Smith

Cassidy Smith
Professor: Jean Coco
English 1001
28 November 2016
audience- working women
Preface- There is a lot of information that I got from my resources. My biggest concern is if I
put it all together in a way that makes sense. I could have worked on how my essay stays on
topic throughout the paper. My concern is that my inquiry question is not answered clearly in the
paper.
If I had two more weeks to work on this paper I would want to improve the number of examples
I gave and I would want to incorporate more information. I have learned how to do proper
citations. I have also learned how to revise and research a research paper
Gender Pay Gap

When going to your day-to-day job, whether it be a cashier or a lawyer, would you ever
wonder if your paychecks were equal compared to your male coworkers? My guess would be
probably not; you are doing just as much work as they are right? Well the true answer is if you
are a woman you are more than likely getting paid less than your male peers. Why does this
gender gap even exist? Evidence shows the working women gets payed about 25 percent less
than men. Let me make that more clear ladies, we get payed about 81 cents to every $1 a male

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makes (Billitteri). Although this gender pay gap is unfair we have come significantly far from
where we first started.
Women have gotten up to this point in so called waves. The first wave in the Mid 19th
century to 1920 was also known as the suffrage movement or women gaining the right to vote.
Women started to find jobs that were diverse and not just in the domestic fields. The second
wave in the 1960s and 1970s is when women got equal access to employment and education
(Michelle). Although half of women in American families at that time were not considered to be
bread winners and stayed home to take care of the family (Billitteri).
Then a women named Betty Friedan who is considered to have started the whole
feminism movement wrote a book called The Feminine Mystique which sent women in an
uproar. According to Betty, womans lives were comparable to comfortable concentration
camps where mothers and wives were subjected to patriarchy (Michelle). Patriarchy is a term
meaning a system where masculinity is dominant over feminism. Soon after this book was
released, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act. Kennedy declared that this act affirms
our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay
envelopes (Billitteri). This pay act remains vague for millions of women to this day (Elmore 2).
The final wave started in the 1970s where women can obtain diversity and the variety of
identities (Michelle). Now here we are today in 2016 having more equality as well as still
debating whether women are paid fairly in the workplace.
One of the huge problems we still face today is sexism which occurs when a persons sex
is the basis for prejudicial treatment. Bosses provide unequal pay because we are women and
cannot perform the jobs as well as the male workers. Lilly Ledbetter who worked as a Goodyear
manager is a great example of this. It took her years to realize her companys pay raise was

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creating a big gap between her pay check and her male coworkers. She was earning $3,727 a
month while the highest-paid males also doing the exact same job she was doing were making
forty percent more than her.
She took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court only to be denied because under our antidiscrimination law you must submit a formal complaint to the federal government within a 180day period of the first paycheck. Ledbetter is flabbergasted how this wasnt associated as
discrimination when she states it sure feels like discrimination when you are on the receiving
end of that smaller paycheck and trying to support your family with less money than the men are
getting for doing the same job (Billitteri). President Obama later signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair
Pay Act, making the 2007 supreme court ruling invalid. This new improved act allows
employees to claim they are being discriminated 180 days later after that discriminatory
paycheck (Michelle).
The biggest sex discrimination lawsuit in history was a law suit charging Walmart stores
of progressing employees based on their sex and being biased. Betty Dukes filed the lawsuit as
well as other female employees. Betty worked there for six years and had great performance
reviews but was denied opportunities in order to have a higher income salary. This one act of
standing up against sexism affected 1.6 million current and former Walmart employees. Although
the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against Dukes it still impacted many women showing how
discrimination is a common act (Billitteri).
Gender roles are groups of behavioral norms or informal rules that label you as a male or
female (Conley 214). These roles can be stereotypical, the women are the stay-at-home mom
and the dad is the breadwinner. Women are assumed to be the one who takes care of most of
the house duties and kid obligations while the man works. Women dominant the soft sciences

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such as sociology or anthropology. While men dominate the hard sciences such as physics and
astronomy. Women may go for those softer sciences to get more manageable jobs with better pay
leave to take care of her home duties. Sometimes women cannot take that certain promotion or
job because it has unpredictable hours and not enough room for days off because of their
assumed gender roles (Billitteri). This causes a higher percent difference in the pay between
sexes.
There are two main theories that explain these gender roles and shows us how they can
affect women in the working field by Dalton Conley. The first one is called Sex Role Theory
created by Talcott Parson, an American sociologist of the 1950s, who showed us gender
relations. This theory talks about the sex roles men and women perform. Women as just wives or
mothers and men as breadwinners. This type of family is the ideal family according to society in
order to replace workers. With a working father and a domesticated mother, children are more
likely to learn their functions in society and behave in our societal system. In other words,
society has to be this way in order to operate properly (Conley 213)
The last theory is called the conflict theory. Unequal gender interactions claimed to be by
feminist as the root of inequality such as in your job. An economist Heidi Hartman and legal
theorist Catharine MacKinnon both studied how the fusing of capitalism and patriarchy cause
women to become economically reliant on the males earnings. Basically the men benefit when
the woman are subordinate. Conflict theorists point out that men stand to lose a great deal if
gender discrimination disappears. So women and men are the two groups that are set as rivals
against each other. If women rise in the working world men suffer. Since women are subordinate
we are not required to get equal pay right (214)?

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The conflict theory goes in to the court case of United States v. Virginia. The Virginia
Military Institute was the last military institution to have a no women policy in 1996. The
Supreme Courte ruled against them in hope to abolish this ridiculous policy and open up women
to more military opportunities. Instead of accepting the fact that times where changing they
created a program for females only in a completely different location away from the males. This
shows like the conflict theory how men are afraid of women competition. If women exceeded in
their program or if the females even outdid some of the males in the program the men wouldnt
be able to climb the ranks as easily as before (Farrell).
That brings us in to two terms that describe womens max position in the work force and
mens unlimited climb. These two terms are known as glass escalator and glass ceiling. Glass
escalator is mens ability to rise up at a quicker rate to leadership positions in feminized jobs.
Christine Williams found that men are privileged and still maintain being macho in jobs such as
male nurses, librarians, and elementary school teachers. Think about it for a second. At your
school did you have a male principle. Where the administrators mostly male then female.
Usually higher positons in school are run by mostly males. They start out as teachers and make a
fast climb up the ladder or as we call it escalator (214). If men are rising to higher positons in
briefer periods of time in women dominant occupations, they are of course going to make more
money than their female coworkers widening that gap even more.
That second term I mentioned called glass ceiling, created by The Wall Street Journal in
1986, refers to gendered barrier women encounter in more-prestigious corporate occupations.
You can also look at it as an invisible limit on womens climb up the occupational ladder
(Elmore 1). Women experience this all the time in their professional jobs. Representative Patsy T.
Mink talks about how women are afraid to have a voice in her job. She states if you complain,

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you lose your job and are pushed off to the side. You are casted off to a corner and seen as
inferior. Minks thinks this is because its extremely difficult in federal bureaucracy for females.
Some women also believe congress is part of the problem like Martin who is a Representative for
Illinois. According to Bob Adams she stood up for women and her job in congress stating how
the 80 percent of coworkers making more than 40,000 were male (Adams). The Glass Ceiling
Commission signed 10 contracts in order to conduct research to show people how big of a
problem this is
Some believe women are believed to be not as committed to their jobs as men because
they have to go home to take care of the kids, will leave to have babies, not flexible, natural role
more nurturing, or not aggressive. In some cases, men are just expected to get those awards or
higher positions. For example, at a meeting for the National Academy of Sciences gave two
women a tie clip for receiving there most prestigious award. They made the setting feel as if
there were only male members. Clearly making a fool out of themselves, the next year their
awards were appropriate for both men and women (Adams).
Although women hold half of Americas jobs our numbers in the workforce are still
remaining unchanged since the mid-1990s. why should we obtain an 8,000-dollar difference in
our yearly paycheck from our male equals? We have made a lot of progress over the past 50
years but the glass ceiling is present (Elmore 2). The gender pay gap is a very real thing and
happens all around the world, not just in America. To know what is going on women have to be
informed. This is a time to come together and stand up for what is right. Unequal pay and gender
equality is a major issue in todays society for women. Some men still see us as subordinate and
inferior in my opinion. This kind of mentality is not only affecting womens jobs but our annual
income. It is time for women to break that glass ceiling that limits us on the occupational ladder

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once and for all. Change the direction of the course on the map, come on society fight the gender
pay gap.

Work Cited
Adams, Bob. "The Glass Ceiling." CQ Researcher 29 Oct. 1993: 937-60. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Billitteri, Thomas J. "Gender Pay Gap." CQ Researcher 14 Mar. 2008: 241-64. Web. 8 Nov.
2016.
Conley, Dalton. You May Ask Yourself. W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
ELMORE, LEIGH. HOW Far HAVE Women COME? (Cover Story). Women In Business
64.3(2012): 13. MAS Ultra- School Edition. Web. 8 Nov. 2016
Farrell, Nancy. "10 Landmark Court Cases in Women's Rights - Criminal Justice Degrees
Guide." Criminal Justice Degrees Guide. 2016 Criminal Justice Degrees Guide .com, n.d.
Web. 25 Nov. 2016.
Johnson, Michelle. "Women and Work." CQ Researcher 26 July 2013: 645-68. Web. 8 Nov.
2016.