Authors of the book Modern Sexism: Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimination, Nijole V. Benokraitis and Joe R. Feagin, examine gender inequality and sexual discrimination in today’s society while comparing them to issues of the past with hard hitting facts. The book examines multiple forms of sexual discrimination, in addition to the past decades problems. Overall, the authors use of nonstop statistics created a view of a bleak future for the female race. As stated, Benokraitis and Feagin examine multiple forms of sexual discrimination. These different types included, blatant sex discrimination, subtle, and covert. Within each realm, the authors reviewed the steps of each discrimination and gave real life examples for each. Along with blatant, …show more content…
Additionally, blatant discrimination is not always illegal; currently some forms are considered legal. Blatant discrimination begins first on the home front. This does not just reference the general idea of a man’s right to sex or a women cooking dinner every night for her nuclear family, however it also includes the way children are raised. If a child is seeing their mother being treated as an object for their father, then they could consequently grow with similar standards for women. Blatant discrimination includes violent discrimination such as rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Most women are injured by domestic violence in the household than rape and car accidents combined. Blatant discrimination may start in the home but continues to the workforce. Though women have been breaking barriers in certain occupations, women still are being segregated at work. Despite the minority of women that work in male dominant careers, women are still heavily working secretarial careers while men lead in managerial jobs. An interesting statistic given by the book states that women make up approximately 8.5 percent of dentists, compared to 98.4 percent of women who are working as dental assistants. If being segregated was not blatant enough, women also have a significant wage gap for comparable
Discrimination happens every day, whether inadvertently or not. This mindset has been practiced for thousands upon thousands of years. We live in a society that is quick to judge other individuals based on their cultural background, race, age, even their financial status. Discrimination has been an ongoing issue throughout the world since the beginning of time. Women, throughout history, have experienced discrimination first hand for a long time. The women’s cultural background, race, financial status mattered, but not as much as the fact that she was a woman first. For example, women were thought of as fragile individuals with bodies that were not built to a man’s standard. For thousands
Despite legislation for equal opportunities, sexism is still evident in the workplace. Women have made great advancements in the workforce and have become an integral part of the labor market. They have greater access to higher education and as a result, greater access to traditionally male dominated professions such as law. While statistics show that women are equal to men in terms of their numbers in the law profession, it is clear however, that they have not yet achieved equality in all other areas of their employment. Discrimination in the form of gender, sex and sexual harassment continues to be a problem in today’s society.
Sexism is a highly talked about issue read about online, seen in the news, and experienced in the day to day lives of many. The importance of this issue can be found in many writings. Authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Linda Hasselstrom, and Judy Brady have all discussed the topic of sexism in writings and how they affected their lives. Although each writer addresses the issue of sexism, each author confronts a different type of sexism; the kind we are born into, the kind we learn growing up, and the kind that is accepted by society at the end of the day.
Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race. However, these groups of black people are exceptions to the rule and consist of only a tiny fraction of all black Americans. These black people in turn actually help to reinforce the inequality of black Americans by allowing Americans of other races to focus on their success. A common thought is, "They made it, why can't you do the same?" The direct and truthful answer to that question is Racism.
Sex Discrimination in the American Workplace: Still a Fact of Life. (2000, July 01). Retrieved from National Women's Law Center : www.nwlc.org
Gender discrimination, that is a form of prejudice, is one of the dangerous global issues facing all societies nowadays. It is considered as a civil rights violation, especially to women. That is interpreted by traditional stereotypes of gender roles which are over-generalized ideas about a particular group of individuals. It leads to neglecting people’s differences and uniqueness and to having a certain image based on one opinion or belief. Stereotypes often give a certain generalized impression that is often not entirely true, especially about gender issues. No matter how developed a country
In Michelle Alexander’s speech on her book The New Jim Crow, she vividly describes the past forms of blatant oppression of minority groups, especially Latino, and even more so, African American men. Such political systems such as slavery and Jim Crow Laws, were discussed as government intended repression of African Americans. The War on Drugs is then blamed for unfairly targeting minorities, which results in staggering rates of Black and Hispanic arrests. She later relates the past direct forms of discrimination to today’s indirect forms, and informs her audience on how our present political system has a very similar effect to the Jim Crow laws. I feel she effectively and convincingly states her argument using clear and concise language.
In today’s workplace, African Americans continue to be subjected to overt discrimination. This can take the form of ethnic jokes, racial slurs and exclusionary behaviors by Euro-American co-workers and managers. Even more disturbing is the verbal abuse, calculated mistreatment and even physical threats experienced by some African Americans while on the job. African Americans have also faced overt acts such as being reassigned to lower level projects, not receiving a promotion even though they were equally qualified and receiving less wages than other employees, even less qualified new hires. The discrimination can be so pervasive that African Americans feel uneasy and threatened, demotivated and disrespected, eventually feeling forced to leave to search for other employment.
Society shapes racial inequality in the modern United States and Wayne Brekhus (2015) looks at how social marking is an element of culture in American society. When discussing race, people tend to talk about discrimination against marginalized communities (i.e. non-whites, females, homosexuals, etc.). They actively look at the marked category--those marginalized communities-- and the unmarked goes ignored. Berkhus believes that there are two possible reasons why these unmarked categories are avoided. Either the issue is psychological where individuals “deliberate[ly] disciplin[e] the mind to ignore the irrelevant” or it is sociological and is caused by the “deeply ingrained unconscious pattern of cultural or subcultural selective attention
Prejudice refers to one’s biased opinions and ideas of others, based on secondary information. Hence, the internalized ideas concerning the prejudiced members in society does not result from personal experiences, but information from third parties. Where prejudice is prevalent, the social relationships between the concerned individuals become strained and unmanageable. The existence of equality in society discourages the frequency of prejudice on racial grounds. The content of this discussion explores the concept of prejudice, as it relates to racial inequality and discrimination. The discussion features the Emmanuel AME Church shooting scenario, which characterizes racial discrimination and inequality. The discussion further examines the role
Ha and other refugees face the struggle of dealing with discrimination to their culture and where they come from. When Ha went to school, some of her classmates discriminated against her. For instance, “A pink boy with white hair on his head and white eyebrows and white eyelashes pulls my arm hair. Laughter” (Lai 145) Ha gets bullied because she looks different than everyone else in her class because he does this makes her feel inside out or out of place, in the atmosphere of the new country. Other refugees feel like their life would be better if they stayed in their home country. For example, “Sometimes I wish I’d stay here, watching the war, rather than being here, safe but without friends. (Brice) Brice wants to go back to his home country because he feels out of place in this new country. This affects the new country and how he feels being around others and the new culture since he is not used to the environment and how they are
As the realization of women as an exploited group increases, the similarity of their position to that of racial and ethnic groups becomes more apparent. Women are born into their sexual identity and are easily distinguished by physical and cultural characteristics. In addition, women now identify that they are all sufferers of an ideology (sexism) that tries to justify their inferior treatment.
In our society most men are likely to obtain higher paying jobs and are able to continue working even after becoming parents, whereas, majority of women obtain lower paying jobs and having to choose between being a parent and having a career. After reading the plays of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill and Hosanna by Michael Tremblay, I discovered that gender played a major role in how men and women are treated in society. The characters in these two plays challenges the gender norms, and therefore, I will argue that women are not treated equally in the workplace; that people who are of the queer community are considered to be inferior and less worthy of being accepted within the public sphere.
This article is about sexism and what it truly means. Sexism is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on gender. Sexism has always been an issue in the world and will most likely always be. Some believe that only behavior intended to hurt a specific gender is considered sexism, others disagree. Men earn more money, are more likely to hold a position of political power, and are more likely to hold a high- level job than women. These issues anger women and despite their attempts to change them, they are still problems today. Feminists think that changing common terms such as “mailman” to “mail carrier” will make a big difference in the future. Teaching our children to believe that men and women are equal through education, religion, and
Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. In today’s society, men are being discriminated against through the media, suffering from parental custody discrimination, being discriminated against in the courtroom and even for their choice of career. BBC reporter David Benatar said that, “the second sexism is that across the world men are more likely to be conscripted into the military, be victims of violence, lose custody of their children and take their own lives” (Castella, 2012). Even the way men are being portrayed on television and in film plays a big part in how they are treated in real life situations.