Sex and Gender Families and Aging
Just 20 years ago, in most states a woman could not sign an apartment lease, get a credit rating, or apply for a loan unless her husband or a male relative agreed to share the responsibility. Similarly, a 1965 study found that fifty one percent of men though women were "temperamentally unfit for management." There can be no doubt that we have progressed a long way from these ideas in the last three decades. However, it is also unquestionable that women in the work force are still discriminated against, sexually harassed, paid less than men, and suffer from occupational sex segregation and fears of failure as well as fears of success. We will address all of these concerns in this paper, and look at some well-known court cases as illustrations. In May 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Price Waterhouse had based its decision on unlawful sex stereotyping. The decision shifted the legal burden of proof to the employer, which should make it easier for employees to win future Title VII cases. Experts say that the decision's main affect may be to force companies to eliminate bias in the people making important personnel decisions for them. The decision was a landmark for anti-discrimination, but we should not overemphasize its p
ower. Even now, after a long and expensive court battle, only twenty eight of Price Waterhouse's nine hundred partners are women. Women dominate the clerical, teaching, and service professions, and men still dominant everything else. Some people argue that women limit themselves to these jobs voluntarily, because of sex differences or personality traits. However, the scientific evidence reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences does not support this view. Instead, it suggest that women face discrimination and institutional barriers such that "opportunities that women encounter in the labor market and in pre-market training and education constrain their choices to a narrow set of alternatives." Closely linked to sex discrimination in the job market, are sex segregation of occupations and wage inequalities. A recent article in the "Monthly Labor Review" noted that, "sex segregation continues to characterize the american workplace, despite the changes that have occurred in some occupations. Millions of women continue to work in a small number of almost totally female clerical and service occupations, and men continue to make up the majority of workers in the majority of occupations." The National Academy of Science published a study in 1986 on the cause, extent, an
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Approximate Word count = 861
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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