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Maintaining The Gender Wage Gap

Decent Essays

From the beginning of time there has been a distinction between the accepted roles of males and females. For ages men have been viewed as the family provider and women as the family caretaker. Although new roles developed with different eras, the same ideals have held for centuries now. Since the late 1800’s, the idea of “feminism,” or the social, political, and economic equality for females, has begun to shake the foundations of gender roles. It is 2015, and women have made tremendous strides to establish equality for themselves in a world dominated by male leaders. However, women have not been able to conquer the wage gap. The gender wage gap refers to women being paid on average 78% of what men do. Although the gap is closing, it is still …show more content…

Two-thirds of the attendees were women. These people met for this convention to rally together supporters for women’s suffrage. Women’s suffrage was the movement to establish a voting right for American women. Collectively, the convention created a document, “Declaration of Sentiments, Grievances, and Resolutions,” to stake their claims for the fight for voting rights. The unique aspect of this document is that it was modeled after the Declaration of Independence for the work to have a lasting impact on all audiences for years to come (“The Women’s Rights Movement…” Web). This single event changed the course of history for all generations of American women to come. However, women continued to fight numerous battles till they gained their right to vote. In the early 1800’s, women led temperance movements. Women advocated for the ban of alcohol because it affected their home life, and men kept losing jobs due to their drunkenness. Reformist also stirred a lot of support for their beliefs as well. Several small battles were fought, but justice was reached on June 4, 1919 the Ninetieth amendment was passed (Imbornoni, Web). This insured that woman across America now could hold their own politically and start to change America …show more content…

This remarkable achievement for women has enabled them to accomplish more in every aspect of their life. Frequently throughout American history, the woman has been viewed as the domestic housewife. Becoming a domesticated woman was essentially their way of life. From a young age they were expected to learn how to clean, cook, sew, and take care of the children (Kendall-Tackett, Web). When they were older, they led their household with the same mannerisms. Stigmas were placed on women that differed from the traditions of society. Such stigmas basically marked them as “impure.” The housewives sole job throughout the majority of American history was to cater to the needs of the family within the house. This social norm started to deteriorate post World War II. Colossal amounts of women had inundated into the work force and had no intentions of leaving. The pressing debate of the woman in the kitchen versus the woman in the office waged in the 1950’s through the 1960’s (“The Fight for Reproductive Rights” Web). The social significance of the American female gender role passively shifted out of focus. Now, it is more accepted for women to take on different roles, even male oriented roles, outside of the house and in

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