Muted Group Theory Essay

Women are considered a minority group, because they do not share the same power, privileges, rights, and opportunities as men. The term "glass ceiling" refers to institutional barriers that prevent minorities and women from advancing beyond a certain point in the corporate world, despite their qualifications and successes. The existence of a glass ceiling indicates that women, even today, do not enjoy the same economic opportunities as men. Throughout the past two centuries, there is a recurring pattern of unequal economic rights for women as well as discrimination. These actions that burden women bring on a psychological effect such as oppression. The constant battle women face with an unequal economic opportunity contributes to their feeling

“Look at us! We’re just like everyone else. We’ve bought into the same ridiculous delusion; this idea that you have to settle down and resign from life.” (April Wheeler, Revolutionary Road). It has become a society norm that women are meant to serve housewives; to cook, clean, garden, and nurture children, even though they are much more capable of other things. The role of women is greatly overseen, as they are not perceived to be of their full potential, rather than as societies idealistic expectation. This is because men and those who are wealthy are unable to look past gender and accept women as of equal significance.

Many of these inequalities come from the work place, for example in 2015, women made 75 cents for every dollar a man made. There are many reasons why gender inequality still exists in the work place, such as the direct discrimination of women, as some women are paid less to do the same job as a man. Even in politics today, there are more males in government. Although women have made significant strides in the political field in the last 20 years, only about 22 percent of women make up government. Also, domestic violence is very much prevalent today against women, even though in 1993, the UN General assembly passed the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence on Women, yet 1 in 3 women are abused by their intimate partner. In spite of the fact that it’s been an entire century since Trifles was published, gender inequality is still a top priority today and unless women begin to be looked at as equals, there will always be major obstacles for women in society

When you think about women in the work field today, what do you see? A successful lawyer, a doctor, perhaps. That’s true. In fact, there have been more females holding high employment positions in the late 20th and 21st century than ever before. According to Donald M. Fisk in “Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003”, 60% of working-age women worked in the labor force in 1999. That’s 41% more than that of 1900, where only 19% of women worked in the labor force. Among these women, a vast majority have seen their salaries sky-rocket in the past two decades, almost surpassing those of male workers. However, it is not always this way.

There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a

The main objective was to identify an unknown organism by utilizing skills we learned in our labs this semester. The purpose was to attain the possible identity of the unknown organism by actually performing biochemical tests and staining techniques we learned in lab. After performing and analyzing the results, we were able to use Bergey’s Manual of Systemic Bacteriology as a guideline to narrow down the genus of our organism test by test.

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

From the beginning of time there has been a distinction between the accepted roles of males and females. For ages men have been viewed as the family provider and women as the family caretaker. Although new roles developed with different eras, the same ideals have held for centuries now. Since the late 1800’s, the idea of “feminism,” or the social, political, and economic equality for females, has begun to shake the foundations of gender roles. It is 2015, and women have made tremendous strides to establish equality for themselves in a world dominated by male leaders. However, women have not been able to conquer the wage gap. The gender wage gap refers to women being paid on average 78% of what men do. Although the gap is closing, it is still

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).

Based on Muted group theory, men and women think of the world differently and perform different actions based on their experiences. In the world today, men want the role of power, and they want to be able to make their own informed decisions. On the other hand, women are more worried about what other’s think of them so therefore they seek connection rather than hierarchy. Because of this, men are thought to have dominance over women so therefore they are able to shape and formulate the ways that people speak and the ways in which people are heard. Kramarae believes that there is a “lexical bias” in the public language such as cartoons, and metaphors which plays a role in Muted group theory. She also believes that women are not represented highly

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.

This reflects the undervaluation of women's work and skills, even in today's cosmopolitan workplaces. Also, in developing countries women are paid only 60 - 70% of men's earnings, and there are more women in seasonal jobs. It has also been argued that sexism prevails in domestic work as most housework worldwide is still undertaken by women. Sexism is not only indicated in the pay gap.

Cheris Kramarae, professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois, would probably feel closer to satisfied if the summary section of this paper were not necessary, if the connotations and ideas that muted group theory entails came to mind automatically. Unfortunately though, I would confuse a great deal of people if I used the terms "muted group theory" in writing and conversation without further explanation. This demonstrates a fundamental concept in Kramarae's theory. Muted group theory was designed to explore the experience of a subordinate group, particularly women, and therefore, the majority of the general public does not recognize it. In order for the theory to become wide spread the dominant

The modern world has resulted in earnings, wages and salaries for the women similar to that of men, but the women are continuously facing inequalities in the work force (Andal 2002). This can be attributed to the pre-established notion that women shall not be given access to finance or communication with the world outside of the home which is highly unethical and unfair (Eisenhower, 2002). In the past, they were considered as the underprivileged ones which were not thought of having equal rights but this fact has changed now. For instance, the status of women can be explicitly defined as the equality and the freedom of the women.

The group Voicing Silence, has focused on a variety of issues concerning gender from female infanticide to recasting women in leading roles that are typically portrayed by men. This allows for women to break out of gendered stereotypes and be perceived in a new manner. Mangai has made a point to mention that there are usually equal parts of performing men and women on stage within the Voicing Silence group, in order to ensure an equal gender ratio. Moreover, Mangai has helped address issues of literacy. Mangai mentioned in a later