Preview

Women in the Work Forces

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
787 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Women in the Work Forces
Topister Bonyo
Professor Hillary Ash
English 11011: Collage Writing 1
20 October 20, 2012
Women Deserve Equal Pay for Equal Work
Women deserve equal pay for equal work. It is no longer valid to justify unequal pay for equal work in the workforces by giving men the superior status of being the heads of the house hold. Clearly, gender roles have shifted and more women are now the heads of the households and the sole breadwinners in many homes. Families that depend on these women are greatly affected by unequal payment. Poverty is common in families that rely on women and these families are also likely to rely on the government for assistance. The government has reacted to this issue by passing several bills and acts prohibiting unequal payment for equal work. These legal redundancies have made some progress, but the traditional mindsets that men are superior still lurk in our society, especially in the work forces and within the government itself. Authorities now justify women’s oppression in the work forces by focusing on their sexuality. Women are considered “marked” because every single thing that a woman does, values or wears is put into question when it comes to the justice system. This has proved to be the main reason why women seldom report cases of unequal pay in the workforces. This is to say, even though the government is “trying” to give women their legal rights, it is also making it impossible for women to practice their legal rights.
Citation: Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Sexism in English: Embodiment and Language. n.p, n.d. Print. 19 October 2012.
Summary: Nilsen’s article focuses on the English language influences on sexism. The article specifically focuses on three issues that the English language has influenced in our society. Nilsen mentioned the fact that eponym words that have come from a woman’s name found in English values women for their attractiveness and sexiness of their body, while men’s eponyms value their physical strength and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Gender socialization is the process of learning the social expectations and attitudes associated with gender. Socialisation itself, marked the beginning of sexism – the discrimination against others based on their gender. Many say, that this bias relates back to the Bible, as it’s said that man (Adam) was created first, and woman (Eve) was created second from one of Adams’ ribs. This strongly implies that male is the more dominant sex and is therefore superior to females. This idea has been practiced throughout history and could be due to the fact, that religion was more prominent in the past. For example, school and education was originally only intended for boys, as women were expected to be homemakers. This, in many ways devalues and degrades women as it suggests they are somewhat incapable of doing anything but raising children. Additionally, this can be seen through the English language and the use of unmarked terms. The word “waiter” an unmarked term referring to a man, has had a suffix added to the end in order to make “waitress” the term for a woman. This form of lexical asymmetry reinforces and gives and insight into how women were degraded and are still being patronized as this particular word is still used in modern society. Some may argue against this, as “stay as home dads” and career women are accepted today and many females hold powerful jobs, however, gender socialization still occurs subconsciously through diverse means, such as schools, peer interaction, the media and parental attitudes – as girls are often brought up performing household chores like cleaning, whereas boys are sometimes required to perform more “manly” tasks such as mowing the lawn.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    His boyish looks make him seem to young for politics whereas in comparison his political opponent Stephen Harper is a older male who is settled down giving the framing that to be a true candidate in politics one must be older more mature, this is not a clear definition that Trudeau is not able to run a country. Trudeau has made mistakes in the past from being young which the Conservative party is sure to mention to the public to get votes. By the Conservatives exploiting Trudeau makes Stephen Harper look good as a candidate. The media itself puts into societies minds that a political leader of the country should follow certain qualities. They are as follows; to be masculine, take charge and make decisions that will help all, put aside the personal life, engage or communicate with people and to be confident just to name a few. Through these gendered stereotype’s Trudeau is no reason he does not fit under these categories, his voice may be higher pitched and less monotone as Harpers but this is not a linguist reason for him to be categorized into a female role. Trudeau has put aside his personal life; only the conservatives pull out his past to put him down as a leader. He engages people through communication and this specific event is a way to specifically focus on women and their concerns and questions yet media easily takes this and makes it become a sexist event, which was…

    • 2387 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    House of Mirth

    • 9729 Words
    • 39 Pages

    Chapter 1 Problematizing Absolute Otherness O ne of the basic precepts of feminist philosophy that provides a common axis for various female subcultures is the conviction regarding a shared history of otherness. A commonality of female sensibility and perception is recognized, that obliterates boundaries: of nation, race, language, religion, and culture. This has opened up manifold avenues for communication between widely separated women's groups such as the Afro-American and the Indian, across their geographical and cultural frontiers. An identity of issues and interests is revealed, that facilitates mutual enlightening, strengthening and reassuring.…

    • 9729 Words
    • 39 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    I highly enjoyed Douglas Hofstadter’s piece. Although I had never given any serious thought to the problem of sexism in English, I found myself strongly agreeing with many of his arguments. In fact, I even became a bit angry and ashamed with myself for not recognizing some of the more blatant examples of sexism in the language. For example, I had not thought about the distinction between ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs.’ The change in title was something that a married woman did as part of tradition, but I never stopped to wonder why she made that change, or why…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A Closer Examination of Sexism Sexism has been woven through the backbone of humankind throughout history and is still in place in a variety of aspects of our society today. Sexism plays a key role in how jobs, salary, and occupations are filled nowadays. Sexism also appears in everyday life. For example, women often spend more time getting ready because of the burden to feel pretty and fit into the model image that is displayed to young girls so adolescent girls grow up feeling the weight of needing to be beautiful (Thorne). Additionally, men are often pressured to be chivalrous and pay for a meal or give there jackets just so that their partner is not cold.…

    • 1564 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Concepts of sex, gender and race in English language have undergone uncountable naturalization and universalities, to a point that they are now considered to have always been present. There are numerous arguments that revolve around the three concepts of human diversity. Dr. Warnke for example argues that the three concepts above are social constructs (Warnke 153). This paper is in the light of Dr Warnke’s argument but rather disagrees with her argument about sex, gender and race as social constructs. A critical analysis of her argument is presented in this paper. My stand here is that I agree with Dr. Warnke that race or ethnicity is a social construct, but I totally disagree with her that sex and gender are social constructs.…

    • 1486 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Alleen Nilsen’s informative “Sexism and Language” (1977) proclaims that many English words tend to show sexism towards girls since it makes women seem either invisible or terrible. It starts off with Nilsen giving some examples of sexism when she compares animals to humans and states that girls have the negative comparisons while men are named after good animals, and then she moves onto how English words glorify men; the word clerk-typist is to describe men but in contrast, women are called with feminine words like nurse or a cook and then the selection ends with Nilsen saying females are compared to items that people have for pleasure. The purpose of this article was to inform people of how there’s so much sexism in our language still today in order to make citizens realize that, even though our culture has changed, the words we speak everyday can have sexism in it. Her audience is to both men and women and she tells them about the way American English reflects our value.…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “In 2015, only half of the world’s working-age women are in the labor force, compared to 77 percent of working-age men,” (MAKERS). Everyday, women face unequal circumstances and situations within the workplace. The average woman’s wage is significantly lower than their male colleagues. This would also mean that men have more job opportunities than women. All these disadvantages women face negatively affect their careers. The government has tried to decrease the inequality by creating laws, but they are never harshly enforced. Improvements for women are needed in the workplace because they will increase women’s career rights and the quality in the workplace overall.…

    • 1728 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For many centuries, women have had to fight for their rights. In today’s society, women are still discriminated against in the workplace. Generations of women have sacrificed for woman today to have the opportunity to be able to have a voice on what they want to do in life. In the workforce, women make up 47% of the United States workforce (“Women's Bureau (WB) - Quick Facts on Women in the Labor Force in 2010"). This is almost half but yet they are paid less than men. Men are often bound to receive a promotion, transfer, and compensation before women. The broader problems of obvious discrimination against women in the workforce have been dealt with for centuries. Across the world, women are discriminated against in the workforce through family…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Gender Roles

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages

    References: Eckert, Penelope and McConnell-Ginet, Sally (1997) Language and Gender. Second Edition. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved From: http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/Chap1.pdf…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Benevolent Sexism

    • 1579 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The question posed is our society sexist? The answer is yes, for many reasons benevolent sexism to start. An idea that women are inferior and but she is okay with it as long as you tell her she is pretty. is This opens our society up to hostile sexism which tells a woman that being a woman is not okay and do not dare rebuke a man. These two forms of sexism open the question of how a woman deals with this sexist society. The paper will speak about these forms of sexism and what women use to navigate through our society focusing on the gender strategy of emphasized femininity.…

    • 1579 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The English language is continually changing in order to meet the needs of the people using it. The ever-changing culture we live in affects the way language develops and the way it is used by different people in society. The ideology of a society is reflected in it´s use of language, and because children learn their values, assumptions and expectations from their parents and the words that they have to learn, this ideology is passed down from generation to generation. For centuries we have lived in a male-dominated society where language has been biased towards men. Men are viewed as being the superior sex and this is reinforced by the use of biased generic terms such as 'mankind´, which infact refers to the whole human race. Bias towards men is very often unconscious, thus demonstrating that sexist attitudes are fundamentally ingrained into our way of thinking.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Our society has come a long way when it comes to women’s rights; however, the battle is far from over. There are still plenty of obvious obstacles to overcome in the battle of gender inequality, but one obstacle that a lot of people do not sit and think about is language inequality. I am not referring to derogatory comments or words such as the too popular insults such as, “bitch”, “hoe”, “slut”, etc., but words that Sherryl Kleinman refer to as “male (so-called) generics.” (Kleinman, 2007). She goes on to explain this coined term. Male (so-called) generics can be found everywhere such as job positions, general expressions, generic descriptions, and very popular adjectives that we all use every day. Some examples that Kleinman pointed out were: postman, chairman, freshman, congressman, fireman, mankind, he, manpower, manmade , "Oh, man, where did I leave my keys?" , There 's "manning" the tables in a country where children learn that "all men are created equal,” and the most popular expression "you guys." (Kleinman, 2007).…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Language and Gender

    • 1702 Words
    • 5 Pages

    PAGEREF _Toc390269765 h 8 Language and gender What is gender The terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably but the term gender was originally introduced to have a slightly different meaning to sex. In this way, sex refers to biological differences whereas gender refers to social differences. So for example, the fact that men have lots of facial hair and women dont is a sex difference but the fact that women wear skirts and men dont (in Western cultures) is a gender difference. Sexist Language Sexism means that the sexes are represented unequally. Usually, we associate sexism as a notion that represents women as being less able or skilled in some way than men. Symmetry One way in which English is sometimes considered to be sexist is in the asymmetry of the vocabulary and how words are applied. System of vocabulary For example, the generic word for horses is horse, for male horses it is stallion and for females mare. For…

    • 1702 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Feminization of Labour

    • 1556 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Feminisation of labour is a marker given to the movement towards greater employment of women, and of men willing and able to operate with these more 'feminine ' modes of interaction (“Feminization of Labor Law and Definition”). The last few decades have witnessed an increase in the employment of women in most developing countries, despite the discrimination in wages and earnings. The changes brought about may be partly due to an improvement in the socioeconomic status of the population, such as the level of education of women along with the greater demand for both male and female labour in the workforce. In spite of the availability of new opportunities in high flexibility labour markets, I argue that the feminisation of labour brings more detriment than benefit to women in most developing countries.…

    • 1556 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays