The Gender Gap Essay Research Paper When

The Gender Gap Essay, Research Paper

When a girl falls down, her parents immediately give their hands. However, when a boy does, his parents expect he rises for himself without their help unless he is very little and weak. Despite most parents’ saying that they do not want their children to behave and think in stereotypical ways, they treat their children differently based on the child’s gender. Since initial gender roles are assumed during infancy and young childhood, the gender gap is developed in the child. When I think about how females are different from males, the first thing that usually comes to my mind is the biological characteristics. Women have less muscle, higher voice, more hairs and more emotion compared with men in general. Just because women are biologically different from men, some people treat them unequally. This does not necessarily mean that men and women should have unequal access to power, prestige and property on the basis of sex.

Gender inequalities in politics are worse than those of race although some people might argue that we have already achieved the equality of men and women in politics through one man, one vote theory. Since the racism is clearly noticeable to us, most people evade making their comments on that. Without realizing the deadly effects of sexism, however, people tend to make discriminating comments. In ‘I’d rather be black than female,’ Shirley Chisholm believes women should step into the society and gain power in politics, which used to be thought as men’s jobs. Chisholm challenges this traditional assumption by challenging herself to become first black congresswoman. It was not easy for her to achieve that level. Every time she challenged to go up in politic, many men discouraged her to go back to women’s jobs such as teaching, “a woman’s vocation and leave politics to the men.” This informs women that there are men that still think women not as equal opportunity holders but as primary caregivers to children and housekeepers, who do things to comfort them, no need to be in men’s field, politic.

If women want to be treated equally as men, they not only claim men ought to share equal opportunities in politic but they also have to share burdens with men at the same time. Instead of complaining the society has given more power to men, they need to make an effort to change small things such as splitting up a bill on a date. In ‘Cheap Men’, Adair Lara shows how women are preoccupied dealing with men paying for expenses by saying that a lot of women make enough money these days, “yet I haven’t seen women knocking over tables in fight for the lunch tab.” The majority of women expect men to behave in certain ways when they are out. They, for instance, assume men are obligated to pay every single check. Lara challenges traditional assumption when she says, “I’d rather buy my own drink.” In addition to expressing their unhappiness feelings of men being cheap, many women also think that men do not know how to behave and treat them.

Noticeable gender inequality is a conversational discrimination, which we might have experienced in our everyday lives. If you watch carefully dialogues between a man and a woman, a man more likely tend to interrupt the dialogues than a woman between colleagues in work places as well as between dates. Men are more prone to break the flow of instructors’ lectures by asking unnecessary or unimportant questions if the instructors are women in classes. That is because men consider female instructors have less control over them than male. This conversational discrimination against women should be challenged because if they continue to allow men to do that, men unconsciously fall into narcissism of being superior to them not only physically but also mentally.

Gender inequalities such as gender discrimination in politic and conversation are still alive even today. The time is now the 21st century where everybody demands equality, but if politicians think as Chisholm had stated in her article, there are no way women can be treated equally as men, also women would face hardship when they try to enter career fields that are dominant to men. Obviously, females are born to be different from males physically and mentally. However, people should not treat them unequally for access to power, prestige and property on the basis of sex for whatsoever reasons because I believe no one is better than the other.