Literature Review On Gender Roles

Women weren't allowed to chase after their dreams and in the eye of society, not be able to complete a job position that a man held because they are not equal. “ Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain’t no place for a girl, specially like her. “ (Steinbeck 78) This quote is addressing that a girl shouldnt be on this ranch full of men, making this a standard that women wouldn’t even be considered for a job in this field. The woman they are referring to in this quote is

The issue of women’s rights and how different societies and cultures deal with it had been on the table for many centuries. In the United States of America during the 1800s, women began to move toward and demand getting equal rights as men, they decided to speak up and fight for their stolen rights. In the 1960s, continued working toward their goal, women broadened their activities through the women’s rights movement which aimed to help them in gaining their right to receive education, occupy the same jobs that were once titled only for men, and get an access to leadership positions. The women’s rights movement has a great impact on women today, although it started a long time ago, but it did not stop and women are reaping their fruit today,

For many years when an infant is born the baby’s announcement is placed in the newspaper with the enclosed information about the baby’s sex. The way one is born is how one should portray oneself to act. Do we stereotype gender? Legal Scholar, Patricia Williams, believes that society does. In Williams essay, “Are We Worried about Storm’s Identity – or Our Own?” supports her argument.

As the years progress, prostitution will continue to be viewed a corrupt and shameful profession. The public opinion around prostitution has dramatically changed over the past century. In John Steinbeck’s novel, East of Eden, he describes a time where prostitution was not only common but accepted. Throughout the novel, he mentions the profession several times and the public views surrounding it.

She clearly does not accept the way society views mothers. With further investigation, it was discovered that Karen Rinaldi has produced several works, some titles including What is Men For? and The End of Men, by reviewing some of her additional work it can be predicted that the author is somewhat of a feminist who supports better treatment of women. This can be seen throughout the entire piece. More of her views are shares as her argument continues to share how she believes society views mothers: “When a woman becomes pregnant, she seems to become public property” (Rinaldi). With this she is referring to how in some societies women are just seen as child bearers, just there to “ensure the continuation of the species.”

The growing rift in today’s polarized political and socio-economic climates beg the question: when did this estrangement begin? Similar to the polarization of the political and socio-economic climates, the polarization between gender values has likewise always been an object of study for scientists. The ideas of gender specific behaviors and attributes have been around for a long time, but the ideas of where they belong are hardly agreed upon. Rhoda Jordan, a spiritual mentor, writer, and actress, speaks of a harmony between values that reside in each person, regardless of gender. In order to have a world that is inclusive and available for all, Jordan argues through the article “The Problem With Masculinity” that this distinction breeds hostility

But these jobs didn’t satisfy Anthony, which lead her to change jobs to an assistant manager of the family farm (Zimmermen). At the farm, she was exposed to american reform views. She was exposed by men such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and many others. Even though this motivated her to become a supporter of reformation, she couldn’t succeed with her goals because she was discriminated and ignored for being a woman. This was the last drop for her, she became friends with many activists, then met with them and discussed their mutual concerns over a wide range of issues.

From the very beginning of our lives, a majority of us are told or taught upon by cues on how to act according to our gender. Saying that if one wants to perform gender right, than girls should act a certain way, while boys act another. In,“Night to His Day,” Judith Lorber discuses how the formation of gender begins, “For the individual, gender construction starts with the assignment to a sex category on the basis of what the genitalia look like at birth” (Lober 1994:55). Solely based off the genitalia, it will be determined if the child is a boy or a girl; from their parents will dress their child in a certain way to make that gender prevalent to an outsider.

For many years there has been controversies about the gender wage gap in our society. Discrimination, abuse, illegal, unfair, and chauvinism are some of terms that come to our minds when this topic is brought to the table since these are the words most critics, advocates, feminist activist, social workers and many others use to refer to the wide gender pay gap existing nowadays. In this paper we are going to examine the arguments of J. R. Shackleton and Hilary M. Lips, to have a better understanding of the gender wage gap in our country and to see if there is a possible solution to this problem.

A study done by William R. Doyle, an assistant professor of higher education at Vanderbilt University claims, that the number of women in the workforce affects the size of the wage gap. He concludes that as the number of women in the workforce rose, therefore, the gap decreased due to more women comprising a part of the economy. Another reason that the gender wage gap got smaller over time was due to congress enacting the Equal Pay Act. This is because throughout history the government, although unsuccessfully, have tried to get rid of or lessen the gender pay gap. According to Paul Weiler a professor of law at Harvard Law school, during president Kennedy’s time in office Kennedy encountered problems with the gender pay gap and imposed a ban on it he called the Equal Pay act of 1963.

Steven Lubar breaks chapter one into three parts: the historical background, roles of gender in technology, and the mapping of borderlines between production and consumption. The analysis of gender in technology is broken down into “separate spheres” for easier examination, dividing “domestic” and “public” into two. This idea of “spheres” questions whether the industrial revolution caused women to be pushed out of the production side of things or if “changing the ideals of the proper work of woman as consumers, then, helped drive the industrial revolution.” By further investigation, it is found that the industrial revolution helped redefine masculinity by using mechanical metaphors, ultimately shifting production to invention to engineering into a man’s role. Technology has since then been redefined, arguing that women’s work was “natural” rather than skilled.