Feminism And Neoliberalism

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Recommended: Gender inequality in the work force

Employers take advantage of the social and domestic skills acquired by women through gender role socialization and hire them for jobs involving nurturing, cleaning, waiting on other people, and public relations work. This social constructed stereotype is the reason for gendering inequality and instabilities in the labour market. But, alongside the gender roles, neoliberalism policy shift is also to blame for this discrimination. In this essay, I will look at what neoliberalism is, how it is implemented in the labour market and analyze the Equality Pay Act legislation by relying on various academic resources.
Neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices that suggests that human well being can best be advanced and improved by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade (Olssen and Peters, 2005). It emerged with European scholars back in 1930 when they attempted to find the middle ground between the opposing ideals of classical liberalism and collectivist central planning. With the emergence of neoliberalism, myths start to arise; specifically the myth of the government’ rejection from the participation of the markets. The reality is that the role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices (Olssen and Peters, 2005). The most important thing in neoliberalism is the relationship between the government and the economy so individuals can liberate as entrepreneurs within the rules of the game; categorized by free trade and markets. The state sets rules like regulation and deregulation in order to create more markets, specifically in the areas where w...

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...been unhelpful to women because family “flexible” accommodation and arrangements are only to be provided to employees in which firms have invested heavily rather than it being a based upon need.
In conclusion, this paper has covered neoliberalism and its influence in the labor force, gender discrimination of the workplace and an analysis of the Equality Pay Act (which was relied upon in Shultz v. Wheaton Glass). Ideally the Equality Pay Act was instilled to prevent gender discrimination in the workplace but realistically speaking, neoliberalism is making such ideal impossible to attain (Shultz v. Wheaton Glass Co, 1970). For neoliberalism to work, there needs to be an underpaid minority group so that way, those included in the ‘lucky scope’ are able to get proper pay (Olssen and Peters, 2005). The market is working towards equality in a highly unequal environment.

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