Gender Inequality in the Workplace

The video chosen was an interview with Kristin Davis, the Executive Director of Oklahoma Women’s Coalition. During the interview Davis was asked many questions about the discrepancies seen between men and women’s salaries. She spoke about the lack of awareness on the subject, which is currently a major issue, as well as the ethnic influences in the area of concern as well. Davis was able to point out specific areas and salary differences to ensure that the viewer understood how serious the problem is with gender inequalities. This information comes from research discovered after Kennedy’s signing of The Equal Pay Act. Unfortunately, just because it was signed, changes have still not been significant enough for women to lay their weapons down.

Evidence that men and women do not share the same type of salaries comes in many forms, and currently in the United States women make up forty percent of the primary income for a family. This can put a lot of stress on a family because one woman could work the same amount of hours at the same job as a man and bring home less money for the entire family. To defend this accusation, sexism can certainly be brought into the equation. The Glass Door is certainly a justifiable way of explaining the problems in corporate America and with gender in the workplace. Evidence can be drawn from the book, Breaking The Glass Ceiling, “In 1990, only 2.6 percent of the Fortune 500 companies’ corporate officers were women, according to data collected by Mary Ann Von Glinow at the University of Southern California. That figure drops to 2.2 percent when the companies narrowed down to the fortune 50.” (Morrison et al. 6) This also envelops the idea of expressiveness, as it has been said that women are too emotional to handle the stress that comes with being higher up on the totem pole, thus they cannot break through the glass ceiling because ultimately no one wants them there. Lastly gender roles are an extremely important aspect in this case. The reasoning behind gender roles ensures that men are supposed to go to work and women are supposed to take care of the home, a concept that must be shattered if women want to move higher up in the world.

Work Cited

Morrison, Ann M., Randall P. White, and Ellen Van Velsor. Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Can Women Reach the Top of Americas Largest Corporations. Beverly: Personnel Decisions Inc, 1992. Print.