Social Construction of Sexism
In an attempt to revolutionalize the progress of women, many of today’s literature have chosen to focus on the domination of the female power projected today in society. However, despite the expected progress and power of the female population, reality and figures could not hide the fact that the women are, in truth, behind as ever from their male counterparts. Take, for example, Coontz’ (The Myth of Male Decline), a study of the real wages earned by women vis-à-vis the real wages earned by men reveal that women still occupy the back of today’s stage in society. Also, also taking from the writings of Coontz, many of today’s women employees compose only 40 percent of the industry’s management. Something more appealing is the fact that these female leaders earn only 73% of what their counterparts earn; as a matter of fact. In this country, only 4 percent were women in Fortune’s top 1,000 CEOs.
Coontz (The Myth of Male Decline) relates that this development was brought about only by an economic fortune convergence and not the progress of women, despite having many of these books state the progress and development of women. During the years 2010 and 2011 women and men who were considered full-time employees were situated to a 2.5 percent decline in their current wages. Men were mostly affected by having 80 percent of their population experience job losses since the 2007 recession. But then again, the ripple that happened during the recession then led to the reduction in the government jobs that might as well hit women in a proportion that is different with their counterparts. During the year 2012, the men were able to gain 46.2 percent of their jobs which they lost during the recession while the women were only able to regain 38.7 percent from the jobs that they lost.
The Effects of Institutional Sexism
This disproportionate entitlement in the wages, education, and employment in women were already battled during the years the 1970s and 1980s wherein there was remarkable in the movement of job segregation in the middle-class categories. However, it was still reported that during the 1990s, there has been a reduction in the reduction and then came to a stop during the year 2000. This fact is a problem in America that has been long present since the time of the patriarchal dividend. The patriarchal dividend lengthened the discrimination among the sexes because of its long-time affirmative action program for the male population. Because of this dividend that was discovered fifty years ago, many of today’s men have a feeling of entitlement to lead in every industry. At home, they are considered the decision makers and full providers. At work, they are seen as the revolutionary leaders and the agents of change. Because of the divide that was started long ago, education, work, finances and the penetration of the industry have been a difficult feat for the modern day women. Even integration in degrees has been impossible to create since most girls who earn their college degrees are still concentrated on the traditionally female areas of studies. It was even declared by the NYU sociologist, Paula England that despite having received higher grades, the women were led to study degrees which pay less than their male counterparts. This scenario is one great evidence to prove this gender disparity. According to Coontz (The Myth of Male Decline), women who only finish high school earn less than their male counterparts who have finished the same degree but get higher salaries upon finishing college. This higher wage is not caused by their grade point averages but rather because of the event that women are seen to need more education in carrying out the more difficult jobs.
The Myth of the Male Mystique
Just as the women are discriminated because of the female mystique, the men are also seen to have been affected by the same mystique at this time. According to Coontz (The Myth of Male Decline), the masculine population are discouraged to neglect the improvement of their selves in the belief that even without doing any improvements, their manliness will still be recognized. A perfect example would be in the school wherein boys who choose to study and behave are teased as being girly and are bullied for wanting to improve. In the work setting, the men who choose their family involvements more than their work, are penalized just as the women who are involved in reaching for their ambitions.
The scenarios mentioned above relate to how discrimination and segregation are heavily affected by the rules institutionalized by society. As such, this great disparity is only ceased at the time that society decides to change from within. Nobody will progress despite the class, gender or age if these set of images and rules are continually patronized by many of today’s people.
Works Cited
Coontz, Stephanie. "The Myth of Male Decline - The New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2012. Web. 15 Apr. 2016.
