ESSAY

QUESTION #2
Around the world, work is a gendered phenomenon where certain occupations are labeled
feminine and others are labeled masculine. Gender roles, stereotypes and implicit and explicit
forms of biases contribute to both horizontal and vertical segregation in the US paid labor
market.

Gender Roles and Stereotypes play a role in contributing to different types of segregation in the
US paid labor market. Women and men are perceived with different characteristics. Women
are associated with femininity and are seen as caring, understanding, and nurturing (mothers).
Men are associated with masculinity and are seen as stronger, active and heroes (bread-
winners). Different types of segregation are included. Vertical segregation is where men are
higher up the job ladder than women. There is a disproportionate number of men in hierarchy
of companies. Horizontal segregation is the segregation of women and men into different jobs.
For example, pink collar jobs are extensions of reproductive labor or work in the home.
Feminine occupations are seen involved in caring for other people, the aged and the young.
Masculine occupations include technology and medicine. They are valued more than female
occupation, require more skill, are riskier and dangerous and have more responsibility. For
example, masculine label applied to stem jobs, pilots, military firefighter and medicine.
Feminine label is attached to clerical, child care and nurse jobs. Society believes that women
are good at them naturally where no skills are involved and it is less dangerous. In Virtuous
Valentine women work in factories producing flowers and are in more dangerous conditions
where they are sexually harassed and assaulted. Also, the chemicals from the flower fertilizer
are harmful, and they arent compensated for this.

Even when we implement control for these factors, we have a wage gap due to implicit bias
among other things. Implicit bias is bias in judgement or behavior resulting from subtle
cognitive process. In other words, it is the unconsciousness stereotypes affecting a persons
actions. For example, glass escalator which is the practice where men who go into traditionally
female dominate professions are more likely to receive prestige, pay and power than women.
More specifically, a male teacher who has the same qualifications as their female counterpart
will receive tenure. Another example is the status of work where when occupation becomes
female flooded, the status of the occupation is lowered followed the lowering of wages. A third
example, managers are more likely to hire males with no valid reason. More specifically, in
how stereotypes impair womens careers in science: a manager is twice as likely to hire men
than to hire women when the sole difference in candidacy was gender.

Explicit forms of bias contribute to vertical and horizontal segregation. Explicit bias is bias in
judgement or behavior reflecting ones attitude or behaviors at a conscious level. There have
been several discriminatory pay cases where women were consciously discriminated against
based on gender resulting in the wage gap. In Beck vs. Boeing a class of female employees
alleged that the companys policies discriminated against them on the basis of sex. An example
of explicit bias is discrimination against immigrant women in food production and processing.
Specifically, In EEOC vs. DeCoster the manager sexually harassed female employees, knowing
that because of immigrant status, would be too scared/shy to say anything about abuse.
 ESSAY QUESTION #3
Gendered ideas about work in the household effect womens and mens workloads in the
typical heterosexual family. There are implications of these household divisions of labor for
womens and mens lives both inside and outside of the home. There are also some ways that
people could challenge these inequities in their everyday lives.

In the household there are gendered ideas of workloads to be divided among the heterosexual
couple. While men are expected to take care of the field work around the house, (necessary
painting, installations, ordinary plumbing issues), a lot more is expected out of women. Women
are expected to cook, clean, sweep the floor, load the dishwasher, empty the dishwasher, mop,
bear and raise children, bath children, teach them right from wrong among many other
chores.

It is evident through the above statements that women have a much heavier, more energy
consuming, all time around workload then men do. Men can generally postpone the work they
need to do around the house as it is normally not a time pressing matter. As a result, there are
implications of these household divisions of labor. Women are more likely to not have as much
time to devote to their work outside of the house and dont have the time to invest in their
professions and future. Men are more likely allowed more time to devote to their jobs and are
thus more likely to get offered a promotion. Men are more likely to get injured doing
housework (installations) as it is generally more dangerous than what a woman is expected to
do.

There are ways that people could challenge these inequities in their everyday lives. The
household divisions of labor could be split more evenly, where women could take part in
assisting in installations so the man is generally less susceptible to injuries. The man on the
other hand can step up and take more responsibilities in house work and cut out the idea that
only women work in the kitchen. They can help with dishes, with cooking and raising the
children. Ads are gender stereotypical Women are always seen either cooking or cleaning. Men
are associated with cars (AUDI super bowl commercial) and tools. We dont realize exactly how
much we internalize images that we see on TV Start to generalize and act based on it and also
construct identity. If we could challenge the perception of gendered ideas of work in
commercials and media in general, this could be a way that people could challenge these
inequities in their everyday lives.










 ESSAY QUESTION #4
The Brock Turner sexual assault case was an eye opener for many who watched the case
unfold. Brock Turner, sexually assaulted a passed out women at a Stanford part and was in
return given a light sentence. Instead of a goal setting question asked such as what has society
done wrong for this kind of thing to happen the questions were actually about blaming the
victim. For example, the most popular question was what was she wearing that day? Gender
based violence has come to be a major focus lately. Research has shown that of women and
1/33 of men will experience assault in their lifetime. Gender role socialization is a major
contributor to gender based violence in society.

First off, gender role socialization begins at a very young age starting with family. Girls are
perceived as feminine and generally passive, weak and dependent on others. Boys are
perceived as masculine and generally active, strong, aggressive and independent. Regarding
power, we teach boys and girls to have one dominate and the other to be subdued. Regarding
emotion, girls can show emotion, while boys must be detached. Boys are raised to hide
emotion, to see sensitivity as a weakness, and girls are raised to be dependent and to support
masculine behavior.

Secondly, there is the idea of gendered bullying in schools. For example, in Betrayed by an
Angel, boys will pick on girls such as stabbing them with pencils, and no one did anything. As
for punishment, boys get a bigger punishment for cheating than for making fun of girls or for
pushing a girl on the playground.

Thirdly, with adults, manners also play a role. Women are taught to be polite and good
mannered. For example, in Betrayed by an Angel a man breaks into her apartment and
sexually assaults her and she doesnt want to be rude. She even complements him so he is nice
to her. With adults, there is also the idea of blaming the victim. Many things are said, such as it
was the victims fault for what she was wearing, or doing at the time. It is never focused on the
assailant who did the action. For example, in the Ted Talk by Jackson Katz, Jack beat Mary is
changed to Mary is a battered woman. This shifts the attention to Mary only.