Anthropology Gender Roles

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Over the last 55 years, the number of women in the workplace has steadily increased to nearly the same number of men. Additionally, jobs that women hold have expanded into roles that were once male-dominated, such as business professionals, doctors, lawyers, etc., and some women have even broken through the Glass Ceiling into senior management and executive roles. However, in spite of various laws and regulations that are in place to protect women in the workplace, women continue to experience various forms of inequality, including unequal pay, fewer job advancement and training opportunities, and stereotyping and workplace harassment. Relevance in anthropology Men and women have played various roles in society since the beginning of time and these roles have evolved over time. How the two genders interact in various settings and outputs they produce together are important to maintain a productive society. Since the 1960s, women have …show more content…

This movement pushed to allow women better jobs (outside the stereotypical nurse, teacher, and secretary roles they typically held) and salaries to close the salary gap between men and women. Post World War II, there was an increase in the number of jobs that needed to be filled, including white-collar jobs in the private sector which required a college education. Women soon started filling these abundant roles because there simply was not enough men to work and families also needed extra income. This trend continued through the sixties and by the seventies it was clear both middle-class and working-class women were in the workforce for good and “working for wages outside the home has become the norm.” (Epstein, 2002, p. 35) This time period was, according to Epstein (2002), “connected to a transformation of the economy that was drawing women into the labor force on a permanent basis.” (p.

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