Gender Inequality

To begin my research, I used the Brevard Community College Library database to find information by typing in keywords like “gender equality”, “equality in the workplace”, and “gender role attitudes”. I found the articles suggested in the class assignment page in JSTOR, which was the database I found to be the most helpful. I then proceeded to use articles that were in the reference section of the suggested titles from the class assignment page. This way I found it easier to draw conclusions and make connections to my sources. I found my textbook to be especially helpful in describing the different theories and perceptions of society; the Pew Research Center website was exceptionally insightful as well.
Cotter, David, Joan Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. “The End of the Gender Revolution? Gender Role Attitudes from 1977 to 2008.” American Journal of Sociology 117.1 (2011): 259-89 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. David Cotter, Joan Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman are all sociology professors who have come together to write an analysis of how gender role attitudes have fluctuated since the 1990s. These authors share the point of view that “[t]he recent lack of change in gender attitudes is […] the consequence of the rise of a new cultural frame, an ‘egalitarian essentialism’ that blends aspects of feminist equality and traditional motherhood roles” (259). The purpose of this article is to explore how the halting increase of hierarchical gender relations of wives acquiescently answering to the decisions made by husbands is simply a sensible choice for women to maximize their own and their children’s best interests. Overall, this article supports the conflict theory because the egalitarian attitude of women in society showed little improvement over time and is based on male dominance in marriage and in the work place. This article adds value to my research because it shows the connection between women’s role in the family as it impacts their role in the workplace.
Gorman, Elizabeth and Julie Kmec. “Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms.” American Journal of Sociology 114.5 (2009): 1428-74 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Elizabeth Gorman and Julie Kmec both work in the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia. The purpose of this article is to resurface the “glass ceiling” debate as it relates to women in the workplace. The article corresponds most to the conflict theory because women continue to have less representation in powerful organizational positions even though they share the same educational background as their male equivalents. The assertions made by the authors of this resource suggest that there is substantial evidence supporting the viewpoint that an increasing disadvantage for women in the workplace exists. This article supports the claims made by Kevin Leicht in his commentary on sociological explanations of new sources of earnings inequality and will be of value to my research because I can use it as corroborating evidence to prove my thesis.
Insch, Gary, Nancy McIntyre and Nancy Napier. “The Expatriate Glass Ceiling: The Second Layer of Glass.” Journal of Business Ethics 83.1 (2008): 19-28 JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. Gary Insch and Nancy McIntyre are associate deans in the management industrial relations departments at West Virginia University. Nancy Napier holds a similar position at Boise State University. The purpose of this article is to expose a new layer of glass that prevents women from receiving foreign management assignments and experience that are currently critical for promotion to upper management. This journal best relates to the conflict theory because business in America is becoming more international every day. Other parts of the world hold radically different views on women’s roles in society, and these opposing views have kept women from breaking the second layer of glass: International experience in management. The author’s message here is that the original glass ceiling was tough enough to break, but with this added international requirement, women are virtually stymied from any chance of reaching the top levels of management. This relates to my thesis that there will always be a disparity between what a woman can achieve and what a man can achieve, and it will be very helpful in my research paper.
Leicht, Kevin. “Broken Down by Race and Gender? Sociological Explanations of New Sources of Earnings Inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology 34.1 (2008): 237-50 JSTOR. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
Kevin Leicht received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and is now a professor, Departmental Chair, and Director of the Iowa Social Science Research Center. The main purpose of this article is to identify new forms of earnings inequality beyond the traditional gender and racial gaps. Leicht uses the conflict theory to help portray some groups, like women, as being more susceptible to income inequalities by virtue of being in union with that group. Leicht writes to inform the public about his findings that support the idea that there is an increasing inequality between groups. His research will be valuable to my paper because he provides information about problems associated with research on earnings inequality in the past and how these neglected areas of research can be brought to life in the future.
Lips, Hilary M. “Blaming Women’s Choices for the Gender Pay Gap.” Women’s Media: Expert Advice for Business Women. n.p., 7 Sept. 2009. Web. 19 Feb. 2010.
Hilary Lips, who received her PhD from Northwestern University, is chair of the Psychology department at Radford University. She writes her article in a manner which argues against the notion that women are entirely responsible for the gender pay gap. The purpose of this article is to present information about how there is a percent of the pay gap that is still unexplained, and the author logically concludes that this undefined gap represents the impact of discrimination. This article defines America’s symbolic interactionist theory as input equals output, or in other words, people will only reap the benefits they have earned through the choices they have made. It then goes on to rebut the symbolic interactionist’s point of view and take on the conflict theory because society’s opportunities are divided among the sexes.
Martin, Patricia Yancey. “Gender as Social Institution.” Social Forces 82.4 (2004): 1249-73 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Patricia Martin is a professor of sociology at Florida State University, where she received her PhD in sociology. Martin, who has received many honors for her sociological work, argues that gender should be seen as a social institution in order to make it more visible and susceptible to intentional change. As the purpose for writing this article, Martin states that “believing that women and men are fundamentally different leads people to see them as different even when the facts show their commonalities” (1261). In contrast to Schneider’s symbolic interactionist point of view, Martin’s article urges people to consider gender a macro orientation of the conflict theory given that society is built around a social structure with disparity of wealth and power between the sexes. This article is a key part of my research because it provides corroborating evidence with the following article by Eileen Pattern and Kim Parker which theorizes about the natural disparity between wealth and power as it relates to gender in society.
Pattern, Eileen and Kim Parker. “A Gender Reversal on Career Aspirations.” Pew Research Social and Demographic. Pew Research Center, Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013 Eileen Patter is a Research Director of the Pew Research Center, and Kim Parker is an Associate Director with the Pew Social and Demographic Trends Project. The purpose of this article is to outline the progress that women are making in the workplace based on their decisions to place a higher importance on their educational goals, career choices, and marriage. However, in spite of women’s educational advantage and increased presence in the workplace, women continue to lag behind men in terms of earning power. The theoretical paradigm that is best reflected in this article is the conflict theory because it reveals how the choices that women make to attain their career goals do not affect the reality, which states that men have will get ahead in society even when the facts show that women have an educational advantage over men as a whole. The authors of this article are both female, which may have an impact on their perspective of traditional gender roles and their interpretations of the data they collected. This reference is valuable to my research because the findings in this article support my thesis given that the gender pay gap is driven more by discrimination than it is by the choices that women make in society.
Ransom, Michael and Ronald Oaxaca. “New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay” Journal of Labor Economics. 28.2 (2010): 267-89 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Michael Ransom, Chairman of Economics at Brigham Young University, and Ronald Oaxaca have written about the statistical changes in sex differences in pay that are prevalent in today’s society. The main purpose of this article is to explain the quantified and institutionalized gender equality gap in society and the consequences that have come from this. This article is written from a functionalist perspective because it describes how many manifest and latent functions play a massive role in the workplace. For instance, measurable and expected outcomes related to sex differences in pay persist because that is how society has always functioned. However, many unexpected outcomes in the workplace regarding sex discrimination have resulted in lawsuits and other unforeseen legal issues. This article supports the premise of my paper that there are built in measurable discriminatory factors in the workplace related to gender.
Schneider, Daniel. “Gender Deviance and Household Work: The Role of Occupation.” American Journal of Sociology 117.4 (2012): 1029-72 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013. Daniel Schneider received his PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2012. Schneider is a novice sociologist who failed to provide adequate research to support the stereotypes which he uses in his article. As a result, some of his findings may be suspect and of questionable significance. His purpose for this article is to explain the cognitive thought process of women and men working in “gender deviant” positions, focusing specifically on how their abnormal occupational status affects the amount and type of housework that they do at home. Schneider argues that “men who do ‘women’s work’ and women who do ‘men’s work’ in the labor market seek to neutralize their gender deviance by doing male—and female—typed work at home” (1029). For example, “women who do ‘men’s work’ spend more time on female-typed housework relative to women in gender balanced occupations [… and] do less male-typed housework” (1030). These gender-based stereotypes provide a symbolic interactionist point of view, in that “people seek an identity that will match up to the expectations that others hold of them” (Carl 21). Despite the questionable nature of Schneider’s research, this article is important to my paper because it represents some of the biased attitudes that exist in society and the sociology research community.
Sharp, Elizabeth et al. “’The Glass Ceiling Is Kind of a Bummer’: Women’s Reflections on a Gender Development Course.” Family Relations 57.4 (2008): 530-41 JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. Elizabeth Sharp has her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies. The main purpose of this article is to explain the different reactions in society to sexism and show how the reactions range from adamantly opposing gender discrimination to a casual acceptance of it. This paper is based on the feminist theory, which is a gendered and interdisciplinary approach that seeks to answer how the social world is ordered around gender. This journal entry discusses a study whose purpose was to explore female students’ experiences and reactions to a Women’s Studies course that focused on gender awareness in society. As it relates to the thesis in my paper, this study highlights one of the main difficulties of accepting male dominance as a fact of life in American society. “Women, Work and Motherhood.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013 This article is a conglomeration of other sources that help describe the Pew Research Center’s key findings from past surveys that explore people’s attitudes about issues related to women, work and motherhood. Therefore, it does not have an author, but retains more credibility because all of the included articles corroborate each other and hold a supernumerary list of credible authors. The purpose of this article is to present statistical findings that demonstrate a public agreement that shows a positive movement towards decreasing the inequalities women face in society. Under the theoretical framework of the conflict theory, our culture struggles to attain scarce resources. Such conflict theorists acknowledge that we live in an unequal society, and that a constant struggle exists on the part of women to close the gap and earn an equal amount of pay for the same amount of work as their male counterparts. This article is of value to my research because it acknowledges the inequalities of women in the workplace, but indicates a possible trend towards improving attitudes and closing the gaps that exist in the workplace.

Works Cited
Carl, John D. Think Sociology 2011. Upper Saddle River Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.
Cotter, David, Joan Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman. “The End of the Gender Revolution? Gender Role Attitudes from 1977 to 2008.” American Journal of Sociology 117.1 (2011): 259-89 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Gorman, Elizabeth and Julie Kmec. “Hierarchical Rank and Women’s Organizational Mobility: Glass Ceilings in Corporate Law Firms.” American Journal of Sociology 114.5 (2009): 1428-74 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Insch, Gary, Nancy McIntyre and Nancy Napier. “The Expatriate Glass Ceiling: The Second Layer of Glass.” Journal of Business Ethics 83.1 (2008): 19-28 JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2013.
Leicht, Kevin. “Broken Down by Race and Gender? Sociological Explanations of New Sources of Earnings Inequality.” Annual Review of Sociology 34.1 (2008): 237-50 JSTOR. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
Lips, Hilary M. “Blaming Women’s Choices for the Gender Pay Gap.” Women’s Media: Expert Advice for Business Women. n.p., 7 Sept. 2009. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.
Martin, Patricia Yancey. “Gender as Social Institution.” Social Forces 82.4 (2004): 1249-73 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Pattern, Eileen and Kim Parker. “A Gender Reversal on Career Aspirations.” Pew Research Social and Demographic. Pew Research Center, Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013
Ransom, Michael and Ronald Oaxaca. “New Market Power Models and Sex Differences in Pay” Journal of Labor Economics. 28.2 (2010): 267-89 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Schneider, Daniel. “Gender Deviance and Household Work: The Role of Occupation.” American Journal of Sociology 117.4 (2012): 1029-72 JSTOR. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Sharp, Elizabeth et al. “’The Glass Ceiling Is Kind of a Bummer’: Women’s Reflections on a Gender Development Course.” Family Relations 57.4 (2008): 530-41 JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. “Women, Work and Motherhood.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Feb. 2013