Tammy Sauve

12/12/10
Social Institutions and Their Affect on The Labor Force
Soc 220 Final Exam

From an early age, we are groomed by social institutions to engage in gender

appropriate behaviors by using rewards or punishments to mold our gender

identities. Studies have shown that girls are rewarded for maintaining quiet and

passive demeanors while boys are encouraged to be assertive and to take action

through aggressive approaches, in pre-school settings. Elementary school text books

show little if any acknowledgement of women and when they do the text usually

focuses on the woman’s personality attributes rather than any thing of significance

or importance, undermining her capabilities. Men are the main focus in elementary

school text books, showing their historical significance, scientific contributions to

society or their important status in our world politics to name a few, teaching society

that men are the important, significant gender.

Teachers contribute to gender bias by participating in micro-inequities. They

follow the standard educational curriculum, allowing gender discrimination. This

has not changed much, since the 1950’s. Teachers may segregate children by sex,

addressing “boys and girls”, in that the boy comes first over the girl, assign gender

appropriate chores such as the girls clean the room and the boys construct a project.
Teachers do participate in the hidden curriculum in this gender bias way, furthering

our gender inequality in society.

Girls popularity is gauged by their physical attractiveness to where boys

popularity is weighed by their athletic success. This age old adage still holds true in

today’s day and age, demonstrating that our gender roles have not changed much

nor have they made large strides in liberating or blending our genders, towards

greater equality. The Title IX act signed in 1972, to forbid sex discrimination in the

education system has turned out to be a mere formality rather something to be

taken seriously.

Most women depicted in the media are attractive, fit, beautiful and young,

making the average women feel inferior to the ideal woman seen displayed in the

media. The media’s use of reflection hypothesis, makes woman out to be shallow

and self absorbed, portraying the woman to be wrapped up in ones appearance or

their relationships with men. News coverage on women is considered “soft news” or

in other words, not news worthy or of significance. Much of the media coverage on

women is peppered with linguistic sexism that undermines women’s roles, their

importance in society or the significance in the work force. This symbolic

annihilation sends a message that women are less important than men, lowering

their self esteem and respect for themselves.

Most of the liberating changes made by women, both past and present, were

primarily made in the work force. Many woman now have careers that are

comparable to men’s positions of power or authority, such as women being in

political positions of power, presidents of corporations or principles of schools. A

marker that measures women’s true strides in the work force, expanding her

options in career choice's. Though most power positions are still held by men today

and are still paid more than woman are, what counts is that women now have

broken into these powerful arena’s, paving the way for other women to follow suit.

Most households are now two-earner families, where the woman works outside of

the home, compared to thirty years ago. Though women now work outside of the

home, they are still expected to bear most of the housework and caring for the

children, which puts her at a disadvantage in the work force. Many women choose

to take on part time, low paying jobs due to their family and housework

responsibilities, known as the “human capital theory”.

Women make less than men for many different reasons, regardless if she has the

same education or the same career title as the male co-worker, next to her. Just

being the wrong gender, a woman, can prevent her from getting hired in the first

place, like employers using “statistical discrimination”, that is the woman falls into
a

group where the employer thinks she will have low productivity at work because of

her family duties and demands. Men in the work place still think women’s primary

focus should be on her family not on her career or they may feel that only men
should

be in positions of power, creating a “glass ceiling”, which in affect prevents her from

climbing the ladder at work. Early education depicts women in female occupations

and men in male orientated careers, encouraging “occupational sex segregation”

early in their development, paving the way for future “dual labor market”

occupations.
 Trivial issues preventing women from achieving a higher career status

could be something as simple as how attractive she is, how many children she has or

weather she is married or single. The women gender have to work twice as hard in

our society, to get half the results as the male gender.