Social Stratification And Gender Inequality Essay

As individuals, we are all given assigned aspects that define us. Race, gender, and social class are just a few of the characteristics that make us who we are. We also choose to take on certain aspects that reflect our own interests such as careers, fashion, and fandom. When our chosen and assigned aspects come together, our own identity is formed. These parts eventually impact and affect each other with the idea of intersection. The interconnection of being a woman and belonging to a certain career cross and act on each other in ways that are mostly negative. Many women find being successful in their careers very difficult especially women who are based into a male dominated industry.

Everywhere you look at the United States you can find economic stratification. From the kind of vehicle you drive, to the kind of house you live in, to the kind of restaurants you eat at the most you will find economic stratification. Some might ask, does any of that truly matter today? Yes, unfortunately, it does. An important goal for most people is what’s referred to as The American Dream. Whether it is to attend a good college, get a respectable job, purchase the perfect house, and have a small family or maybe just to start your own business; that dream starts with wealth. People with more money will have an easier time with achieving the dream than a lower income person would. With wealth comes power and prestige as well. People with more money have better life chances because they can afford better healthcare, education, healthier food, and safer neighborhoods just to name a few things.

Social inequalities are subjective and relative to those around us. Individuals compare themselves to those they see which in turn may alter their expectations of equality in terms of such things as wealth, education and gender equality for themselves. General needs and expectations differ depending on where in the world you are. In most western countries we have come to expect certain levels of gender equality for instance. This essay will look into social inequality, particularly in the form of gender inequality.

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.

Freedom and equality are ideas this country has had for centuries that have evolved over time. In 1776, what Thomas Jefferson meant by “all men are created equal”, is that white males are dominant in society. Women are treated worse than men and slaves treated worse than women. People that weren’t of the “superior” race/gender of a white male were typically treated as if they were less. Women and African-Americans aren’t being treated as bad today, but they’re still being treated worse than the white males of society. Even today, when white males are typically the leaders of society, it’s not always race and gender that creates inequality; sometimes it’s money that creates the issue. Not just from past evidence, but from present

The idea of social inequality dates back since the time of our founding fathers. The mistreatment and unlawful equality and opportunity that these foreigners received became embedded into our history—this endless list includes, just to name a few, the Irish, Chinese, Jews, and most notably the African Americans (Blacks), who became slaves to the American people. Here in the United States, the current social class system is known as the class system, where families are distributed and placed into three different existing class—the upper class (wealthy), middle class (working), and lower class (poor). Since then, improvisations have been worked on into the class system, establishing now roughly six social classes: upper class, new money, middle class, working class, working poor, and poverty level. Social stratification is a widely common topic of debate because there have since been many arguments and debates on this controversial situation of social inequality and how it relates to social class and social mobility. According to Economist Robert Reich, he states that "The probability that a poor child in America will become a poor adult is higher now than it was 30 years ago..." (Reich, par. 5), meaning the given amount of equality, opportunity, and support that these struggle families obtain have gone mainly unnoticed by the government that it has gotten worst. The constant uproar of social inequality and injustice that these middle and lower working class families stem

Our society has many ethical implications of socioeconomic inequalities. It is a social fact honestly, when people think about social inequality, they generally put social inequality in the terms of socioeconomic class. The United States has the largest gap in wealth. This gap causes people to start arguing about lower,middle, and upper class. Depression played a major role in the gap as well. People who have wealth and money have the top social standings in the society and enjoy the greatest privileges as brought on by their money and their social status. On the other hand, people who end up poor or have very little or no access to these high privileges and are usually marginalized in the terms of education and social services.

Universal basic income, (UBI), has become one our leading topics for a solution towards socioeconomic inequality. Billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, have advanced the idea of going through with UBI (Kaza, 2018). UBI tackles many diversity challenges our society seriously needs solutions too. However, due to the enormity of UBI, it’s important to evaluate our decision to go forward; not only finically but ethically. For governments to implement a UBI, it would take a major overhaul of their welfare and tax systems. For example, the United States would need to spend over 3 trillion dollars a year just to provide a yearly distribution of $12,000 for each person over 18. This does not include illegal immigrants or the cost of running the program. I will evaluate the potential effects and ethics of UBI on minority groups in three areas: gender inequality, social conflict and the effects of automation on the work force.

The generation now has made it easier to equalize men and women but there is still a substantial amount of places where gender inequality is still happening in the workplace and where females still face discrimination. Women are often discriminated in the workplace and are usually not promoted as quickly as men are and they also receive less pay. History shows that women have not always been defined as property and thought of as second class citizens. But in the 21st century many have seen a drastic change in the so called “traditional” family ways where women are suppose to stay home and take care of the household chores, food, and children and men are suppose to work to support their family and provide financial stability. Many assume that in the workplace women are more vulnerable and less competent than men because women 's instincts are to put their family before work or anything else. Whereas men are the ones who will usually stay the late hours to work. People on both sides of the political spectrum and everywhere in between seem to be fearful of what is to come and more fearful of others than they are often willing to admit.

Women have experienced a historic situation of inequality in the social as well as professional aspects. Women were normally the ones that would take care of children, do the chores in the house, and in rural areas; they would work in the field with the rest of the family. However, today’s women have become more self-sufficient and independent from the predominant male figure within every historical family. Gender inequality in the workplace is becoming less common; yet, gender is a factor that affects men and women. Especially women have been subjected to a historical discrimination that has influenced society to decide which job is more suitable for women than men. However women have confronted and tried to break down the barriers that

Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are

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

Gender inequality has been an issue since long before the 1840s, when feminists finally brought the problem to light. Most ancient cultures were societies based on gender inequality, skewed towards male-dominance. Most societies are still mostly patriarchal, in fact. Patriarchy is the root of discrimination between sexes and genders and has been for a very long time.

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