Gender Equality: A Work in Progress

Gender refers to the personal traits and social positions that members of a society attach to being female or male. Gender also involves hierarchy, placing men and women in different positions in terms of power, wealth and other resources. According to what was discussed in class this is gender stratification, the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women. Gender involves more than how people think and act. According to the text, it is also about how society is organized, how our lives are affected by social hierarchy. Gender stratification can be seen in just about every aspect of our daily lives.

  

According to the text, a century ago college was considered appropriate only for men. By 1980, women earned a majority of all associate and bachelor’s degrees. In 2010, women were a majority of the students on college and university campuses across the United States, earning fifty-nine percent of all associate and bachelor’s degrees (US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). This is relevant to my life now because I am currently a female student trying to earn my bachelor’s degree. Based on these statistics, thankfully, it seems that with each passing year it is becoming more common for females to earn these degrees whereas a century ago it would be unacceptable for me to be trying to earn a bachelor’s degree. 

 

Being a female college student, a huge concern of mine is graduating and not making as much money as I should be for the degree I will hold. Income is another issue we still see today based on gender. According to the text, in 2011 the median earnings for a women working full time was $37,118 and men working full time earned $48,202. This means that for every dollar earned by men, women earned about seventy-seven cents. Although the income gap is much better in comparison with the past, it is still an issue that women who have similar educational credentials, scores on standardized tests, fields of study and degrees from colleges of similar standings still get paid less.  

            

Overall, gender inequality is still an extremely important issue that needs to be addressed by society as a whole. Looking back a century ago we can see that there has been significant improvement in comparison to how socially disadvantaged women were then to now. Hopefully the transformation continues so that eventually we can have social equality between genders. 

                                                   

References

http://soe.sagepub.com/content/80/1/1.short

http://www.summer.harvard.edu/blog-news-events/gender-inequality-women-workplace