Professor Olga Mella
Language VI
14th November 2012
Sexual Discrimination against Women in our Modern Society
A long time ago, in 1791 Olympe de Gouges wrote the “Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen” nowadays in 2012 sexual discrimination has not yet ended. Even when applying for a job, women have to undertake the legacy of an old chauvinist society. For instance, when a woman decides to have a child they face another problem, who is the one that should foster the child? Despite of the fact that women are working more than in the past decades, it is still wrongly seen when a woman leaves her child in charge of a babysitter or even the father. So despite of huge improvements within sexual equality, women are still facing discrimination in many areas. Some of these areas will be discussed on this essay.
Nowadays there are certain jobs which are more suitable for men than for women, therefore a woman does not have the chance to decide on her own when looking for a job. This suitableness has been defined not be women capacity, but by a chauvinist ideology. For instance, when a woman decides to join the army the chances for her to be selected are less than the ones for the man. This happens just because there are more vacancies for men than women. In the same way, women working on the construction can also be discriminated, and not just because they will not be accepted, but because of unintentional discrimination. This type of discrimination can be seen when “[Managers] tend to do things like trying to protect women – not let them go out on site – or not give them jobs that involve some danger, even though it’s those kinds of jobs that would be good for their career” (Career Structure). Women not only have to face discrimination only when applying, but as well as when working in a non-regular work for. As a result of this, women have to live with gender differences, despite of the fact that there is no such thing as different laws for women and men.
Discrimination against women can also be seen every day on the media. Whether intentional or not TV commercials have had an accentuated discriminatory tendency on women. There are some commercials that may classify women on certain roles, which are to be known as a chauvinist distribution. Then let us think of a washing machine commercial, Can you remember the gender of the person who talks and gives advice on the quality of this machine? If you do not remember, I will tell you that most of the time it is a woman who is giving advices on the product. Indeed this “advice” it is mostly directed to female audience with phrases such us “If you are a good mother, then with this product your family will reward you my dear girlfriend”. This marked tendency of women doing things which have always been fixed for women it is anything but changing. So next time you look at a commercial on any media, pay attention to the person who speaks, because this represents a type of discrimination that sometimes can be too narrow to be seen.
All in all, as we have seen there are regular situations such us applying for a job, having a job or watching commercials, in which we can see sexual. Moreover when thinking of this, as a man I wonder if there is a chance for this to change, because as we saw on this essay even when not thinking of discrimination there is a sort of unintentional type which we cannot control. Nevertheless there are some other things which must be changed, such us this idea that women are the ones to do house shores. This idea should be banned from TV commercials at least. Even though this change is not to happen in the short time, we can start with small changes. Changes such us dividing house shores equally and not by gender will decrease sexual discrimination against women.
Works Cited
Career Structure. "CareerStructure.com." 10 November 2012. 14 November 2012. <http://www.careerstructure.com/careers-advice/life-at-work/female-discrimination-is-often-unintentional>.
Cited: Career Structure. "CareerStructure.com." 10 November 2012. 14 November 2012. <http://www.careerstructure.com/careers-advice/life-at-work/female-discrimination-is-often-unintentional>.
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