Many men do not accept other men if they act feminine or think women should be equal to them. Many men want to be in power and want to show masculinity. They do not like the idea of a women being equal to them.
I think this article has really useful information that I can tie in with my own life along with what I have seen happen with others. I think women should stand up for themselves and fight for higher salaries without being afraid to break the stereotype. I also think women should reach out to be lawyers and reach out for higher paying jobs. I do not think women should just settle. If a woman wants to go into a lower paying profession such as education because that’s where their heart is at then they should go for it but it’s not good to just settle for a profession if the reason is that they think they can’t do better. BREAK THE STEREOTYPE!
What are your thoughts?
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15 years ago
2 comments:
I think a lot of women think less of themselves than men think of themselves. Men seem to be more confident in the work force while a lot of times women end up staying timid and quiet. Unfortunately this is the result of socialization. Men are taught to be doctors and lawyers while women are taught to be teachers or receptionists. Those positions do have majorly different salaries just on the starting basis and only gets worse when raises come into play. Hopefully there will be a change soon and more women get more confidence and start a career in what is thought to be a "male" career. And even maybe men taking some typically "female" careers. Wouldn't that just through everything though a loop...?! I wonder how salaries would compare and differ then...!
I agree with pretzel001. Women seem to be very quiet in the work force. From experience, I have never negotiated my salary with the person hiring me. I usually accept whatever they put on the table, because I assume that is what they are paying other people. When I did find out what other people were being paid, which was a significant amount more then me, I was shocked. In fact, at my most recent job I was the first person hired, and paid the least out of all the people working there. I think people know that women are, in a sense, "pushovers" and take advantage of it.
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