Gender Inequality Essay

For one, since women were seen as the property of men and as dependent beings, working was not something they would usually do. Thus, working in mills was already something different. However, working in the textile mills were tough. They worked in harsh conditions, in which they worked long hours and had low pay. According to Vera Shlackman, “all the learning I now have gained without instruction, having obtained alone and that too I have labored twelve hours a day”(59), this shows how long they worked for in the mills each day, twelve hours a day. This also shows how despite the fact the mills state that “women working in Lowell’s mills, moreover, could avail themselves of certain education services”(Schug et al. 147), they kept the mill girl’s education at a certain level, in which Vera Shlakman had to resort in teaching herself. To add on, the mill girls had low pay. According to Mark C. Schug, Jean Caldwell, and Tawni Hunt, “the weekly wage for young women in Lowell’s mills was $2.50, of which $1.25 was deducted to pay for room and board. This amounted to pay of less than four cents per hour”(147), showing how low their pay was and how little choices they had, to the point they stayed in these mills. This brings us to the second change. According to the text, these working women were starting to lead industrial strikes. “They walked off their jobs in the the textile

Women wanted to operate in places outside of the home, and worked in labor such as factories and mills;

With the center of production moving from households to mass-production, women in America had to alter their way of life. A great number of women followed labor opportunities to the mills, factories, and workshops. For the first time in history, large numbers of women left their homes to participate in the public world. “Mill Girls” were typically young, unmarried women who lived together in boarding houses provided by the factory for which they worked. Lucy Larcom recalls,

They seeked to work with men in various different trades, professions. and commerce [Document 7]. In addition to women changing the American industrial landscape, manufacturing revolutionized it. At the beginning of the time period, artisanship was mainly how people manufactured goods. They would use their skill from the comfort of their home, with their family [Document 5]. Rising out of innovation, however, was the birth of large manufacturing plants [Document 5]. This produced a cheaper, and faster way to manufacture products; at the expense of weaker, more limited and dependent workers [Document 2]. With this new work class coming to lead the American industrial system, it increased inequality between the worker, and the

The Industrial Revolution has changed Australia and America by the jobs of the genders. Before the Industrial Revolution, men, women and children worked together in cottage industries. During the Industrial Revolution, all members of the family continued to do something and be something. In factories or mills men, women and children all worked. Women and children were just as unrespected to a shops or factory owner as men as the work was difficult, exhausting and, at time, dangerous such as the narrow spaces, bad air, poor light, no safety and no protective equipment used. As the Industrial Revolution continued, working hours were long. Home life was damaged because when families returned to their homes after work, they had little time for communication. Government law

In addition to an increased provider role, women were also taking on many more duties around the house and with the children. Due to the reduced credit and skyrocketing prices, men were forced to spend more and more time away from home working on coffee, sugar cane, or cattle plantations. Women would have to go weeks at a time without the presence of her husband in the household. The increasing occurrences of this, led to a growing feeling of independence and resourcefulness among the women of the community. Men were

For centuries and even today, gender inequality and racial prejudice continue to exist. Throughout time these concepts have overlapped and intertwined, each other creating complex interactions and a negative influence upon society. In the 1980s, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw through her article, named Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, introduced the term “Intersectionality.” Intersectionality, is the theory of how different types of discriminations interact thus, goes hand in hand with Judith Butler, in her article titled “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” which expresses the term “gender acts” and helps decipher a probable cause of the many discriminations faced in contemporary society. Since both gender inequality and racial inequality share a common thread, I believe that what intersectionality represents will help understand Judith Butler’s view on gender classification and the dynamic it’s caused on our social and political formation.

Gender inequality has engulfed the United States and placed copious varying roles onto the male and female sexes. According to Leila Aboulela, Minaret, “All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.” Discrimination places women into different roles and takes away numerous privileges. However in America today after more than a century of struggles by dedicated activists who fought to alter these ideals and gain further rights, the perception of women in society and their contributions to society have been greatly transformed.

The resilience of women and the hardship of men were prominent during this time. However, women were still deeply grounded in their home life (Bolin, 74). Particularly women from middle-income families were left with job of being able to balance work and home life (Bolin, 74). Being a caregiver and taking care of the domestic needs of the home was very important. During this time tradition values were deeply routed in the home. Women made sure not let their home life consume them because their may focus was being a good wife and mother. This is a trend that has made its way even in today’s society. “Even now lack of adequate day-care (necessitating private baby-sitting service), low paying jobs for women, and the growth of technologies that open the door to and “electronic cottage industry”, indicate that women’s home production is a mutable but perhaps permanent response to women’s economic and social inequality under capitalism” (Hollingsworth, & Tyyska). The oppression in the past is shown to have made and imprint on society even to this day. Even though

Separate spheres, which had divided the workforce by gender, and prohibited children from working in the factories, had just become a part of social status. Because they were making less money than the men, women stopped working, or started working from home in order to take care of the children. As this division continued, women started to be associated with femininity, motherhood, and private life, instead of being strong workers who could take care of a family. Women could still work in factories, but they would not be able to take care of their children and they would be paid less than there male counterparts. In order to make sure that their children were raised properly, the men started working longer hours, and the women stayed at home to take care of the children.

The traditional “household” women were starting to become more of “factory” women, these women including young, single, white women. Women were the ultimate reason as to why the country ran so smoothly in the nineteenth century. With their efforts inside the home, including child-bearing and normal housework, to their work in industrial and agriculture economies, women helped the economy in extremely productive ways. Soon, the home would no longer be known as the economic center of America, and women would begin to go into their own “private sphere” of their world.

In the 21st century, many people believe that we have overcome the obstacle of gender inequality and evolved into a society of fairness and righteousness. As many know, females can be just as proficient and qualified as males at any task. Though some efforts to off-set this gender imbalance is in place, it is still commonly acknowledged that many careers are stated to be a male job such as lawyers, and female jobs such as secretaries. Gender inequality is a visible fact in our society and in this essay, I hypothesize that gender inequality still exists as a result of factors such as post-secondary education differences of the two genders, role of females in families, female objectification, career choice differences of the two genders, and

Throughout history, countless acts of gender inequality can be identified; the causes of these discriminating accounts can be traced back to different causes. The general morality of the inequity relies on a belief that men are superior to women; because of this idea, women have spent generations suffering under their counterparts. Also, a common expectation is that men tend to be more assertive and absolute because of their biological hormones or instinctive intellect. Another huge origin is sexual discrimination; even in the world today, many women are viewed by men as just sex objects rather than a real human being with

The concept of gender denotes the distinction between culturally driven and created roles of masculinity and femininity. These specific and normalized attitudes and behaviors transcend and effect how differently men and women live their lives. Based on society’s continual re-enforcement of such gender stereotypes, we see an on-going dilemma of gender inequality. Though some may argue that men experience gender inequality, this seems to exist on a much more invasive level for women. As of recently, the awareness of gender inequality in the workplace has increased. With the fight for equal pay and equal respect, society is already making strides towards the equality of women. With that being said, one aspect of gender inequality that seems

According to Helsin, Possamai and Possamai-Inesedy (2011 p. 625) gender stratification occurs when a specific gender has unequal access to power, property and prestige. As gender is classed as a master status it forms a significant structural characteristic within society (Helsin, Possamai & Possamai-Inesedy 2011, p. 310). Therefore, it is society, through social construction that determines what gender norms are considered appropriate and can be passed through generations of people via agents of socialisation such as family, mass media or in the form of symbolic interaction (Macionis & Plummer 1997, pp. 139-141).