The House May Have A Glass Ceiling, But The Foundation

For centuries, women have been seen as lesser than men: the stereotype that females are the “weaker sex” barred them from opportunities to be seen as equal to men. Many believed that a woman should be relegated to domestic roles; jobs that were seen as too “soft” and feminine for a man to do. Women in Canada were not exempt from this expectation that the only job they should have was in the home. While this viewpoint is antiquated and restrictive towards women, it held merit in that women were the ones who stayed at home for generations while the men went out to work. However, the 20th century ushered in a new era for working women. Over the last century, women have proven their integral role in the Canadian workforce. Canadian women have

Canadian workplaces today seem to be a fairly diverse place, with a blend of many religions, ethnicities, and genders present. However, although people preach affirmative action and melting pots in current times, many inequality and power issues still abound. One strikingly noticeable example is gender discrimination. Women in the workforce face many challenges like smaller wages, harassment, male privilege in hiring or promotions, and lack of support when pregnant or raising children. One half of the planet is women, and it can be assumed the same for Canada, but they still face judgment at work because they lack the authority to dispute against big corporations or even their male supervisor. It cannot be argued that

It has been a long and hard journey in Canada to attain gender equality between men and women. Today, most people are unaware of the discrimination in workplaces, schools, and everyday life. Due to the Famous Five who lead the Persons Case that stated women as official persons, and many heroic individuals who lead the Women’s Suffrage Movement, women now have more opportunities than ever before. The Canadian Labour Movement has helped improve many citizens’ careers including those of women, protecting them from discrimination, violence, and harassment at work. Saskatchewan feminism has followed a similar path to Canada concerning women’s rights, most often categorized into three influential periods of time. The gender pay gap is the difference of money that men and women make, that is a crucial example of gender inequality. Gender stereotypes have limited the ability of men and women, judging them with false ideas through the media. All of these have played a major part of women’s rights and gender equality today.

* Education: Many women in Canada are educated and choose to pursue careers as opposed to

Since the late 19th century, women have been struggling with the issue of not receiving the same amount of pay as men. The gender wage gap was not seen as a major issue until the 1960s, however, and unfortunately, it is still a major issue in our world today. (cite source). In the early 1900’s, World War I caused many men to leave their families behind to fight for their country. As a result of this, women had to take the responsibility of the male roles in the workforce. Women were expected to do the same jobs as men did before they were deployed, but were paid less to do so (cite source). This problem still exists in our world today. In 2011, it was proven that the weekly earnings for a female full-time worker is $684, compared

History has proven that even in the early rural communities, along with the traditional role, women would do work outside with men on farms. At the end of the 19th century, in Canada, when factories started replacing the family as the main productive unit, women comprised of thirteen percent of the labor force (“Women in”). During WWI women replaced many men who had to join the army. After the WWII, during the great depression, women were hired to do men’s jobs (“Women in”). Even today women continue to contribute economically through their domestic and professional work. In fact, it has been found that a homemaker’s work alone is worth approximately 100,000 dollars in the job market (Moran). Their area of expertise varies from being a teacher, finance manager, cleaner, gardener, chef, driver, to personal child care provider (Moran). Women have proven their capability and shown their multi skills, but they are still the victim of gender wage

Since universal suffrage, women have made tremendous economic and social progress in Canada. Canada has been called "a world leader in the promotion and protection of women's rights and gender equality," (Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada). Yet a hundred years after universal suffrage, gender disparity continues to exist in Canada. Gender disparity is evident in the political, economic, and social spheres. Political disparity refers to the lack of adequate representation of women in local, provincial, and federal politics, resulting in continued political disenfranchisement and a lack of attention being paid to remedying the situation. Economic disparity refers to unequal pay between men and women in the labor market, economic dependency of women, and differential degrees of wealth and poverty. Social disparity refers to gender bias, sexism, and other sociological factors. Although Canada continues to rank relatively high in terms of most measures of gender parity, the nation can and should do more to ensure political, economic, and social equality.

Women have dealt with the domineering issues of patriarchy in the past, which some say, is still entrenched in our current system of capitalism. In this sense, women are still seen as the primary tenders of all things household and now that many women have entered the workforce due to an expansion of service-sector jobs, increases in educational attainment, a declining birthrate, and a need to support their children; many women now deal with the taxing effects of the double-day. (Krahn, Lowe, Hughes, 2008) This expansion of service-sector jobs had led women into all kinds of part-time, precarious work. Women in single parent homes fare much worse in this situation as 35% of single-mother households had incomes below the LICO whereas only 5% of two parent households experienced this low level of income. (Krahn, Lowe, Hughes, 2008.) Women also tend to be clustered into certain types of occupations, many of which pay and offer less than what a man would make. It can be noted that this divide in the labour market is a main source of the pay inequality that women experience. (Krahn, Lowe, Hughes, 2008.) An instance of this is women who find themselves stuck in job ghettos; jobs that offer little chance of security or advancement. In regards to Aboriginals, it is estimated that about 1 in 4 aboriginal children live in poverty and they are 4

Gender segregation in employment has prevailed in Canada for many years. The issue is likely to subject the country into an economic crisis, particularly now the economy is moving towards the so-called fourth industrial revolution. In a country where the labor force is made up of 50 percent women, such a revolution shift to male-dominated talent is likely to be detrimental to the country’s economy as talented people will lack to fill positions. As outlined in the article, the revolution, which is as a result of technological advances such as 3D Printing and Robotics, will negatively impact on the traditional female dominated industries (administration and clerical jobs), while

Gender inequality has been a long part of Canada’s history with men being the dominant decision makers. Women have had to fight long hard battles and overcome numerous obstacles to prove themselves and demonstrate that they are equal to men and not inferior. Over the course of a century women have achieved suffrage and have become increasingly visible in the political and economic sectors. Despite all the achievements women have made barriers remain in effect leaving women at a social, economic and political disadvantage even in the twenty-first century. The primary obstacles in achieving gender equality are the noticeable absence of women in authoritative economic and political positions, unfair social stereotypes that are still

Our society has the belief that women have always been portrayed as weak, emotional, and powerless. Throughout this article by Tavia Grant, it shows how women do not get the same opportunities men receive. Statistically shown, women are still earning less money than men regardless to the amount of education they possess (Grant). Women are accepted to hold obligations regarding family tasks while the men do the providing in the family. The article shows the disadvantages women have in Canada compared to men, however, it also shows gender inequality and gender discrimination.

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for systematic gender inequality in the workplace. Cultural benefits, the actions of male employees, the actions of the female employees, and the actions of the employer can contribute to intentional or unintentional gender discrimination (Ngo, Foley, Wong, & Loi, 2003). It has also been mentioned that women make less money because their work environment is generally safer than the stereotypical male work environment; childcare, cashiers, and secretary positions as opposed to firefighters, truck drivers and construction workers (Parcheta, Kaifi, & Khanfar, 2013). Perhaps the most dominant reasoning for women receiving less pay is the carrying over of biological roles into the workplace. Female employees often take time off to have a family, take care of a family, and are the primary caregiver of said family.

The mainstream media is one of the most popular, prominent ways people get their information about social issues, government action, and the general knowledge about what is happening in the world. A topic that has received a quite a large amount of media coverage in history, throughout the years, and currently, is gender inequality. Specifically, the issue of women being stereotyped into traditional “home” roles and not being able to join the work force or, rather, being pressured not to attempt to join. This particular issue has definitely lost much of its ammunition with the breaking of traditional gender roles in the past few decades, the successes of women’s movements and the overall national attitudes. However, not all of the stereotypes have been destroyed, and while women have entered the workforce, they are still being paid less than men for the same work. The lingering inequality of the past and the pay gap are huge issues covered by mainstream media in mostly constructive ways, and it should be receiving much more attention than it has in the past.

Conventionally, females played a very insignificant role in the paid work force of a society as many times they were expected to be home taking care of their family. Their roles at home can often include grocery shopping, meeting all the needs of her children and husband. As time moved on, our society became more accepted of sharing housework between the couples, but even so, the traditionally more feminine housework such as cooking, caring for sick children, and shopping for the entire family are mostly done by the females of the house. It is argued in a research journal Work and Occupations (Witkowski & Leicht, 1995) that in an average North American family, females take on roughly three-quarters of the housework. Even though we are in a democratic society, parenting roles in the household are assigned based on gender rather than in a democratic fashion (Winslow-Bowe, 2009). Because of the many responsibilities and obligations that are associated with the female gender, their career paths are eventually affected for the worse. According to Statistics Canada (2001), for every dollar a man earns, a single woman earns 93 cents and a married woman earns 69 cents. These statistics

In striking resemblance to the aforementioned issues, women experience ridicule and other problems in the work place. As lending evidence, “According to the National Association of Women in Construction, less than 10 percent of women are in [the] industry” (Godwin, 2010, ¶ 9). Since I have worked in a few construction fields over my lifetime, I can personally attest to the mentality of numerous male workers in the business, regarding women infiltrating the ranks. Most often, men believe that women are inferior in the strength, endurance and mental abilities, which all are presumably necessary to be even moderately effective in the trade. Comparatively speaking, as much as nursing is customarily seen as a female position, due to its caring nature, construction is expected to be a man’s job, because of the assumed prerequisite of toughness.