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Alexas Da Silva
Professor Jackie
English 113A
October 28, 2015
Womens Right Analysis
In the past gender roles were more clearly defined but now many people feel confusion about
them. Many people today dont really know how to think about their role in society and what is
expected of them. In online entry "Gender Roles" it states that Your answers to these questions
may depend on the types of gender roles you were exposed to as a child. Gender roles can be
defined as the behaviors and attitudes expected of male and female members of a society by that
society (faqs.org). Most people understand that their children are influenced by the way their
parents and teachers educate them and because of this, change is slow. So it is not surprising that
even now there is still an issue of how women are viewed in today's society. One would expect
by now we wouldnt have so many problems with women's equality but in reality we still do.
Just recently the media company Sony got hacked and information was leaked concerning how
much money actors were paid for various popular films. In Business Insider, in an articled
entitled "LEAKED: Jennifer Lawerence got American Hustled in Sony Deal," it was reported,
In the latest leaked Sony emails, it was revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were
paid less than their male costars in 2013's American Hustle, which was co-financed by Sony's
arm Columbia Pictures (Weisman). This shows how even in the movie industry, women are still
not paid equally with men. Even though Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were co-stars of the
movie they were not co-paid. The reason why this is an issue is because its proof positive that
women are not getting fair treatment. There is even a law, the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which

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made it "illegal for employers to pay unequal wages to men and women who perform
substantially equal work (White House gov). Yet women are still not getting paid equally.
Another problem we still have is family expectations. Her fathers response was que Bueno
mija- thats good( De Leon 211). But what she later noticed was my father thought college was
good for girls - good for finding a husband ( De Leon 211). Later on she explains how she went
to college and her father thought she had wasted her time because she didnt find a husband.
With these expectations for Latino women, the women try really hard to get approval from their
families to be more important in society rather than being the stereotypical housewife. Another
issue we have is that women live with double standards when it comes to caring for children and
doing houseowrk. For example, according to the Pew Research Center, studies have shown that
"In 1960, nearly all mothers with young children were married, compared with just 70% today.
About four-in-ten (41%) of all births today are to unmarried women; this was true of only 5% of
births in 1960 (Caumont and Wang). These young unmarried mothers of course must care for
the children by themselves. Yes, over time women have choosen have children later in life, but
many mothers are still expected to have children young because is required by some cultural
social norms. Even amoung older, married couples women are expected to work far harder at
home than the men: "Working mothers do 20 hours of housework each week, compared to
working fathers, who do 10 (faqs.org). This double standard shows how mothers today still
have have twice the work of men which ties back to the original point that women are still not
equally paid even though they do the same amount of work or even more work than men.

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Works Cited
"5 Questions (and Answers) about American Moms Today." Pew Research Center RSS.,
09 May 2014.
Web. 28 Oct. 2015."Health." Gender Roles, Information about Gender Roles. Web. 28
Oct. 2015.
"Did You Know That Women Are Still Paid Less Than Men?" The White House. The White
House, Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Weisman, Aly. "LEAKED: Jennifer Lawrence Got American Hustled In Sony Deal."
Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 14 Dec. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Leon, Jennifer De. Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education. Print.