Then answer is no, all you have to do is be born male and graduate college. Throughout history women have strived for equality. The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production” (Robbins, 354). Throughout the world the disparity of rights for women is immense. The inequalities between girls and boys are evident prior to children beginning elementary school. Girls are made aware that they are unequal to boys as soon as they start.
Even different behaviors are acceptable for boys than for girls, for instance. Every time students are seated or lined up by gender, teachers are affirming that girls and boys should be treated differently. Girls are praised for being neat, quiet, and calm, whereas boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up. Girls are socialized in schools to recognize popularity as being important and learn that educational performance and ability are not as important. “Girls in grades six and seven rate being popular and well-liked as more important than being perceived as competent or independent.
Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to rank independence and competence as more important” (Bailey, 169). A permissive attitude towards sexual harassment is another way in which schools reinforce the socialization of girls as inferior. When schools ignore sexist, racist, homophobic, and violent interactions between students, they are giving tacit approval to such behaviors. We as a society taunt boys for throwing like a girl, or crying like a girl, which implies that being a girl is worse than being a boy.
According to the American Association of University Women Report, “The clear message to both boys and girls is that girls are not worthy of respect and that appropriate behavior for boys includes exerting power over girls — or over other, weaker boys” (Bailey, 173). “Because classrooms are microcosms of society, mirroring its strengths and ills alike, it follows that the normal socialization patterns of young children that often lead to distorted perceptions of gender roles are reflected in the classrooms” (Marshall, 334). Gender bias in education is reinforced through textbooks, lessons, and teacher interactions with students.
Gender bias is also taught through the resources chosen for classroom use, using textbooks that omit contributions of women or those that stereotype gender roles, further compounds gender bias in schools’ curriculum. Teachers need to be aware of the gender bias imbedded in many educational materials and texts and need to take steps to alleviate it. We need to look at the stories we are telling our students and children. Far too many of our classroom examples, storybooks, and texts describe a world in which boys and men are bright, curious, brave, inventive, and powerful, but girls and women are silent, passive, and invisible (McCormick ,40).
Teachers can help students identify gender-bias in texts and facilitate discussions as to why it exists. Since the passage of Title IX in 1972, that required schools receiving federal funds to provide equal opportunities for women and men, sports participation by women in high school and college has increased dramatically. In 1973, for example, when 50,000 men received some form of scholarship for their athletic abilities, while women received only 50 scholarships. Now, Women receive about 35 percent of the money allotted for college athletic scholarships, but this should be 50/50.
In addition to the glaring pay gap between what the coaches of men’s teams receive compared to the coaches of women’s teams, men who coach women’s teams tend to have high salaries than women coaching women’s teams. Women also have fewer opportunities than men as athletic trainers, officials, sports journalists, and other adjust positions (Massey, 236). The inequalities between the sexes become more pronounced as girls enter the workplace. Figures released by the US Census Bureau in 2003 show that the pay gap between women and men has widened.
Though over forty years have passed since the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, at which point women earned 59 cents to the dollar men earned, progress to attain its goals has been slow. With more families becoming dependent on women as breadwinners, and with approximately half of women entering retirement alone, the wage gap is a crucial issue that affects the health and well-being of women and their families. Reports from Women’s eNews say “The poverty rate for women and girls increased to 13. 7 percent from 13. ercent in 2002, increasing for the third straight year. ” In addition, the uninsured rate rose more sharply for women at four percent, with the rate for men only rising one percent (Sullivan). The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that the typical prime-age working woman earned $273,592 over the 15 year period between 1983 and 1998, compared with $722,693 for the typical prime-age working man. In addition to the wage gap, this discrepancy occurs because women work more part-time jobs and take more time out of the workforce to raise children.
However, the Asheville Citizen-Times reports that in October 2003 the General Accounting Office released a report titled “Women’s Earnings” that examined 18 years of data. The report found a 20 percent earnings gap between men and women that could not be explained, even after accounting for factors such as occupation, industry, marital status, and job tenure (feminst. org). Medical researchers were perplexed. Reports were coming in from all over the country: Women were twice as likely as men to die after coronary bypass surgery.
To solve this sociological puzzle, researchers measured the amount of time that surgeons kept patients on the heart-lung machine while they operated. They were surprised to learn that women spent less time on the machine than men. This indicated that the operation was not more difficult to perform on women. As the researchers probed, a surprising answer was unfoldedunintended sexual discrimination. Physicians had not taken the chest pains of their women patients as seriously as they took the complaints of their men patients. They were ten times more likely to give men exercise stress tests and radioactive heart scans.
They also sent men to surgery on the basis of abnormal stress tests, but waited until women showed clear-cut symptoms of coronary heart disease before sending them to surgery. Having surgery after the disease further reduces the chances of survival. Surgical sexism is apparent when men doctors recommend total hysterectomy (removal of both the uterus and the ovaries) when no cancer was present. The men doctors explained that the uterus and ovaries are “potentially disease producing. ” They also said that they are unnecessary after the childbearing years, so why not remove them?
Surgical sexism is reinforced by another powerful motivegreed. Surgeons make money by performing this surgery. But they have to “sell” the operation to women. To “convince” a woman to have this surgery, the doctor tells her, unfortunately, the examination has turned up fibroids in her uterusand they might turn into cancer. This statement is often sufficient, for it frightens women, who picture themselves dying from cancer. To clinch the sale, the surgeon withholds the rest of the truththat the fibroids probably will not turn into cancer and that she has several non-surgical alternatives (Henslin 266).
Even media attention on women is distorted. The roles of women presented in the media, from talk shows, to entertainment shows as well as news reporting can often end up reinforcing the status quo and the cultural stereotypes, which influence other women to follow suit. This happens in all nations, from the wealthiest to the poorest. It can have positive aspects, such as providing guidance and sharing issues but it can also have a negative effect of continuing inherent prejudices.
In the book, The Difference, by Judy Mann she wrote How many of us have had the energy at the end of a working day to vet musical taste of children? I am speaking of both boys and girls here for a very good reason: The recurring themes of violence against women in this music send a destructive message of permission to boys as well as a message of submission to girls. Consider the lyric from the rock group Guns N Roses in which they sing of murdering a former lover and then burying her in the backyard so they will not miss her.
Should anyone be shocked that a fourteen-year-old boy who listens to sadistic lyrics about women turns into a fraternity house gang-bang rapist a few year later (Mann, 6)? It requires all of us to unite in solidarity to end traditions, practices, and laws that harm women. It is a fight for freedom to be fully and completely human and equal without apology or permission. Ultimately, the struggle for women’s human rights must be about making women’s lives matter everywhere all the time. In practice, this means taking action to stop discrimination and violence against women.
