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Brianna Reyes
Professor Ogbara
English 101
28 November 2015
Gender Inequality in Male Dominant Fields
For many years, women have struggled to find peace, equality, and independence in their
lifetime to feel comfortable and accepted in this world. Gender inequality has and will always be
an issue in America, and it needs to be fixed. Due to gender inequality, womens opportunities in
society, the workplace, and in life have been limited. A question I have is Do men treat women
different because they work in male dominant fields? Do men not take women seriously? Lastly,
I want to know do women feel intimidated and hopeless because they are surrounded by only
men in their workplace? I would like to know if women feel respected since they are women and
are working in male dominant fields. Due to this, gender inequality has become a struggle for
women working in male dominant fields; such as: engineering, finance, police officers,
firefighters, and powerful leaders in the government. Women are not treated the same as men for
various reasons and it needs to end because time has changed and women deserve to be treated
the same as men.
Many people may wonder What is gender inequality? A website called smarter.com
answered by a male/female who stated internationally, gender inequality is prevalent in many
areas of life, including education, employment, medical care, laws and violence. There are overt
examples of inequality, such as a large discrepancy in pay between men and women, and more
subtle examples of inequality, such as different interview questions asked of women than men.
(smarter 1) Gender Inequality is simply treating women and men differently. Based on the

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definition given by smarter.com, I agree that inequality includes in all areas in life. However,
employment may be the most common because throughout this time everyone is striving to be
successful and women are not getting the same treatment as men do. We can all agree that
women have conquered a whole lot of obstacles through out the decades and are seen different.
Females can now stand on their own two feet without any help from a man they are independent.
Now thankfully women have the same amount of opportunities as men do. For example, they can
now vote for who they believe will be a great ruler of our country, have an education at the
school they would like to attend, and are allowed to choose whatever career they want, whether it
is in the male dominant field or not.
Back in the early 1950s, women were seen as an object and were not allowed to have an
opinion. Whenever some women would speak their minds, whether it was about life, or how they
choose to live the males in their life would beat them. However, there still is feminism here in
this world; and sometimes women are underestimated and men still think they are the dominant
ones. That is not the case any more; women are independent. Females just do not believe it
sometimes because of the way men treat them. This topic on gender inequality is related to
todays audience because it shows how people can influence women to think they are less
superior and an example would be how still till this day there is no women president. Why? Is it
because people think this country can not be lead by women? According to the article The Real
Reason We Havent Yet Had a Female President author Sarah Mahood who is a senior at
Wellesley College studying political science and economics, with a focus on women in politics
states While women make up half the American population, they comprise less than 20% of
Congress. Only 36 women have served as governors in the United States, and just five women
serve today. (Mahood) In this article Mahood explains how in the past lifetime there has been a

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total of 36 women who served in government, a total of 5 were serving at that time when the
article was written which was in 2012. Women have changed, especially in their workplace or
overall in life. According to Mahood, women are not so big in the government which is a male
dominant field because In order to increase the representation of women in politics, we must
build a more welcoming political culture. Women are just as likely as men to win campaigns; the
problem is that they're far less likely to even get to that point. Women are less confident that they
are capable of serving. (Mahood) Currently the United States of America is having a female by
the name of Hilary Clinton run for president. Clinton has a background that contains successful
family members who were involved in the government such as her husband Bill Clinton who ran
for President 1993-2001. Clinton has had experience by being the first lady; she then was elected
U.S Senator from 2001 to 2009. Clinton has all the potential in the world but some people look
past that because she is female. Instead they vote for a male who seems honest and has no
background in the U.S government.
To answer my second question, men are treated differently then women and the article
Breaking Down Barriers for Women in the Workplace written by Andrea Rees Davies talks
about how women who worked changed their gender into a male and these transgender people
say their life as a male at work was a whole lot easier. They found that as a male they were more
respected. He writes Two-thirds of the transgender men in Schilt's study experienced workplace
rewards in a newfound authority and competence. Such rewards created new opportunities and
economic gains. Some trans men were placed on the fast-track for promotions and raises
(Davies paragraph 8) Life as a male is easier because they do not get looked down upon and do
not have so much pressure like women do. Women not only need to earn their respect in a male
dominant environment, but they have to worry about their image as well. Women need to remain

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lady like; for example, women should not use foul language. However, men do it all the time
and it is not fair that they do not get punished just because they are males. However females get
warnings and threats to be fired from their job since they need to act like proper ladies.
When women work in male dominant fields, they tend to get paid less.
Sadly women work twice as hard as men to not only get the job but maintain
it and no matter what they will always get paid less money. The article Why
Woman still make less in the US by author Robert Longley states, Women in
the workforce are also less likely to work a full-time schedule and are more likely to leave the
labor force for longer periods of time than men, further suppressing women's wages. These
differing work patterns lead to an even larger earnings gap between men and women - suggesting
that working women are penalized for their dual roles as wage earners and those who
disproportionately care for home and family. Men with children appear to get an earnings boost,
whereas women lose earnings. Men with children earn about 2% more on average than men
without children, according to the GAO findings, whereas women with children earn about 2.5%
less than women without children. (Longley 1) After reading these statistics, I do not believe
how women get paid less then men. It does not make sense because some women specifically
single mothers have to deal with there children and they worry about providing for them.
Strangely, according to the statistics, women who have children tend to get paid less then women
that do not. It may have to be because the females that have children may have not finished
school since they had to go out and look for a job soon to feed and shelter there kids. However,
what is the excuse for men? Men get paid more if they have children, most likely because some
men may have made there wives stay home and take care of there kids while they can go and
finish school and get the career they want to have. This is not fair, women have to put there

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dreams aside and take care of their children where as men do not have to worry since in this
society men are the ones who should be providing for there families.
According to Longley, women earn less because they are more busy then men. Example
is like working at home. They have more responsibilities especially if she is a mother or a wife.
Women have to juggle around a busy schedule where men do not have to worry as much
compared to mother. An article called About workplace gender equality written by writers of
the Australian Government claims Many countries worldwide, including Australia, have made
significant progress towards gender equality in recent decades, particularly in areas such as
education. However, women continue to earn less than men, are less likely to advance their
careers as far as men, and are more likely to spend their final years in poverty. At the same time,
men often find it more difficult to access family-friendly policies or flexible working
arrangements than women. (Government of Australia) The Government of Australia states that
women however do receive a better education and according to statistics by the United Nations,
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations Overall, we find that women are more likely
to pursue tertiary education in countries with higher levels of national wealth. In most wealthy
countries, female students clearly outnumber men at the tertiary level. In Iceland, there are
almost twice as many women enrolled in tertiary education as men. In the United States and the
Russian Federation, there are about 129 and 126 female students for every 100 male students,
respectively. A similar pattern is found in Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela. (Unesco Institue)
Today, women have all the tools in the world to go out there and study hard; because according
to statistics females have better education then men do. Sometimes women may give up in there
dream jobs since they have to deal with men. However, if they really want a career they can
become their own bosses and possibly own their own business. Women are capable and have all

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the potential in the world; they just have to master all the masculine qualities in order for them to
be successful. Men who are successful are confident and women lack confidence because some
men might have told them otherwise.
Gender inequality has to end, and in order for this to succeed women have to stop being
stereotyped and pictured as weak or simply just a housewife. Many women get rejected from
jobs because men feel they are not capable of doing the job. Just like in the short story The
Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, author wrote about how main character is
suffering from depression and how she feels trapped in a house with this wallpaper that makes
her angry and all she wants to do is burn the entire house down. The real reason however was her
husband. Her husband was keeping her trapped and having he isolated so she would not get to
write or do anything. Her husband thought it was the best for her and her condition. I bring up
this story because some men may think they know what is right. Sometimes when women get
rejected from getting hired from a business, then they fall into a hole and begin to believe that
they are not good enough. This is why men say we are weak and are not capable of handling a
powerful job. With all the opportunities women have now they can create their own business if
they wanted too. There should be no excuse; everyone needs to realize that we are equal.
Women tend to have jobs like teachers and nurses, because it is difficult to compete with men. In
the book A Room of Ones Own author Virginia Woolf created a fake story about how the life of
Shakespeares sister would be and it ended up awful because she did not get accepted as a writer
nor an actor and she ended up pregnant from a man who was not married to her, in the end she
decided to kill herself. This proves how some woman would rather die then to be looked down
upon by men.

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In order for us to make women feel comfortable in the workplace that is mainly
men, everyone has to respect women and have faith and confidence that they can get the job
done. As women are gaining rights, women are making the world fairer little by little. Both
genders suffer from gender inequality; however, we feel it is mostly effects women because it is
only natural for people to feel the need to protect women. In the end of the day women are
required to assume masculine qualities in order to achieve success. Women can work with men
and they are strong enough to become successful leaders and have well paying jobs just like men
do. Women can be talented enough to maintain a well paying job, have kids at home, live single,
and sometimes find time to cook and clean. If they are able to do that then men and women
should be treated equally and women have the right to get paid the same amount of money as
men do. Women are hard workers and smart, they are able to do anything just like men. We
proved to ourselves and many people in the world that it is time to not get out looked just
because of our gender. Sex should not matter in a job, if someone has the experience or
education to get the job done then that person should get hired. Women and men are equal and
they both deserve the same amount of credit because life isnt easy and it takes a lot for someone
to finish school and look for job. Everyone here now can get the same amount of education and
now there should be no reason for gender inequality.

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