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The Gender Gap Within The Workplace

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Submitted by Maurice Wiggins
EMPAU6230_001_2015_2

Question: What factors contribute to the persistent gender gap present in the workplace and politics in the United States? Which policy instrument(s) should be used to ameliorate the gender gap? Explain.
The second decade of the 21stcentury in America is a ripe time to discuss gender bias and its manifestation in the workplace. Never more than in the last one hundred years has gender been so fluid. At the turn of the 20th century, American society viewed gender as a binary system. People were categorized, and largely self-identified, as either male or female. Any permutation outside of this binary code was societally unacceptable. Since that time American society and laws have evolved. Seminal judicial rulings have changed the landscape of gender equality markedly.
In 1920, the U.S. Congress ratified women’s suffrage. In 1935, the National Council of Negro Women was established to end job discrimination, racism and sexism. In 1960, the U.S. FDA approved birth control pills. In 1973 Roe v. Wade established women’s right to legal abortion. In 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act bans unequal treatment of expecting women in the workplace. In 1996, United States v. Virginia military academies must accept women. In 2013, the ban on women in combat was lifted. Today, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) rights are at the forefront of the sociopolitical agenda. This century has seen LGBT marriage pass in a number of

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