Essay On Women In The Workforce Essay

, Research Paper

Tony Sermonti

Revised Essay

English 101

Women in the Workforce

As time goes on and western culture becomes more advanced – or more liberal – depending on who you talk to, the answer to the question of whether work is a basic human right and if it should be accepted in society that women take more of a role in the traditionally male workforce changes.

This essay will prove that work is a basic human right. More specifically, the woman?s right to work—an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something–and gain financially from it.

There is nothing different about women that should exclude them from being able to work outside of the house and profit financially from it. If women only worked in the house and did not take on traditional jobs, then our society would not function. Since 1870, more and more women have entered the out-of the home work force. In 1870, only about 15% of the total U.S. workforce were female. In 1997, that number grew by 32% to where women now have almost half of all employment in the United States in their corner.

Work for all persons is a constitutional right. Women have every right that a man has, including work for profit. It is almost certain that women will always be afforded the right to work wherever they want to, with new equal-opportunity employment laws taking effect, and the women?s rights movements currently underway in our country. So, the constitutionality of women working is not at the center of this argument.

The core of this argument is that our culture has stereotyped women so that they should stay home, tend to the house, raise children, and cater to the husband?s needs. That stereotype has been developed even though women have consistently played an increasing role in our culture. Besides the percentage of women being employed?s steady growth, as during World War II, when most men were overseas fighting the war, our country?s women stepped in to fill the vacancies that were created and took the reins of the industrial and production side of the war. That made it obvious to all people that women are just capable as men when it comes to any type of employment.

Women work hard to support themselves and their families. Women accounted for 85 percent of the total increase between 1989 and 1995 in the number of workers with more than one job, which brought the total number of workers with two jobs to include 47 percent of women.

In 1997, 12.8 million families had a woman as the head of the household, representing 18.2 percent of all families, compared with 11 percent of all families in 1970. 62 percent of women who maintained families were employed in 1997.

Women have a fundamental drive, I believe more than men do – to care for their families, particularly their children. This promotes women to work hard to provide for their household.

In families where the male head of the household works, women are often called to ?take up the slack? by getting a job to supplement the husband?s income. It is very cynical of society to look down upon women in the workforce when their male counterparts depend on them to get a supplemental income to support the family.

Women are also paid less for doing the same work as a male, only earning 74 cents out of every dollar a male would make. From age 25 to 65, an average woman working full time would make $523,000 less than that of the average working man. In 1996, 70 percent of women earned under $25,000 while only 48 percent of men did.

The average working woman not only has a paying job, but she also has an even larger job at home that males typically do not. When a woman comes home from work, she is expected to fix meals, care for children, and maintain the house. It is not fair for our society to look down upon women in the workforce, because they keep the fabric of America?s families strong.

With the evidence and opinions I have portrayed, It is obvious that work for all persons is a basic human right and women should be totally accepted in our culture to continue to take on more active roles in our workforce.