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Essay gender economic inequality
Essay gender economic inequality
Essay gender economic inequality
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This paper will explore the economic differences between men and women and will talk about the current solutions as well as future possibilities.
While overlooking and misrepresenting women’s experiences was the original reason for feminists’ disappointment with mainstream economics; by the 1980s feminists were also making another valid argument. Many feminist economists were finding that conventional choice-theoretic modeling and a constricted focus on mathematical and econometric methods were weighed down by the connection it has to other items such as tradition, and relations of governance. Feminists started to ask questions about the mainstream definition of economics, its focal representation of the “economic man,” and the exclusive use of a particular set of methodological tools.
Essays on this issue were brought together in a 1993 volume of Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (Ferber and Nelson, 1993). In this particular volume, it was proposed that economics be defined while taking into consideration the provisioning of life in all aspects where this occurs, rather than only in economic markets. Research was done on how a particular set of values, highlighting culturally masculine-related factors such as autonomy, abstraction, and separating had come to take preference over culturally feminine-related factors such as connection, interdependence and concreteness. The providers argued that rather than taking the previous as an indication of “rigidity” in the discipline, the lack of methods created by masculinist bias has made the discipline’s capability to explain real-world events weak. Questions were raised about mainstream economics because it was not objective enough and not because it was excessivel...
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Works Cited
Ferber M. A. and Nelson, J. (1993) Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ferber, M. A. and Nelson, J. (2003) Feminist Economics Today: Beyond Economic Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuiper, E. and Sap, J. (1995) Out of the Margin: Feminist Perspectives on Economics. London: Routledge.
Bergmann, B. (1999) Does the market for women's labor need fixing? Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Becker, G. (2001) A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sen, A.K. (2002) Women, technology and sexual divisions. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, New York.
Wilensky, H. (2008) The Welfare State and Equality. Berkeley: University of California Press
All people are forced to see themselves as society has shaped them, both male and female. Although progress for gender impartiality has been made, it can still be said that societal maxims enforce the incorrect notion that women are inferior to men. In matters of economics, women are offered far fewer employment opportunities, and I believe that this can be validated by the fact that many women have been conditioned to "marry well and let him...
Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. New York: St Martin’s P, 1998
Blackburn, S (1995) 'How useful are feminist theories of the welfare state?’ Women's History Review, 4(3), pp. 369-394.
Waring, Marilyn. (1988). If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Gimenez, Martha E. "Capitalism and the Oppression of Women: Marx Revisited." Science & Society 69.1 (2005): 11-32. ProQuest Central. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. .
One of the finest think tank of the planet, Harvard Business School recently came up with dozens of open access working papers and research essays addressing the theme of “Gender and Work: Challenging Conventional Wisdom” held between February 28 - March 1, 2013. Another leading organization International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report titled as “Women, Work, and the Economy: Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity” where the researcher have discussed the specific macro-critical aspects of women’s participation in the labor market and the constraints that prevent women from developing their full economic potential. (Katrin Elborgh-Woytek, 2013)
There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a quarter of all national businesses and earn more than one point two trillion dollars (“Assessing the Past, Taking Stock of the Future” 6). Since many women are now becoming are the primary sources of income in the household, making less that a man does not only negatively affect families, but also the overall economy suffers as well. These women, among many others, are the ones who end up purchasing the supplies that go toward improving communities and stimulating the economy. There is no reason that the general public should stand for this. Women should be treated equally to men in today’s American society based on their biological compositions, psychological profiles and contributions to history.
Evidently, the openness of trade, and integration of ICT have resulted to an increase of jobs and stronger bonds to the worldwide markets for a huge number of women. This has increased their economic opportunities, hence an increase in their wages too,(barker, 2014).
Freedman, E. B. No turning back: The history of feminism and the future of women. New York: Ballantine, 2002.
Class this semester was widely based on the ideas and problematic events in which revolve around the idea of globalization. This term, idea, or concept poses many negativities to the gender of women. Despite the media and the common portrayal that the idea of globalization is a positive thing for the world, in many instances it is causing great negativity for people, specifically women. Globalization can be applied to many aspects of culture but many times it is applied in terms of economics. In the patriarchal world in which exists when speaking about economics it is typically a male centered conversation due to the males typically being in lead roles of the work force despite many women in this country and well across borders in other countries being very highly educated and capable of carrying out such jobs. Many of these women who seek to be educated and successful in the workforce do not achieve their goals and fall back into their gender roles which goes against their personal goals. This was demonstrated very well by the case study of “Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands” written by Hung Cam Thai. Not only are these brides in which are talked about in this essay failing at their personal goals they are also failing at the goals in which Estelle B. Freedman discusses in her book No Turning Back. In this work she speaks much about transnational feminism and the objectives in which much be met to obtain equality rights for women transnational. The link between Freedman’s work and the study of Vietnamese brides marrying transnational is undeniable not for positive outcomes but for negative. By linking these two works not only will it show what needs to be done for women to obtain equal ri...
McAfee, Noëlle. "Feminist Political Philosophy." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Winter 2011 Edition ed. Web. 24 Jan. 2012.
Before the Feminist movement, women were stay at home moms and rarely left the house. They were not independent at all. Times have changed and women are now as strong and independent as men. It brought women out of the household, and into the workforce, changing the economy greatly. On the other hand, there are still anti-feminist, such as Phyllis Schlafly, who believe women don’t need equal pay, that they should be dependent on men. She recently argued, “Another fact is the influence of hypergamy, which means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don 't have the same preference for a higher-earning mate. ... Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate”,
McLaughlin, J. (2003). Feminist social and political theory: Contemporary debates and dialogues. Hampshire, Great Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.
The opportunities available to women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life. There is no denying that the salary of men is far more than that of women’s. In the Great Britain (and other parts of the globe), there are pieces of evidence which suggest that gendered practices of participation in the labor force still have significant impact on the economic security level that men and women develop over the course of their lives (Warren 606).
Women’s subordination within the labour market is seen by Marxist feminists as suiting the needs of capitalism as women are considered a ‘reserve army of labour’ as they are a more disposable part of the workforce. According to Beechey (1986) women are a cheap ‘reserve army of labour’ that are brought in during economic booms but then thrown out during slumps. Women are often not members of trade unions and are prepared to work for less money as their wage could be a second income. This benefits capitalism as a group of unemployed people looking for work creates competition and exploitation. Employers are given an advantage which allows them to reduce wages and increase the rate of exploitation. Benston (1972) supports this as women are used to benefitting the operation of the capitalist economy by carrying out unprepared work in the home. This proves that patriarchy dominates women which leads to women’s subordination. Hartmann (1981) believes that patriarchy and the economy both play a crucial role in explaining and understanding gender inequality. Historically, men have controlled women especially by control of labour power. This can come through legislation that operates economically to the benefit of men, for example Maternity and Paternity Rights. This proves that patriarchy and economics together explains gender inequality. However, Walby (1986) argues that women staying at home can actually harm capitalism because if women were to compete for jobs with men this would lower wages and increase profits. Women who earn also have superior spending power which would boost the economy and benefit