How Poverty And Gender Affect Women 's Lives

Another view of poverty is that is gender bias, that women are mostly like to live in poverty then men are, for this approach we going to discuss the Feminist Perspective. In 2006, 54 % of women lived in poverty ages 18 and over (NAPO 2006). This perspective uses the gender-based analysis, which works to understand the structures that contribute to women in poverty. Another interesting factor about this perspective is that it using the narrative analysis which focuses on women’s experiences with a symbolic approach which is put into data interpretation.

The United States exhibits the trend of the “feminization of poverty”, a powerful phrase coined by Diana Pierce to exhibit the increasing number of women and children in poverty. Among the causes of this problem is a “dual labor market that actively discriminates against female workers” (Leventman 1988: 197). The average American woman is only paid 77 cents to every working man’s dollar (Alter 2014). Men today make more than women, despite women having the same amount of educational achievement. In fact, in 2011, men with only a bachelor’s degree made more than women with graduate degrees (Alter 2014). In 2013, full-time working men made $50,033 compared to just $39,157 for full-time working women (Cook 2014). In America today, the problem of poverty in the lives of women and children is attributed to different aspects of gender stratification as well as gender inequality. Poverty will continue until women are equal to men in terms of power, wealth, and other

Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.

Extremes differ around the world but for fact in developed and developing countries the amount of women living in poverty is adamant. Looking at the developing countries Canada and India provides different ways of looking at poverty and how poverty is identified. Through Canada women deal with poverty when their income is below the poverty line or they are using over half of their income on necessities to live. In India women are encountering human poverty, which is being without basic needs creating factors such as illiteracy, malnutrition, early death, poor health care and no access to clean water. Despite some differences between the two countries’ economies, women in both Canada and India face similar issues with poverty “The poverty of women in Canada and India is increasing as a result of globalization, social policies that neglect women, inequality in employment, and existing gender-based social repression” (Argiropoulos and Rajagopal 2003:612). The inequality of employment is a major cause of poverty, once women have to enter the workforce an increase in feminization in the workforce has taken place. Women are then segregated into the certain areas in the workforce, which often pay less and demand a less amount of skill

Ann Levine and Naomi Neft's article "Women in Today's World" asserts that although the status of females in developed countries has vastly improved with society's movement toward a more gender-equal condition, the majority of women remain in a dire state of oppression. Women are more impoverished, illiterate, unemployed, and more destitute than men. In spite of some women's improvements under developed countries' more progressive, gender-equal regimes, education, literacy rates, employment, civil rights, health, and public representation remain substandard for most of the world's females.

Instead of experiencing intimate relationships women are taking care of children and working. Women are getting paid less even when working the same hours as men. Instead of women living a full and experienced life they are isolating themselves to just family and work when living in poverty. The role expectations of women cause, stress, anger, anxiety and helplessness. According to the Fact Sheet: Women &Socioeconomic Status women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety orders living below the poverty

Women are more prone to live in low income circumstances than men, hence introducing the social problem of gender discrimination. Women have been discriminated in the workplace over time in that they are paid less than men in specific jobs and are not seen to be ‘suited’ to particular jobs, especially in the manufacturing and trade industries. Marxist feminist Margaret Benston believed that women were oppressed by capitalism in that they were treated almost as a back-up, or secondary option of cheap labour that enabled profits to be kept up. ‘In 1994, 6.41 million women were in low-paid jobs and on average women’s full-time gross weekly pay was 72 percent of that of men’(Kane, 2003:115).

The phrase or term "Feminization of Poverty" was coined by an American sociologist Dianna Pearle in the late 1970s. The term describes the growing trend of an increasing number of poor, single women head of household living in poverty. Feminization of poverty is the growing trend where the majority of the population living in poverty in the U S are women. Women are vulnerable to be living in poverty because they are more likely to bear the economic cost of caring for the children as head of the household. Added to this, women are paid less than men when they are employed with the same qualification doing the same job. In fact, according to Wiltz, T. (2015) in 2014, women working full time were paid 79 cents for every dollar men were paid, a

Poverty is a large issue in america with an appalling 43.1 million americans living in poverty as shown on the U.S Census Bureau. Poverty may not seem like that much of an issue if it doesn't affect someone personally, but it’s an issue that affects everyone no matter what. The consequences of a high poverty rate is the tensions that will indefinitely affect both the rich and poor. One such place that shows these tensions are Danville, KY. Danville’s current poverty rate is 19.2% with over 28,000 people living in the town. One such group that is affected by this is women from ages 25-34. Women suffer in the workforce mainly because of 3 reasons: jobs that apply more to men than women, no paid leave when woman is pregnant, and no pay equity.

Poverty has increasingly become a noticeable issue worldwide over the past couple of decades. With the middle class steadily decreasing, considerable amounts of people are becoming part of the lower class, and even more of our world’s population are beginning to live in poverty. It is important to understand there are different definitions of poverty, and that is largely determined by what each country’s government determines as the cut off of poverty, otherwise known as the ‘poverty line’. Although some people could live above the poverty line, and still be struggling financially, it goes unrecognized by most research collection. However, what was initially noticed around the 1970’s is that there was a significant rise in women’s poverty statistics. More female-headed households were living in poverty, and a majority of those women belonged to a minority. This recognizable trend has been deemed the ‘feminization of poverty’, which according research is not only a growing problem in North America, but several other countries around the world. Information gathered about this issue in the United States shows that female-headed households is by far the fastest growing type of family structure, and due to the fact there is a growing poverty level amongst this group, it now means that approximately half of the all the poor in the United States live in a women-headed family and household. (Gimenez, 1999, p. 336) The biggest question when is comes to this particular topic is why?

Women and men have had certain roles in society that were understood amongst them to be specified for their particular gender. Males were known to have the leading role as head of the house hold and the bread winner while the woman’s duty was to stay at home and take care of the house and children. While many people years ago deemed this way of life and practice to be the right and ethical thing to do, times have changed and so this kind of treatment towards a woman’s equality must be questioned. Even though times have changed, this mindset of a woman’s ability to be as good as a man has not completely gone away. In today’s society a woman contributes to the economy and her family as equally as that of a man. Therefore, women should share equal rights and opportunities as their gender counterparts.

Feminization of poverty is defined as, “A societal-level process over time in which the poor are increasingly made up of women and children” (Eshleman, 2010, p. 588). According to Lauren Abbate of Mount Holyoke College, “Feminization of poverty is the phenomenon in which women experience poverty at rates that are disproportionately high in comparison to men” (Abbate, 2010). It appears that,

Throughout history and today, we women are constant victims of stereotyping from our society. Certain “rules” have to be followed and certain “ideal” women images have to be kept. We are raised in a way to fill certain position where the society wants us to be and as a result, the opportunities are always limited for us and ideas of our importance in the society are diminishing. Even though women gained some independence, where women can work and take various position in society, the society’s idea of typical role of women never seem to change.

Social status and structures have definitely shaped the construction and experience of gender inequality. Men and women are constantly analyzed, compared, and grouped together in society. The result of this yields discrepancies in how sexes are viewed by society. Throughout my examination and explanation of gender inequality, I concluded both men and women are victims to gender inequality.

Although they have been given more rights and equality, women still lack fairness in areas such as education, domestic abuse, crime, and lower class value. Cassandra Clifford states in her article “Are Girls still marginalized? Discrimination and Gender Inequality in Today’s Society”, “Woman and girls are abused by their husbands and fathers, young girls are exploited by sex tourism and trafficking, girls in many countries are forced into arranged marriages at early ages. Twice as many women are illiterate as men, due to the large gap in education, and girls are still less likely to get jobs and excel in the work place than boys.” She describes some of the issues that women face today around the world. These issues are what keep society from coming together to form a better world.