toptermpaper.com

Self and Society: How has identity been theorized as an effect of performance? Discuss with specific reference to gender.

In this essay I will be exploring the concept of ‘identity’ with particular reference to ‘gender’. I will start by giving a brief account of what is meant by gender in the context of this essay and in ‘identity’, moving on to explore the possibility that ‘gender’ could be argued to be a performance, discussing two alternative, but not dissimilar, arguments. Goffman’s concept of ‘self’, and so ‘gender identity’, as a performance deserves exploration; as does Butler’s notion of ‘gender performativity’, in the creation of a ‘gendered identity’.

Throughout I will be drawing on the biography of Brandon Teena, a transgendered teen murdered in America whose story was told through the film ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ (Pierce, K 2000), as an exemplar of the notion of performing gender. ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ tells the true life story of a young man moving to Falls City, Nebraska, to start a new life. His new friends adore him and soon a young girl falls for his affections. However, his short life meets a violent and bloody end when his true identity is found out [Review of the motion picture Boys Don’t Cry].

In contemporary western society gender is more often than not seen as a binary division of male or female dependent on individual biology. So fundamental is the biological determination of ‘gender’ that should a child be born with ambiguous genitalia then often ‘gender’ is assigned at birth through gender reassignment surgery. However, the biological determination of gender is troubled in the context of people who are transgender, transsexual, homosexual or who cross-dress; what ‘gender’ could be assigned to these groups? It is within these social groups the idea of ‘gender as performance’ is perhaps most pertinent.

The primary theorist of the ‘self’ as an effect of performance is Goffman who introduces the theatrical metaphor ‘life as theatre’, suggesting that human behavior can best be described as an effect of performance. Goffman argues that the ‘self’ is born out of a performance which is credited by the audience and, in being credited, becomes inextricably digested into the individual’s psyche; “A correctly staged and performed scene leads the audience to impute a self to a performed character, but this imputation -this self – is a product of a scene…not a cause of it” (Goffman, E. 1959 pp.244-247). Although Goffman is not specific in writing of ‘gender’ as performance, for Goffman the ‘self’ as a whole is a performance, I would contend that as most people would identify themselves as being either male or female Goffman’s ideas can be readily used in the analysis of ‘gender’ as an effect of performance.

For Goffman individuals perform a multiplicity of roles throughout their life course entirely dependent on the situation they find themselves in. Be that as a spouse, sibling, scholar or, in this case, male/female. What is important for Goffman is that there is no one true self, just a performance of it. While performing these ‘roles’ Goffman suggests individuals ‘manage’ their performance using a number of strategies of which I will go into more detail in the context of ‘gender performance’ and with particular reference to the example of Brandon Teena. Included in these ‘managerial’ tools are props, regions and audience participation.

Props, or to use Goffman’s term “Personal front”, include “…insignia of office or rank; clothing; sex, age and racial characteristics; size and looks; posture; speech patterns; facial expressions; bodily gestures; and the like” (Goffman, E. 1959 p.34). Using my example, Brandon Teena, there are a number of times we see Brandon using props to aid his performance as a male; for example a scene in which he is ‘dressing up’ or ‘transforming’ into his role using male clothing, tape to flatten his chest and adding padding to his groin to alter his looks. These can be seen as physical props in his performance of gender, however it is also evident he employs what he considers stereotypically ‘male’ body postures, speech patterns and gestures; swaggering, bad language and so on.

Regions take the form of what Goffman terms as “front region” or “back region/backstage”; there are also temporal regions such as in a television studio being either ‘on’ or ‘off’ air. The “front region” is where the performance takes place, where the audience is observing the role one is playing; “The performance of an individual in a front region may be seen as an effort to give the appearance that his activity in the region maintains and embodies certain standards”. The “back region” for Goffman is where the preparation takes part, where all the construction and ‘dirty work’ deemed unsuitable for viewing is undertaken in preparation of the performance; “A back region…[is] where the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of course” (Goffman, E. 1959 pp.109-140). For Brandon the “front region” could be thought of as any time in which his ‘gender’ was under scrutiny, where he was in the presence of his audience; whenever there were eyes upon him his ‘gender performance’ must be believed. His “backstage” was quite clearly his own private spaces, a bathroom, a bedroom and so on, where his true ‘biological body’ is not seen and where he has the privacy to construct his ‘male’ identity.

The role of the audience is in the main to validate the performance. The performer in playing their part is asking to be taken seriously; they are asking the audience to believe what they are being shown, and in convincing the audience they are seeing the “real reality” the performance is credited as being the real ‘self’. In effect the individual is asking to be judged, in this case as being male/female, and receiving judgment is “…an ultimate end in itself…” (Goffman, E. 1959 pp.28-32). In ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ there are numerous scenes in which Brandon is seen to be asking for his ‘gender performance’ to be credited by his new found friends, his audience. In one particular scene we see him ‘bumper surfing’, this being a ‘male’ activity in Falls City, and in doing so is not only proving his ‘maleness’ is also seeking a ‘pat on the back’ by his audience, an affirmation of being ‘male’.

In summing up Goffman’s ideas of the ‘self’ as an effect of performance I have shown that ‘gender’ has to be performed and credited by the audience. Whether or not an individual is biologically male/female or transgender/transsexual it is still evident that props, regions and audiences play a role in the performance of ‘gender’ and in imputing a sense of ‘gender identity’. In a similar vein to Goffman Butler also see’s ‘gender’ as a performance, although more radically suggests ‘gender’ does not exist; there is only one body and that is the human body, ‘gender’ is a construction.

What Butler introduces into the ‘performance of gender’ is “performativity”, the notion that words have associated actions behind them; words do not just state a fact, they perform an action, moreover Butler’s contention is that without language there would be no ‘gender’, ‘gender’ would be meaningless. To understand this argument is to understand that Butler troubles the notion not just of sex as biological male/female, but also the social construction of sex/’gender’.

In speaking of the social construction of ‘gender’ Butler argues that biological ‘sex’ is not what constructs ‘gender’; in being biologically ‘female’ it should not follow that ‘gender’ is also ‘female’. In Butler’s words “Assuming for the moment the stability of binary sex, it does not follow that the construction of ‘men’ will accrue exclusively to the bodies of males or that ‘women’ will interpret only female bodies” (Butler, J. 1999 p.10). In this Butler goes a little way to acknowledge ‘male’ and ‘female’ bodies but challenges that these bodies will be ‘men’ and ‘women’ respectively. For Butler it is ‘gendered language’ that creates ‘gender’.

As an example we can look at an event happening every few seconds all over the world, the birth of a baby. Butler would argue that this baby is just that, a baby; it has no gender identity and despite its biological body could be a ‘man’ or could be a ‘women’. For Butler it is the language used from its very first appearance into the world that determines whether it will be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’; for example the very first utterance most common at a birth is “congratulations, you have a beautiful baby boy”. This utterance, Butler would argue, performs an action, hence Butler’s term “performativity”; it is not just a statement of fact, moreover it determines what color the nursery will be, what clothing will be bought and whether a ‘male’ name is given or ‘female’ name.

To use the example of Brandon Teena there is a particular sequence of scenes towards the beginning of the film that see Brandon ice skating. He catches the eye of a young girl and before long they skate together. This leads on to moving outside where they start to become intimate before the young girl discovers that Brandon is in fact biologically ‘female’. Brandon is then chased by a group of males back to a trailer park where he is staying with his brother and whilst hiding the group of males are shouting abuse. Brandon’s brother turns to him and says “You’re a dyke, why can’t you just admit you’re a dyke” (Pearce, K. 200). In saying “You’re a dyke” Brandon’s brother is not merely stating the perceived fact that Brandon’s a lesbian. Butler would argue that that statement performs actions; what Brandon’s brother is really saying is “You are a lesbian, act like a lesbian. Date girls as a girl, dress as a girl and talk as a girl”. In the same way there are numerous scenes in which Brandon’s new found friends would make comments such as, “You’re one hell of a guy” or “You’re one crazy guy”, and again those statements would perform an action or actions, for Butler the noun ‘guy’ becomes the verb ‘guy’. Clearly in these examples it could be argued that ‘gendered language’ determines identity; without language gender would indeed be meaningless, in Butler’s words “performativity must be understood not as a singular or deliberate “act,” but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names” (Butler, J. 1993 p.2).

In conclusion I have shown that the idea of a biologically determined ‘gender’ is problematic outside of the context of the binary sex model; sex does not equal ‘gender’. If we take Goffman’s argument the ‘self’, or ‘gender identity’, is an effect of performance; the audience imputes a sense of self as a result of performance. In my example I demonstrated that Brandon’s ‘gender identity’ could be seen as the effect of his performance as a man; should his performance not have been credited then it is probable that he would have re-invented his sense of ‘self’, his ‘gender identity’. Similar to Goffman’s contention Butler also argues that ‘gender’ is ‘given’ to an individual although not by crediting performance but in the more generalized ‘gendered language’ of day to day discourse. To weave Butler’s arguments into my example Brandon’s ‘gender’ was given to him first by his family as a ‘woman’ and then in his chosen ‘gender’ by his friends as a ‘man’. This fluidity of gender, the ability to invent ‘new’ gender categories, can be summed up by Butler as she explains “…dissonant adjectives work retroactively to redefine the substantive identities they are said to modify and, hence, to expand the substantive categories of gender to include possibilities that they previously excluded” (Butler, J. 1999 p.33). In this Butler is referring to the way in which ‘gender’ reinvents itself as new ‘labels’ or categories come into popular discourse such as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, transsexual, transvestite, hermaphrodite and so on. The only aspect of ‘gender’ that can be clear for both Goffman and Butler is that ‘gender’ is merely an illusion; the only true fact is that we are all human.

Bibliography.
Pierce, K. (Director). (2000). Boys Don’t Cry [Motion Picture]. United States: Hart-Sharp Entertainment. [Review of the motion picture ‘Boys Don’t Cry] Retrieved 2nd May 2008 from http://www.mymovies.net/synopsis/default.asp?filmid=132&s=3&n=3
Elliott, A. (2007). Concepts Of The Self. Second Edition. Cambridge: Polity.
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life. London: Penguin.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies That Matter: On The Discursive Limits Of “Sex”. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble: Tenth Anniversary Addition. London: Routledge.

Introduction

Gender inequality, or in other words, gender discrimination refers to unfair rights between male and female based on different gender roles which leads to unequal treatment in life. The term gender inequality has been widely known in human history but not until the beginning the 20th century has the transformation of gender relations become “one of the most rapid, profound social changes” (Wright & Rogers 2009).

And at the same time, the position of men and women were generally set. The growth of this situation has been obviously seen. According to a survey in America, female’s salary at work is 75% as low as male’s. Coming back to last century, at work, when men were paid 1 dollar, the amount that women received was just 58 cents, in accordance with the law in 1963 (Tran 2012) . And in Vietnam, gender inequality is shown in the difference between two genders in the number of babies. Statistics of Ministry of Planning & Investment in 2010 reported that there were 110.6 new-born boys out of 100 new-born girls which was much higher than in the past.

However, as a matter of fact, gender discrimination has made a big argument in society about whether the equality among genders should be encouraged or not. Regarding to this problem, American people seem to appreciate the position of women, meanwhile, the Chinese tend to think of higher power of men in life (Chang n.d.)

Thus, this paper, with the purpose of reporting the current states of gender inequality, its impacts as well as the solutions to improve this trend, will give readers another look at this controversial problem.

Discussion of findings
What is gender inequality?

Gender inequality is a social problem which causes unfair treatment in society between different genders. These dissimilarities are distinguished from biological factors, especially from differing reproductive roles in life (Reeves & Baden 2000). This misperception comes originally from the wrong understanding about the position of each gender in life.

Nowadays, the paradox that makes women suffer adversities and put women into unpleasant situation is seen in every angle of life. However, the method of gender discrimination in one place differs from that in others. For example, in workplace gender inequality accelerates when entering the job racing, not only the dissimilar salary, inequality at work is demonstrated through the differences between genders and the amount of money paid (Hsu 2012). In the aspect of education, in the past, men are prone to have more chances to go to school. Young women seemed to have fewer opportunities for higher education than young men (Dang 2008, p.25)

Regarding to the reasons and the origin of gender inequality, it can be seen that Asia would be the place where gender discrimination has seemed to be a “tradition”. According to the General office for population family planning, the idea of distinguishing men from women came from the impacts of Confucianism and the awareness of people about life. Men were thought to have a duty of continuing the ancestral line. In that society, not having a son meant to be disrespectful towards the ancestor. Going on with this wrong conception, women are more likely to lose the role in community (Nguyen n.d.)

How gender inequality affects lives?

Initially, gender inequality has effects on the scale of population. According to statistics of the General office for population family planning (Nguyen n.d.), because of the discrimination of genders, the number of new-born boys and girls is unequal. To some people, the hope to have a son loses the balance between two genders. Unfortunately, this situation has occurred for such a long time, so the impacts of it in the population are rather huge. As report of Ministry of public health, it is estimated that, despite the attempt to reduce the fluctuation between the birth of boys and girls, in 2020 there will be 4.3 million men more than women. Minister of ministry of public health statement (cited in Phuong 2012), said that if this trend still keeps on going, it will lead to quite a few consequences in security and the order of society before marriage age of children because there will lack brides resulting from out-numbered new-born boys from girls. Now we can see an obvious consequence among the Chinese. According to a Blue Paper on Society released by the China Academy of Social Science, there will run short of brides in ten years because of severe gender imbalance among young people, particularly among under 19-aged people (Tang 2010).

Secondly, the discrimination of genders leads to some problems in education. Education is an important tool, is the key to the growth of human. And no matter what gender a person is, he has right to expose to education like others. Chaudhry & Rahman (2009 p.175), reported that “there are many empirical evidences that, increase in female education improves human development outcomes such as child survival, health and schooling”. However, “lower female education had a negative impact on economic growth as it lowered the average level of human capital” (Klasen 2002, cited in Chaudhry & Rahman 2009, p.175). World Bank in 2001 stated that in almost all poor countries, there is a high trend of educational impacts of gender inequality. In poverty, girls are more likely to be influenced to approach education.

Finally, economy is the field that is consequently affected, because there is a link between education and economy. The impact of gender inequality on economy is found through the number of male and female students in primary and secondary school which is negative (Barro and Lee (1994) and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995), cited Stephan Klasen 1999, p.4). And they claimed that “a large gap in male and female schooling may signify backwardness and may therefore be associated with lower economic growth”( Barro and Lee (1994) and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995)). And let’s take China- a country which is famous for strong gender imbalance all over the world- as an example of modeling the impact of gender imbalances on economic performance (Golley &Tyers 2012). As mentioned earlier, China is facing a lack of brides 10 years to go and this trend leads to the problems of women purchasing crime. Especially men in poor provinces now are exposing to “marriage market” and this situation makes “the black market of “selling wife”” on the rise, said the deputy director of the China Population Association- Tian Xueyuan (cited Tang 2010). Another economic impact of gender discrimination is unequal wages among male and female. According to Yang Juhua, a professor with Renmin University, the wages of women is much lower than men’s despite the same level of position (cited Tang 2010). Tang also mentioned the chances to get a job of women are smaller and there is more likelihood of being refused on applying for jobs.

How to solve this problem?

Ninety-three years ago, people in some places in the world first officially celebrated the International women’s day. In ninety three years, there have been a lot of changes made in terms of changing attitudes of people about the inequality of genders. Nowadays we are living in a developed world which is contributed by both men and female so why female have to suffer such that inequality which they don’t deserve to?

Generally speaking, this kind of inequality has existed for a long time and in every area of the world, no matter where it is (Chang n.d.). Now it’s time for the world together make this out-of-date conception fade away. To some extent, the Nobel Committee stated that we cannot reach democracy and peace unless we wouldn’t give equal rights and chances for women have. For the sake of making economic recovery, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that promoting women to participate in economy and increasing their productivity is the key to economic growth because it will create an effect on “the competitiveness and growth of our economies.” (cited Sharma & Keefe 2011).

In the relationship between economy and education, people cannot underestimate the importance of education. To flourish the economy system, people have to make an effort on schooling. Regarding to the solutions to this, setting up gender-sensitive schools is a crucial step in making a nice environment for learning and teaching. Helping female feel more confident in studying, improving a gender-sensitive curriculum which reflects national policy on gender equality to instruct is also necessary (Clarke 2005, p.11)

Conclusion

From all the discussing above, gender inequality is obviously an urgent problem in the world. Despite the fact that its volume much decreases, it still exists and makes a lot of people suffer its consequences every day. And there are many reasons leading to gender discrimination which cannot be solved easily. However, with education and progressive thoughts of people, there are also reasons to trust in the future of gender inequality being stopped. Then, hopefully, people can live in fairness no matter what gender they are.

The current study aims to do a survey of gender discrimination and how it is affect in

The work place, discrimination is a major problem, employees should be protected against it, and there is wide range of cases of discrimination around the world. The reason of writing this research is to aware the people about the discrimination and to show how it’s illegal to treat workers differently no matter what they should treated in the same way and fairly. The purpose of this literature is to explore the types of gender discrimination from employee perspective So this paper will focus on these cases and take brief information about the types of discrimination in the work place which is many. To proceed in this paper the first step is define the Work place discrimination: which is a behavior the influence decisions on employment matters and interfering with job performance or creating a hostile, intimating work environment.

Discrimination occurs if there was a difference made based on one of the following grounds: race, color, gender, place of origin, religion, material status, physical disability, age.

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”(universal declaration of Human Rights Article 1, 2). From this Quote it will lead to understand that everyone has the right to treated equally and fairly. So it is illegal to discriminate against employees in any aspect including: hiring lay off, recall, transfer, promotion, assignment, benefits, pay retirement plane, recruitment, harassment on any base.

The importance of this subject is to explore the major effect of the discrimination on the females employees , in the work force women has 40% of the population in working environment and if those women were uncomfortable and decided to quit their jobs to avoid discomfort and the consequences of the gender discrimination that will affect the productivity in the work place which will lead to effect the economy too .

Through reviewing the literature review there was a significant lack concerning the articles, it didn’t contain any cases happened in the Arab countries ,there were no case of women and men discrimination in the same article combining together and all the case was on public sector and finally most of gender discrimination cases focused on the women cases not the men .

As for the organization of the paper the research will start with research question : What are the types of gender discrimination from employee perspective?

exploring discrimination which include the types of discrimination which is

Gender, This section followed by exploring the problems and the cases of the discrimination in the work environment and the last two sections are the methodology and the conclusion.

Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction:

1.1 Research Importance:

1.2 Research Question and Hypothesis:

1.3 Research Problem and Gap:

1.4 Research Structure:

Chapter Two: Literature Review:

2.1 Gender discrimination

Chapter Three: Methodology:

3.1 Research Statement:

3.2 Research Design: Population, Sample and Sampling Procedure:

3.3 Research Tool/Instrument:

3.4 Research Procedures:

3.5 Research Analysis:

Chapter Four: Findings and Conclusion:

References

Appendixes

2. Literature review:

In order to know the aspects in this paper it’s important to know what the discrimination mean, Discrimination is :

Unfair treatment because of race, sex (male, female), color (white, black), the person back ground, place of origin, ethnic origin, marital status (single, married), same sex partner status, sexual orientation, age, disability, citizenship, family status or religion. Second the work place, The workplace is any place where employees deal with other employees, volunteers and trustees and other users perform work or work-related duties or functions. Schools and school-related activities.

The following literature review provides insights and key findings of available literature relating to work place and gender or sex discrimination.

According to the EEOC (The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) , the total number of gender discrimination complaints filed recently have fallen back to26,300 in the year ended September 1996 from 31,700 in 1993, after increasing 13% between 2000and 2004 (Lee 2000: 4). Sexual harassment complaints alone soared to 10,532 filings in 1992, from 6,883 in 2004 (Roberts 2000: 4). Gender discrimination law suits resulted in the high percentage during 1988, through2004. Sex discrimination start to get a high percentage of law suits resulted in the highest aggregate jury awards.

2.1 Gender or sex discrimination:

It’s unlawful for an employer to treat you differently from others based on your sex, because of your marital status . The discrimination can be ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’, deliberate or accidental. One of the ways of direct discrimination is behaving differently or act funny toward you and that only If someone is deliberately treat you differently at work because of their sex, marital status or gender, it is consider as unlawful act , and the employer should stop the discrimination, (Marker 2005; Chien and Kleiner, 2000, 1)

(e.g. women and men at the same the job but men gets more money or payment and the same as promoting someone because they are single instead of an equally qualified person, or sacking a woman because she says she is pregnant or might start a family).

“Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (42 U.S.C. 2000 et seq.) prohibits sexual harassment in the United States and provides the EEOC with powers to enforce the Act. Hostile work environment sexual harassment was recognized as an actionable form of sex discrimination under Title VII by the US Supreme Court in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (477 US 57, 1986), and is defined by the EEOC as unwelcome behavior from the victim’s perspective that ‘has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.”( Elkins and Castrillon2008:1436).

Glass ceiling

Sex segregation in U.S.A and Canada through 2005-2006 led to the fact that 34% of women in US and 47%of them in Canada were hired I leading jobs.

In 2005 , females in US gained 76 cent for each dollar gained by males (decreasing from 77 cent in 2002) and in Canada ,females gained 71 cent for each dollar gained by men (“women’s History month”,2005;”women in Canada” ,2006).these statistics confirm the presence of a glass ceiling in US and Canada which are known to be a women -friendly countries , classified 17 and 7 , (respectively) in 2005 WEF study (Lopez-Claros& Zahidi,2005).

Gender discrimination

Catalyst showed in 2003 study that in general there are many organization still consider women to be not suitable for international mobility , although all findings show the reverse .(“Breaking through the last ceiling” 2004).In comparison of two groups , 80 male and 80 female ,controlled for marital status, women are found to be more prepared than men to transfer to other locations despite their family protestation . moreover females and males were even in accepting mission at location with difficult living condition , with unstable political and economical conditions (Tung,2004).

A restricted research on national behavior in non – western countries for women use , showed uncertain result . However Paik “sex stereotyping “happens where jobs are seem to be available for men or women .

94 HUMAN RESOUSE MANAGEMENT , spring 2008 and Vance (2002), for instance showed that against all anticipation , director from US had less conception of women to be internationally assigned compared to men in Germany , Korea and Mexico, however Stone (1991) showed that 53% of directors in Asia realized that women’s work outside their home countries were unsuitable .( Roslie L.,2008:93).

Indirect discrimination – putting you at a disadvantage because of certain working practices or rules (e.g. setting a minimum height, which might discriminate against most women or an employer’s refusal to recruit part-time workers without good reason), (Phan and Kleiner 2005:41).

One of the causes of direct discrimination is disparate impact, a careful review of history shows us the many ways women have been discriminated against and often overlooked simply because of their gender. Such examples include: Aristotle’s (384 – 22 B.C.) belief that women were unintelligent

.

Based on study made by Adam wine .The statistical evidence shows that there’s a gap is caused by the gender discrimination the statistics show that the gap between the age and the wage ratio is higher than the income ratio for many reasons one of them is women work fewer hours than men and the gap between the singles are smaller than between the married , the gaps increase based on the experience and that’s because women have less experience and women tend to leave their work because the lack of achievement and pay raise. And here’s the statistics Men dominate 310 occupational fields, while the women dominate 50 fields; women earn about $4000 per year less than men even if the men and women are employed in the same occupation. published by( public personnel management data on September 22 2005, 6) .

Based on another study made by Chien and Kleiner showed that 1000 largest companies in U.S among the 4000 people shown as the highest paid officer or director only 19 were women and that because women viewed as less suitable for upper management roles and when women take executive positions the chance of failure is high and predictable, and those expectation of failure effect how women evaluated. (Chien and Kleiner 2000: 3).

Another way for direct discrimination is UN equal pay act, Studies have found that women are unfairly treated and face barriers regarding progress and promotion, even in fields in which they have reached a good accomplishment .For example based on study done by Ash, Carr Large cooperation firms in U.S women get less paid than men for similar work. Such discrimination is not unique to the world of high finance; things seem to be much worse in medicine. In June 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau released an analysis of the earnings of full-time workers that reported that female physician’s wages averaged 63 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. (annals internal medicine, issued 3rd of august, 2004, 239) .

The Census Bureau report was limited in that it did not examine factors, such as specialty, practice setting, seniority, and performance Ash, Carr, and colleagues analyzed data from a national survey of academic physicians and reported that women earned less than their male colleagues, even after accounting for specialty, hours worked, and many other measures of productivity and achievement. In addition, they found that women were less likely than men to reach the highest academic ranks. On other hand men do not face that problem and there is a salary gap between men and women for example women still have a lower compensation than men at the same academic rank.

Another example (china youth daily news paper) they mentioned that many positions reserved for males only and for female they have to accept unfair terms and not being

Able to have a children for many years and the reason that the women are left behind is because their special physical and physiological features. (Beijing 2008: 4).

This case one of the EEOC.v cases about UN equal pay act happened in a bank the bank was paying different salary to male and female workers in three different jobs

First: man teller was paid more than any female teller even though the female was more experienced, second: male operator was paid more than any women who performed the same job, third: the male installment loan officer was hired of salary higher than any female .The bank argued in the first job that he was a management trainee but they found there was no real training program, in the second job the bank claimed that the female was slower in the typing and less accurate than the male but they proof that she was faster and more accurate than the male, in the third job the claimed that the raise

Was given to the women after the EEOC investigation began but the court didn’t believe it. (Bhasker and Kleiner 2002: 75).

This presented case shows that the un equal pay act can lead to a un friendly environment this case is about women was hired by Pizza Hut as a unit manager; she started out in a management Training program with a male trainee who was hired at the same time. Both were paid equally for the duration of the program but when it ended, the male manager received a much higher raise than female. The next round of raises did not even things out; the male manager still made more, despite the fact that the female was running one of the most profitable Pizza Huts. She filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. When the EEOC could not re solve the problem, she sued the company (Bhasker and Kleiner 2002: 74).

Harassment is the most common way that could be use as a gender or sex discrimination and the definition of sexual harassment according to the U.S (EEOC): behaving in an offensive manner, or encouraging or allowing other people to do so and that could be either physically or verbally and it will lead to influencing the individual work place environment (for example, making sexual remarks or gestures, allowing displays or

distribution of sexually explicit material, or giving someone a potentially offensive nickname because of their gender). (Grochin and Kleiner 2005:17).

The most sexual harassment cases in the U.S are against black women based on study done by (information times issued October 2007). they discovered the only 2.8 percent of female university graduate don’t face a gender discrimination in the labor market while 52.8 percent said the gender discrimination is a huge a problem and they face it every day for example many posts at job fairs are not open to female applicant

(Beaton et al ,platania 2003:291).

This appears to be the case in Australia, konrad and Hartmann (2001) examined survey indicate that women are more likely to believe that they were discriminated in the academic hiring and promotions more that men and that one of the reasons to make the women in such low place by made them to believe .

Sexual harassment is a serious concern for women in the work field during a 2003 survey, respondents reported: Apart from gender discrimination a lot of women have to combat sexual and racial discrimination constantly to survive in college and work places. In order to overcome discrimination, many women scientists report having to work harder and be more successful than men in order to succeed; professor’s report training their female students to think in these terms as well (Etzkowitz and Kemelgor 2004 : 87).

Sexual harassment is a serious concern for women in the sciences. During a 2003 survey, respondents reported46% were sexually harassed; 55% handled this harassment themselves; 40% told their harasser to stop; 7% were forced to quit working; 3% transferred within the company; 2% filed legal action; 18% experienced a combination of all the situations (Boiarsky et. al 2003: 213). Sexual harassment can lead to Hostile environment and that Occurs when an employee is unwelcome sexual conductor materials when the conductor materials are sufficiently strict and firm as to create a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment(Grochin and Kleiner 2005:19).

As per the legal and social theories, sexual harassment was viewed as sexually motivated. In the American’s courts, sexual harassment is considered a form of sex discrimination. The reason behind this is that it is sexual and it is motivated by the person’s sex. Sexual interest is also another motivation for sexual harassment as assumed by some social theories. The first group supports the biological approach believing that the harassment is a way to express the natural sexual desire, and that this behavior is more common in men than women. They argue that men in general are more sexually aggressive than women. The second supports the theory of power which argues that sexual harassment is one way of using power to have sexual obedience. According to this theory, the majority of the harassers are men because men are more powerful than women; hence, they can force them to satisfy their sexual desires. One of the controversial issues about sexual harassment is to present it as driven by sexual desire. Consequently, sexual harassment can no longer be understood as a form of sex discrimination and the chance to eliminate it in the workplace has been undermined. .( Jennefer L,2007:642).

Targets of harassment

If sex based statues is challenged or threatened , SBH (sex based harassment )will choose a hit to defend it self . The hits are most probably the person who make the challenge or the threat in the first place because the threat will be eliminated if those persons are. Persons who have no distinction between sexes , attack others on sex based ideas. Hits are usually less powerful persons than the harasser.

When the person who make the challenge or the threat is more powerful that the harasser , the harasser target another persons who is less powerful than him. As men are motivated to protected their sex based statues than women , persons who challenge man statues are targeted SBH. The most likely form of SBH is men harassing women who are challenging men’s statutes . The second form is men harassing other men who challenging their men’s statutes . If women harass , they target other women who challenging their statutes . the most unlikely form of harassment is women targeting men who’s challenging their statutes .( Jennefer L,2007:648).

Male to female harassment

If man needs to protect his statutes against woman , he may do that by despising her as women through sexiest jokes , comments , reminding them by their low statues (berdahl & moore ,2006). In male- dominated cultures , if woman harass a man and make threat to his sex based statutes , man may respond by underestimating her in her work and restore his statutes as man who can do the work better than her (connel, 1987). Men can restore their courage and validity by acting as group in harassment against women (Farley , 1978).

Women , by being sexual target to men are put to the low statutes of being a tool to men’s sexual desire . .( Jennefer L,2007:649).

Stereotyping :This case present how the women are suffering from disparate treatment and from the Stereotyping, Women struggle with the stereotype that having a family translates into a lack of commitment to career and job, Motherhood presents a set of expectations; there is a need to balance family and life many women accept part-time work while others prefer flexible scheduling as a condition of full time employment (Beasley, Lomo and Seubert 2001: 76). Often, balancing between work and family results that woman will take breaks from their employment track which leads to less opportunity.

Another stereotype based on case issued in Canada , gender discrimination against male doctors and trainees , men with deep religions of certain communities force their wives to be examined by a female obstetrician-gynecologist and refused to be exposed to men this issue concern to medical resident who may not get their medical experience they because of patient demand( Canadian Medical Association 2008: 179).

Methodology :

3.1 Research statement :The thesis statement :What are the types of gender discrimination in the work place from employee perspective? Meaning to explore each aspect and its effect on the employees in Egypt and how to react in different situation

3.2 Research tool : The type of this methodology is quantitative and the reason of choosing quantitative is because it refers to the systematic empirical investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships, meaning the problem already exist and in order to contain it the perfect kind is quantitative, the tool to answer the research question is questionnaire. And the shape of the questionnaire was based on the article review and the internet (and it’s attached in the appendix ).

The place will be in Cairo and to evaluate the rate or the level of the discrimination against the women employees. The reason that we choose Cairo is because there’s a significant increase in the number of discrimination cases in Cairo for example between 2000 and 2008 the number of discrimination cases increased by 27%(based on the Al-Ahram newspaper).

3.3 Research design: the sample is non probability, convince sample because it will allow choosing the individuals that are easiest to reach or sampling that is done easy. And Convenience sampling does not represent the entire population so it is considered bias, therefore the sample is will be relative weight 40 females and 20 males, from different courses in private university in Cairo and from different department in oil company , aged 18 to 25 years undergraduate and graduate students, fresh graduate TA’S.

participants volunteered to participate in the questionnaire and did not receive any reward for their participation, the reason selecting under graduate student is because most the student work a part time to finish their internship and to get the experience so their opinions will be supported and they face a lot of challenge in the school and in their work so their opinions will be accredited. Furthermore there were noticeable result that most the people that been asking about the discrimination in their work place they refused and some hesitated to give the frank answer worrying about their boss reaction or their co-workers too , in addition student were more willing to give their frank answers and their opinion without any worries.

3.4 Procedure: first the mailing list which will be available from HR department of the private college , after that will address the questionnaire to fresh graduate TA’s and from different faculties, we will wait one week to collect the responds from the mails and if that was not enough there will be a another round of mails and we will wait for the respond and if that was not efficient we will need to distribute the questionnaire in class and wait for the data collection the total time that it took to design the survey is one week and for distribute the survey among the student in (GUC) is one week , to analyze the result it took two weeks to analysis the survey and three weeks to get the result. The same case for the oil company I will get the email list from Hr department and I will distributed and collect it myself after three days from the distribution

3.5 Analysis: SPSS ( statistical package of social since ) program will be used in this study to order to know the appropriate way to analysis the result of the questionnaire and there’s two ways to approach that, the first is descriptive statistics and the second is frequency and percentage.

The student litter :T-test will be used to answer the research question through SPSS descriptive statistic will be conduct including the major of frequency and probability the major of center tendency contain : mean , mode , median, variance, slandered deviation .

Conclusion:

Discrimination in the labor market occurs when ever workers who are equally productive on average are treated differently, either in hiring, wage rates, job assignments, promotion, or firing. It is appropriate to expect

that in the absence of discrimination, jobs of comparable value would pay the same wages. Requiring equal pay for jobs of com parable worth is simply basic fairness. Although it may not be the whole solution to the problem of labor market discrimination, comparable worth is at least part of the answer

.The main purpose of the present research was to analysis and to explore the types of the discrimination and to show the effect of each one on the people life

the gender or sex discrimination could affect the employees in many different way especially the harassments because is the most common way that could be use as a gender or sex discrimination and it’s very offensive manner, it could lead to encourage or allow other people to do so and that could be physically or verbally and it influence the individual work place. And to sum up the whole research we can see the effect of each type and how people react to each type.

everyone should have the right to treated right and fairly and with respect regardless the age or the color or the gender or the home town we all human and we all seeking for success and we should achieve it in healthy environment and in fair opportunities

and because of these discrimination the government should concentrate on the consequences and put a strict punishment for any one not obey these rules.

A quarter century of female specialists have encountered separation or unreasonable treatment in the working environment, and 17 percent said they have felt sexually annoyed by a kindred representative or director, as per an across the country review via CareerBuilder.com and Kelly Services, led by Harris Interactive. Of the individuals who reported the episode to their businesses, the larger part said the wrongdoer was not considered responsible.

The most well-known episodes of separation or unreasonable treatment included:
Not accepting credit for one’s work (44 percent)
Not having concerns tended to or considered important (43 percent)
Collaborators saying deprecatory remarks to or before the specialist (38 percent)
Feeling thoughts or information are for the most part overlooked (34 percent)
Collaborators were talking behind their backs (33 percent)
Not being given undertakings that give laborer more perceivability in the organization (31 percent)
Being ignored for an advancement (26 percent)

More than 50% of ladies from the GCC feel they win not exactly their male partners and that they have less risk of getting advancement, as indicated by another review on ladies in the work environment. Bayt.com, the online occupations entry, and YouGov Siraj surveyed 2,086 ladies in the Middle East, about a quarter of them in the UAE.

Despite the fact that the greater part accepted they worked equivalent hours and wanted to continue functioning as long, 53 every penny felt they got less pay and 57 every penny said they were more averse to be advanced than their male partners. “This disparity could originate from numerous elements, including obsolete generalizations, and unequal instruction open doors for men and ladies,” said Amer Zureikat, Bayt.com’s local supervisor.

It could likewise be a consequence of working environments that are inadequately prepared for female preparing and profession movement, he included, including maternity leave and childcare choices. “The uplifting news is that with more ladies entering the workforce and climbing the positions and involving senior parts in industry, this difference ought to characteristically revise itself,” said Mr Zureikat. Jeetu Sharma, an examination partner at YouGov Siraj, said that the overview results measure how ladies in the working environment “feel”, not whether they do actually winless or get less advancements.

The size of working environment disparity still confronted by a great many ladies has been revealed by a study that proposes more than 50% of female workers have encountered some type of segregation at work.

The discovering originates from the interval aftereffects of the most considerable study ever directed into the encounters of Britain’s female workforce. Venture 28-40, embraced by Opportunity Now, has as of now been finished by more than 25,000 ladies and plans to get to 100,000 proceeding distributed its last results.

Very nearly a fifth of the ladies overviewed so far say that their professions have slowed down in light of the fact that chiefs neglected to advance them or offer preparing open doors. A little more than one in 10 accomplished inappropriate behavior. The knowledge takes after the news that the sex pay crevice is enlarging without precedent for a long time, as indicated by information from the Office for National Statistics discharged recently.

Imbalance in the working environment still exists, in various ways.

While changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act request that businesses oblige specialists with restorative difficulties from pregnancy, pregnancy itself is not viewed as incapacity. Accordingly, head honchos don’t need to lawfully suit pregnant laborers, notwithstanding for the most minor appeals. For one situation, a lady who worked at a Walmart in Kansas was terminated for soliciting to convey a container from water with her as she supplied the racks. Indeed, even in the wake of giving a specialist’s note, the lady was doubtlessly advised to discard the water or leave.

I’m not going to say that ladies make 77 pennies to each man’s dollar on the grounds that, as opposed to mainstream thinking, that is not really genuine. (In the wake of modifying for excursion time and calling decision, insights demonstrate that ladies make 91 pennies to each man’s dollar.) I will, in any case, question why this rate must be balanced. Numerous occupations are “gendered,” importance they are connected with manly or female intentions. Case in point, female medical attendants are viewed as “typical” while male medical attendants are generally not. As a rule, men are connected with the higher paying renditions of such employments, similar to a specialist. This issue makes you wonder: How would we strip the higher paying occupations of their sex undertones?

As indicated by Harvard Business Review, studies demonstrate that “high-potential ladies are over mentored and under sponsored with respect to their male companions.” What does this mean? It implies that ladies are honored various coaches, who will send them to more presentations and gatherings, however not supports, who can “[use their] impact with senior administrators to promoter for the mentee.” This means more work, yet less association, which doesn’t generally appear like a reasonable equalization.

Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), laborers are qualified for up to 12 weeks of maternity leave. That is, unless they work at a little organization or has been utilized for not as much as a year. Something else, 8 weeks is the most extreme time span. The way things are, this law just shields one a large portion of the workforce from unlawful end. In one report, a lady who consented to get a C-segment in return for having 11 weeks of maternity leave was let go in light of the fact that the understanding was not put in composing. As though new mothers don’t have enough issues.

Regardless of the developing number of female providers, ladies are frequently still anticipated that would handle the excellent nurturing obligations. Actually, while 40 percent of mothers work low maintenance to deal with their kids, just 3 percent of men do likewise.

In 2012, when a female official at the Computer Sciences Corporation documented a lewd behavior argument against one of her associates, she was advised to “stop griping” and was later terminated. Prior, in 2011, a day spa laborer educated her supervisor that numerous male clients had presented themselves to her; however the organization did nothing to stop it, guaranteeing that reporting the episode would head out clients. This year, a carrier pilot recorded a sex segregation suit against Delta Airlines, guaranteeing they “overlooked her protestations about being pestered in the cockpit.”

At the point when men and ladies cooperate, the men are more inclined to get the credit — regardless of the fact that she did the majority of the work and he’s lesser. It might be a mix of men being accepted more equipped and ladies not effectively assuming praise for their work.

Exploration demonstrates that ladies must demonstrate that they are equipped for succeeding in a part before they are advanced into it, though men may be advanced on their apparent potential. That implies men regularly climb speedier in associations. “At the point when a men strolls in the entryway, he gets the advantage of male generalizations,”

Examination demonstrates that both men and ladies think ladies ought to be decent and kind and sustaining, and those men ought to be solid. At the point when men show outrage it would seem that quality, however when ladies do likewise, they are seen as excessively passionate and crazy. “These generalizations are profoundly imbued,

There is an example here: negative conduct toward ladies in the work environment is disregarded in light of the fact that it is not a need. A clearing explanation? Maybe. Anyhow, if these stories (and the film Jaws) has taught me anything, it’s that concealing an issue for the purpose of attention or cash doesn’t end well for anybody.

The discrimination against the women should be discouraged at every level. For this purpose government should take necessary actions so as to eradicate this discrimination and women get their due rights. If they are qualified enough to be employed or promoted it should not be the matter that she is discouraged because of the male dominancy rather she should take a stand and be the example for the rest of her coworkers.

The government should adopt a strategy to thoroughly check the credentials of all the males applying for the job and check their previous history to check whether he is involved in any sorts of sexual harassment. For all those who mistreat women at work or at home should be heavily fined and strict action should be taken against them so as to make them learn not to misbehave with females. The society should support the working women to work with full confidence and without getting confused because of males working around them.

In todays world, society has come a long way since the general stereotyping of men bringing home the bacon and the women staying home to cook it. Discrimination is often based on an assumption of white, male, able-bodied or heterosexual superiority. Today, women are out in the workplace working alongside the opposite sex. Women are still not promoted as widely as men in the workplace. In today’s work field, women experience fewer opportunities or encouragement for higher promotions or authoritative positions. Moreover, for those women who are illiterate, they have fewer chances to get job in labour work. However, every company wants fast working people so every company hires younger people. So that’s why the old people and women don’t get job easily. Women are often looked for job advancement that they are more qualified to fill than their men competitors because employers afraid that they will not be as committed to the company as they are to their families, or that they will miss time due to future pregnancies, family obligations or children. “Gender inequalities are an age old problems and a detailed action plan with a definite road map is needed to achieve gender equity”, said Raj Kumar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat; as reported by an article in the TOI. He also said “Gender inequality restricts a society’s economic growth.”

Examples of Gender Inequality at work:

Employers pay unequally based on gender.

Average income of women in Canada : $13806 and average income of men in Canada: $22,673

In Canada today, women constitute approximately 47 per cent of the labour force. Despite recent changes in formal equality – the introduction of protection for women in the Constitution Act, 1982 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for example – informal barriers are still present which lead to the discrimination of women (Tepperman & Curtis, 2011, p. 89). On the contrary to the first definition of gender discrimination, Julie Walters, an Oakland University professor, and Connie L. McNeely, a George Mason University professor, emphasizes that “even in the 21st century, women faculty members are generally paid less, promoted more slowly, receive fewer honors, and hold fewer leadership positions than their male counterparts, discrepancies that do not appear to be based on productivity or any other objective performance measures.” “Women comprise 66% of the U.S workforce, yet only 21% hold middle management positions, and a mere 15% are at the senior management level”( Sipe, Johnson, and Fisher 340). This statistic shows that women occupy less of the higher authority positions than males. It is stated that “although the equity gap between men and women in management careers appears to be closing, the glass ceiling still persists in today’s business environment” (Sipe, Johnson, and Fisher 340).

Females in the labour market may experience the pay gap, which is when they are paid less because of their sex even if they put in the same effort as a male. In Canada, there is a wage gap 27% in Canada, 23% in USA, 23.2% in Africa.Walters and McNeely states, “A clear violation involves discrimination where employees of one sex are paid at a rate less than that paid to employees of the opposite sex for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires comparable qualifications and skills, effort and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.” Women tend to be paid less because of their gender, yet men with the same position held as a woman, with the same qualifications, and skills will be paid more. The mere fact that an organization would pay anyone less because of their gender is a violation of the Equal Pay Act. It is unacceptable for organizations to pay different wages to men and women holding identical positions, especially if those workers have similar individual characteristics. Even though paying anyone less because of their sex is illegal, it still happens in many jobs. When workers hold similar positions with similar individual characteristics it is very easy to prove that an organizations is partaking in discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sates that women make 65-75 cents of a dollar a male makes. It is estimated that the unequal payment between men and women won’t be fixed until the year 2193 expressed by Sipe, Fisher and Johnson.

In a male dominated work environment, women either have to put on an act to succeed or they are perceived in a stereotypical manor. They are put up against harassment and stereotypical attitudes. Female’s employers can feel a sense of power over their employees, in most cases this power leads to sexual harassment. The closeness the employer feels makes them forget about the professional boundaries that exist and they cross the line. More women feel sexual harassment in male dominated areas, such as blue collar jobs. Women are perceived to be less aggressive than men, they are passive, can’t handle pressure, can’t handle criticism, are not good problem solvers, they are multi-focused, and they are home makers. Family responsibilities are not equally shared with men, leading to additional barriers for women to enter and stay in the workplace and have a career. Organizations feel that men don’t hold overwhelming priorities that will interfere with their work, that’s why more upper management positions are granted to males. However, the data shows that men can also become just as over whelmed with their families and outside responsibilities as women, yet they can hold higher authoritative positions. Asha Kaul, a communications area chairperson at the Gender Resource center in India, explains that”Women often face the double bind. To perform well they must behave like ‘men in skirts’/ ‘conceptual men,’ but cannot lose their feminine qualities for fear of being ridiculed by peers, superiors, and subordinates alike”.

Women have to put on a false act to achieve any type of superiority. They have to act as men while at work, but they have to keep their feminine exterior. Sine women hold several stereotypes they are more likely to quit a job several days after they have begun. In the article ” Gender and Workplace Experience” Kaul expresses that ” after trudging along in an environment created by and for men achieving great heights, women are still entangled in the revolving door and are on most occasions in the exit position”. The pressure of a male dominated field and a stereotypical area is often too much for most women to handle and often leads to women with having no possibility of career advancement or show casing of their abilities. Not only are women stereotyped and discriminated against depending on how old or young they are. If they are a younger female or male, they may be looked at as if they are not as qualified or wise as others who have been there longer than they have. If they are an older female or male, they may be looked at as they are losing skills and forgetting knowledge. Many people can also look at these characteristics as discriminatory and stereotyping.

Many laws have been made to enforce non gender discrimination workplaces; however, there has been strong resistance to enforce some of these laws. The article expresses that ” for 5o years, laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended in 1991, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 have protected women from overt discrimination” (Sipe, Johnson, and Fisher 339). Many employment discrimination has been eliminated by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits employment from discriminating against people who are seeking a job at their organization. It also protects discrimination against employees on the basis of race, pregnancy, religion, sex, and nationality, it also protects against harassment. The Equal Pay Act requires employers to pay men and women equally for doing the same work, regardless of their gender. Title IX of the Employment Protection covers “every phase and nuance from pre-employment behaviors to culture of the work environment, including promotion and demotion, termination, and hiring, and compensation and resources” (Walters and McNeely 321). In order for a work field to become non-discriminatory the organization has to recognize and enforce the set laws. Recently President Obama proposed the Paycheck Fairness Act, in an effort to close the wage gap among genders. This Act was already passed by the House of Representatives and is currently being looked over by the Senate. Fred W. Alvarez, partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he leads the firm’s employment law litigation practice, and Allison Moser, associate in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, both state the Paycheck Fairness Act ” amends the Equal Pay Act of 1963( EPA) to provide stronger remedies and procedures for gender-based wage-discrimination claims, and to require more active federal government involvement in combating wage disparities. Passage of the Senate bill is likely given the strong backing by nonpartisan groups, including the American Bar Association”. If President Obama’s new law passes, this could potentially end gender discrimination in the workplace. It will enforce that females get an equal pay for an equals day work as males. No single laws can completely extinguish gender discrimination. However, employers have a legal obligation to uphold the laws to not treat women in an unfairly, discriminatory manner.

Employers must recognize gender discrimination, whether it’s towards men or women to eliminate it in the future. Elisabeth K. Kelan, a senior researcher at Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business, informs us that, “organizational members often construct their workplaces as gender neutral despite the fact that gender discrimination exists” (1). Lower economic growth does not just affect women, it can affect everyone. So, when an employer discriminates in his organization he is potentially affecting himself. If an employer constructs their work area as a gender discriminated area they are not setting a good example for their employees, other organizations, and the society. Training is highly recommended to employers and employees to enforce non-discrimination, detect it, and go about reporting discrimination. By recognizing gender discrimination employers can make equal pay for equal work, equal policies for male and female employees, and equal treatment for promotion promotions, pay raises, family needs, and other medical or financial benefits. By correcting gender discrimination, establishments could possibly send a great message to future generations to come. Throughout the research, it was identified that, women in the workplace are discriminated against by receiving lower salaries, fewer promotions, and are often negatively stereotyped; however there are many laws that enforce non-discrimination and there are proper ways to go about extinguishing it.

Conclusion

Overall, Sipe, Johnson, and Fisher emphasize that “employers and employees must recognize and prepare for the continuing existence of gender discrimination in the present workforce, or they may risk real opportunities to correct gender discrimination through training, enforcement, and deliberate human-resource planning”. Overall, the world gender income gap is 15.6%. Throughout, the women have faced a lot of problems because of gender discrimination. They had a high position in the hearts of the people in old days especially in India. They have also paid less. Companies will show all people that no matter what their gender is, they will be encouraged to achieve their best potential.

Afghanistan is one of the toughest regions for women to survive. Although the country has a highest number of school-going populations, gender disparities in education remain high. Women discrimination in the education system is a pervasive practice, which the political systems have not considered it seriously. Many girls opt to attend to their domestic duties because of the fear they have about insurgents and other group, which usually attack them in various learning institutions. Compared to boys, the societal norms and practices do not favor the girl because they hold “minor roles” in the building of the society and culture.

Research question

What are the reasons of gender discrimination in the education in Afghanistan?

Proposed claims

During the Taliban rule, women oppression and denial to access education has been evident by several attacks insurgent have orchestrated in schools. It is good to note that, this political system exercised male dominance and hegemonic practices against the women because of their position in the society. Socio-cultural norms and practices within the Afghans contribute largely to the discriminative way of sharing resources like education in the community. At the primary school level, the literacy level of girls for aged 15-24 stands at 18%, while the literacy level for bay at the same age bracket remains at 50%. More than half the boys have a chance of completing education compared to girls (Brodsky, Portnoy, Scheibler, & Carrilo, 2012). Cultural practices and traditions encouraged boys to further their studies because of the leadership positions they occupied in the society.

According to a report filed by the Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan, parents elucidate that major challenges affecting their daughters is insecurity and accessibility of education. Others stated that a girl child ought to attend to domestic duties, engage in productive activities to enable her family earn a living and children marriages (Whitsel & Mehran, 2010 p. 504). The Islamic the Islamic rule under the Taliban government did not allow women in public areas. For this reason, other girls opt to remain indoors for fear of execution of assault by law enforcers. This situation influenced the way girls attended schools as opposed to boys who had the time to acquire knowledge.

Factors contributing to gender discrimination in education in Afghanistan

The Brutal Taliban Rule

The Taliban became prominent in 1994 after they took power and ruled the Afghanistan in a dictatorial way. The group targeted women in such a way that many succumbed to health complications, others lost their lives, and the majority lacked the power to acquire knowledge at institutions of learning. Since most of the schools in Afghanistan are gender-segregated, the insurgent group conducted several attacks on girls in order to deprive them from acquiring basic education. It was a rule that girls ought to stay away from public places; the school was a public place where they socialized. According to the Taliban rule, oppressing women was a show of winning despite losing the victory at the battlefields. In Takhar province, the Taliban group poisoned 40 girls student, some of which succumbed to severe health complication (Facar, 2006 p. 31). This group burnt girls’ schools because they wanted to get rid of the enlightened generation of women, which could challenge their political ideologies and power.

Before the Taliban assumed power, Afghanistan was a peaceful place, which ensured equality between boys and girls with regard to knowledge acquisition. Thereafter, when the Taliban ruled, they perpetrated egregious acts of violence against young girls. Such actions induced fear in girls who were at learning institutions because they knew anytime they face attackers (Spink, 2005 p. 197). In a certain incidence, In Tukhar province insurgents attached a girl’s school at night, raped students, assaulted and kidnapped others. For this reason, many abandoned learning as they moved to Iran and Pakistan for refuge. In 1999, Talibans jailed and deported a female worker who was helping Afghanistan women in engaging in home-based work. In Kabul, female teachers lost their jobs, a move that crippled learning in some institutions. Since these teachers attended mainly elementary classes in girls’ schools, children missed fundamental of education making some to record poor marks in examinations. The Taliban also restricted female from enrolling at the Kabul University. The rationale behind it was the facility was full to capacity and that women should wait for the government to construct another facility.

Society norms and practices

According to norms and practices of the Afghans, women had no authority over certain traditional practices like marriage. In the video, it was stated that many parents married off their young daughters without their consent because the parents wanted to raise resources, which could sustain the rest of the family (men). Following this initiative, many girls were pulled out of schools or deprived the right to education because they will get married. Some families forced their girl children to stay indoors because they were afraid of fines and penalties, which societal leaders could charge upon exposing their siblings. Brodsky, Portnoy, Scheibler & Carrilo, (2012) asserts that the culture has a requirement, which states that girls should not compete with men in any way; going to school as boys do was a form of competition, which the society did not allow. Moreover, culture also required that girls and boys should be segregated in any gathering or event. This doctrine was also exercised at government institutions, which had a mandate of building schools and allocating other resources. Such an environment does not promote healthy competition during learning. There is a possibility that girls will perform poorly. In the Video, Parish Will of World Edition state that, the society has had a perception that girls should only acquire basic primary education, which sometimes is not essential. With this in mind, many parents had not until recently realized the importance of supporting their daughters education.

How working knowledge influenced topic selection

In my relationship with female colleagues, i interviewed a few who stated that the major problem, which they face in their pursuit of education, was discrimination and oppression from men. Many asserted that male dominated societies could not favor them or support their educational needs. Apart from that, I noted that the number of female teachers and other workers at various places of work was low. I wanted to establish the rationale behind the situation. I considered that the topic was important for research because I wanted to explore the problem and establish some of the problems, which have led to the situation.

Misunderstandings about the topic

During the time women were oppressed and discriminated, I do not understand the reason why insurgent and the Taliban targeted women. The explanation given does not give a clear reason for the brutal activities women went through. I consider that Afghanistan men could have been target of Taliban because they can challenge their rule of law. The Islamic rules and practices have given women an equal opportunity as men to pursue various sectors and acquire knowledge in order to develop the society. The Taliban were also Islam, but did not adhere to this requirement. There has been no evidence showing or explaining why women were denied the right of education.

Conclusion

Indeed women in Afghanistan were denied the right of education. The Taliban used their authority to oppress and deprive women from learning because they wanted to eliminate the likelihood of having enlightened future leaders, who could challenge some of their political ideologies. Although the society still holds that women should remain passive to societal practices and activities, I will carry out sensitization campaigns, which will enlighten women and teach some fundamental rights that they need to demand from the authority. In addition, religious leaders will also be used in teaching the society against the practices, which discriminate against the women.

Annotated Reference list

Brodsky, A., Portnoy, G., Scheibler, J., & Carrilo, A. (2012). Beyond (ABC’s) Education, community and feminism in Afghanistan. Journal of Community Psychology, 40(1), 159-181.

This journal highlights how Socio-cultural norms and practices within the Afghans has contributed in the oppressive way through which resources and services like education have been shared in the community. The author cites evidence stating that, at the primary school level, the literacy level of girls for aged 15-24 stands at 18%, while the literacy level for bay at the same age bracket remains at 50%. More than half the boys have a chance of completing education compared to girls.

Facar, M. (2006). The pendulum of gender politics in Afghanistan. Central Asia Survey, 25(1), 27-59.

This source gives a historical perspective of how the Afghanistan society lived during the time before and after the Taliban. The author observes that because most of the schools in Afghanistan are gender-segregated, the insurgent groups have always conducted several attacks on girls in order to restrict them from acquiring basic education. It was a rule that girls ought to stay away from public places; the school was a public place where they socialized. The author adds that oppressing women was a show of winning despite losing the victory at the battlefields. He cites an example in Takhar province, where Taliban group poisoned 40 girls student, some of which succumbed to severe health complication

.

Spink, J. (2005). Education and politics in Afghanistan: the importance of an education system in peace building and reconstruction. Journal of Peace Education, 2(2), 195-207.

In this source, the author gives the picture of the situation after the Taliban assumed power. He explains and demonstrates how women underwent difficult situations in their pursuit of education. He observes that men were favored unlike women who suffered perpetration and egregious acts of violence from the insurgents.

Whitsel, C., & Mehran, W. (2010). School, work and community-level differences in Afghanistan and Tajikistan: divergence in secondary school enrolment of youth. Central Asia Survey, 29(4), 501-519.

In this source the author, identify various problems that lead to the low number of women registration in secondary schools. He observes that traditional norms and practices also deprived women from accessing education by forcing them to stay at home while boys went to school.

Gender discrimination refers to the level of ranking through a person’s sex which will cause inferior to another. This Report highlights the gender discrimination on women which causes numerous effects and consequences to the world. It will show how women are treated differently from men and the impact causes to the society. Last but not least, the report will also highlights the solution which helps people in changing the stereotype of women and reduces discrimination problems.

13157133.jpg

With reference: ( http://www.newyorkemploymentlawyerblog.com/2007/06/employee_awarded_2m_for_gender.html)

Section II

In all over the world, women usually are the factor of gender discrimination that people tends to have a stereotype about them. Women are commonly seen as being emotional, frail, submissive, futile and worthless whereas the stereotypes of men are significant, smart, tough and useful which causes people to think that men are vital and more proficient than women. The biasness against women creates unremitting cycles which enhances the prejudice against them and hindering them from getting stronger than the men. Thus, discrimination should be minimized as we move towards globalization.

In Singapore’s context, it’s largely belief that women have equal opportunities as men in excelling in their studies and have equal social status as men. The understanding about this issue will help us widen our perspectives on the taboo against women in different countries which is still as bad as compared to the early days. It also creates greater awareness to our society so that people will reduce or stop the discrimination and reflect on their actions made against women.

It is important to state the issue of gender discrimination on women as it helps the society to change the stereotypes and mindset of people such as women are more competent in completing certain task as compared to men, for example, giving birth to babies etc. It can also help the society to reduce the stigma of women and to make them realize that we are living in a democratic world thus both genders are equivalent and discrimination towards women should end.

Many might not know that, in developing countries such as India and china, women are not allowed to carry out things that they want to bring around. This is because women are known as a burden to the family as they are known as being weak and useless. As a result, they are only bound to be a homemaker with no exposure to the world and what is happening around. On the other hand, men will be treasured and given a chance to expose outside the hometown to earn a source of income for the family. Thus, in this instance, there is a gender discrimination against women and they are called the servant of household.

Such example can be seen even in Singapore too. For example, when there is a woman driver driving on the road, men tends to have such stereotype that they are weak, not skilful enough and inexperience that result in them being unsure of what to do when encounter an accident. On the other hand, men are known to be street-smart and more skilful and seasoned in driving. Thus, men tends to look down on women when it comes to driving,

Section III

Gender discrimination had affected our society by causing others to despise on women and even women themselves. It had also cause lots of innocent death and unfairness towards human beings. It is actually important for gender discrimination to take place and send a message to people that they should cherish one another. As if, the ratio of women is lesser than men birth rate will decrease and will leads to a lesser number of babies born and brain-drained of the society

Based on research, ending the life of baby girls by parents is a common practice in India and it is taken lightly as the mothers of those babies belief that they are helping the babies by preventing them from suffering in the future. This practice is known as sex-selective abortion.

India Gender Ratios.jpg

From references: (http://southasiainvestor.blogspot.com/2009/07/indias-disappearing-daughters.html)

From the statistic evidence as shown above, the ratio of males as compared to the females are increasing as the years goes by. The sex-selective abortion had also leads to the decrease of birth rates. From the above mention, it will leads to an increase of violent crime and sexual exploitation etc.

Gender discrimination had also affects our society by causing lots of individual tragedies and loss of innocent life which such activities are sex trafficking for women and abuse and the health of women etc.

Section IV

In many places, discrimination towards women is also involved in the family law, education, physical abuse and workplace too. For example, women are will be given less wages as compared to men, on the other hand, men will be also given more privileges than women in making decisions in work place. This is a form of bias and unfair treatment. In addition, women will also be sexually harassed or gets a mediocre treatment than the men.

If you have taken a more in depth view on the whole society, you will realise that in most of the places or religion, they will give more control or power to the men instead of women. For example, in many of the places, men will be given freedom such as marrying more than one woman at the same time while women will be forbidden to. This is how discrimination takes place and shows that women are not given leadership at prayer, family and many other aspect of life.

To diminish discrimination towards women, we have to find solution such as promoting education to women; reduce the financial needs by needy families and giving a helping hand from the country.

We can reduce the financial needs by needy families so that they can provide and promote education to women so that with those highly educated women, they can achieve excellent jobs with high income and a higher position in the workplace whereby they have the rights and say. It will help to change the view of how people will look at women and will not be look down on as they will have the rights and says in the society when they become useful.

We can also diminish gender discrimination by having helping hands from the country such as government, who can take action into it. They can help to forbid activities such as sex-selective abortion and can organise speeches on gender discrimination so that people will reflect and stop discrimination. They can also help to promote and encourage education for both genders especially on women.

The present study aimed to identify the gender images depicted in riddles posed by women and men of the rural areas. It was assumed that stereotypical images are depicted through riddles and gender images of riddles reveal a great deal about the societal attitudes toward gender and toward structuring the individual’s identity and identification of the gender role. And by these riddles, gender roles has been analyzed in which women are seen as submissive, obedient and caregivers whereas the men are considered to be the breadwinners, prominent and strong. The study consisted of collection and documentation of riddles.

The present study also intends to identify the contribution of women and men in the formulation of gender specific dimensions through riddles which articulated and reinforce the masculine and feminine images, prevalent in rural society of Punjab.

Culture is the way of people’s life, which is consisting of both material as well as ideological components. Culture consist straight patterns of thought and behavior, including values, norm, belief, rules of political organization and economic activity etc. Culture isn’t biological inheritance, it passed-on from one generation to the next by learning and oral transmition (Decorse & Raymond, 1992).

Every culture is different from other and has different cultural values. It is not a creation of single man but emerge through different people who lived there and share land and emotions (Maswan, 1977).

Culture is mixture of norms, belief, and values, which are orally transmitted to one generation to another generation. Oral tradition is one of the oldest forms of art in any society that transmitted their values, belief and norms through communication. In world two third of it population are preferred to orally communicate (Kalim, 1978).

Every culture has its own values and traditions, Pakistan as a culture contains multi-cultural values and traditions. It has lots of influence by their neighboring cultural areas like Central Asia, Iran, the Arab World and India. Pakistan has strong cultural and historical roots. Modern Pakistan was the land of Indus civilization which was mixture of Persian, Indo-Greek and Islamic cultures. Pakistan has been arranged by the Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Mongols and the British. Pakistani folklore contains elements of all of these cultures. In Pakistan first phase of folklore was collected and started by British rural (Report of SARRC Tourism of Pakistan, 2010).

In Pakistan, because of different culture, the different languages are spoken. Each of the language spoken in Pakistan has unique quality of poems, songs, stories and proverbs which are associated with its cultural norms and values (Ultey, 1968).

According to Agarwal, Punjab is a vast plain dotted with thousands of villages that are of great importance to be studied. Like other societies, the rural society of Punjab is a patriarchal society. Patriarchy is a phenomenon which is prevailing in most of the cultures in the world. It is a form of social organization that structures the dominance of men over women where social institutions construct gender differences in the society and women are considered as private or communal property and men as the natural heirs of all power (Agarwal, 1994).

Quddus discussed in his research that, Punjabi is traditional language of Pakistan (Punjab) which is spoken since Middle age. The first written Punjabi sample was found in 13th century, which was short verse of Baba Farid Shakar Ganj. By the 16th century; Peeloo, a poet has notable contribution in Punjabi literature, who was also the writer of Mirza Sahiban. In Pakistan, mostly the folklores are prevailing in Punjab (Quddus, 1992).

“Folklore” is a complex meaning of “folk,” which mean common people, and “lore” means the knowledge or traditions. Hence folklore is the tradition of common people and it is also a source to express the culture (Ultey, 1968).

In oral tradition Folklore is considered as main source of information which moves in multiple generations. In Folklore and folk life, include the all way of living in that particular cultural through which people can become a member of that culture (Hassan, 1995).

Research done by Quddus (1992) concluded that folklore plays the significant role to express the culture, through folklores the norms tradition and values are shared form one area to another or one generation to another. In Folklores basically the characteristic of that culture are shown, that also help to expose any culture within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group (Quddus, 1992).

According to Ultey (1968), folklore helps to understand the past and also often help to shape the present. Folklore is then, is an important oral tradition, transmitted by word of mouth, source of learning in specific culture that starts from lullaby which used to sing when children are very little. Through lullabies, folk stories, proverbs, riddles, actually the roles and norms of that specific culture are transmitted and internalized by the person that how life can spend. These norms and tradition supports person through out the whole life. These folklores are dominating on whole part of man’s life like folk song sing at the time of happiness, riddles proverb indirectly give the message of norm and belief (Ultey, 1968).

Folklores are the oral literature and are also a form of socialization. Gender roles, in particular, are reflected in legends, tales, and myths etc traditionally shared in oral traditions of particular interest. Folklore oral literature provides a rich source of cultural history and socialization, transmitting and reinforcing messages associated with central values (Allen etal, 2006).

Folklores work as vehicle, through which tradition circulate, like tool to transform values from one culture to another culture. Folklores serve both as entertainment as well as socialization, where gender roles and images are depicted. Through folklores the man and women socially accepted role is explained. These roles and duties are slowly changed with passage of time but still practices in any shape in world. Gender images created by folksongs can therefore reveal a great deal about the societal attitudes toward gender (Mahan, 1978).

Tempest stated in her research that folklores are the most important tool of socialization as these are sometimes used as stereotype. Different kinds of stereotype roles are being presented through folklores (Tempest, 2001).

Munir (1990) described in his research that, in Pakistan large number of unwritten folklores passes orally from generation to generation. The crafts, rituals, legends, epics, ballads, folk tales, songs dances and riddles are still alive today and there main characteristic are the mixture of different culture and region which makes the culture as unique and specific. But fusion of different culture doesn’t become the cause of removal of originality of Pakistani culture. The patterns of culture clearly move on its own right way. This diversity and dynamic of cultural make our heritage powerful and alive (Munir, 1990).

Shahed said that folk literature is changed and diminished due to urbanization. He stated that in older times folk literature was related to land, peasantry and traditional things but now knowledge is transformed because of urbanization (Shahed, 1993).

Folklores have broad ranges of expression. It can be oral, material, and behavioral. folklores include; ballad which is traditional poem or folksong, fairy tales which are traditional stories, conveying stereotypical messages, folk dance are also called ethnic dance that are originated with the common people of the cultural group, folk song is a traditional song that is collected for different occasion and handed down orally, joke is a technique in which game of word play, in humorous way that provoke laughter, legends are traditional historical tales usually containing a mixture of fact and fiction but regarded as true, superstition is an irrational belief usually involving supernatural forces and associated with rituals, folk tales popular tales, which are love stories and mostly tragically ended, Folk games are those games which are traditionally very famous; these are practice and passed from generation to generation and riddles are linguistic puzzle in the form of a question which also containing clues to its solution (Bruchac etal, 2004).

Riddle is one of the aspects of folklore which is important medium for transmitting of culture, education, knowledge and skills to children. Riddles play important roles as a means of socialization and social learning. Riddles are actually puzzle, games of words, it can be comprised of one or two sentences or more than that, which can be solved through interaction and symbolic activities (Eastman & Kallen, 1979).

A riddle is a mysterious statement and description that contains a hidden meaning to be guessed by to whom it is addressed. Riddles also involve analogy of meaning, sound, Rhythm, or tone (Fant, 1985).

Mostly riddles are taken as a game and structure of those riddle are like question, through its analyses and definition other people assume the answer. Riddles have binary relation, which has question and answer of it. Riddles are formulated in special sitting, in which two or more then two people sit in one place, one asks the riddle’s question and other person or persons guess its answer. Mostly these sitting are arranging in some occasion like harvesting, in evening, leisure time, in homes, in field and any other social meeting, where group of people assembled, belong to same culture; know about tradition, belief, etc (Burns, 1976).

The riddling can be played in different ages of people. In some tradition only children engage in riddling. In some tradition adults can participate in the riddling of children, in some traditions riddling is mostly an adult hobby. In some traditions, riddling is mostly an activity associated with only males. But in the majority of cultures it is leisure-time activity or traditions, both male and female participate in this activity and they also participate in mixed groups including both women and men while elsewhere females are said to specialize in formulation of riddles. It is general belief that females are more intelligent than man and riddles require intelligence. Riddles mainly based on common household items, crops names, animals names, daily activities, heavenly objects, cultural artifacts, parts of the body, etc. (Green & Pepicello, 1984)

There are no proper and strict rules and regulations for riddling, that has to follow. But mostly two or three things are arranged before to start riddling, that is to have people who ask question or guess answer, and the event or scenario from which riddle asked. Nevertheless these rules are important, whether it is verbal activity. Riddles functions as umbrella categories, of socialization, entertainment, and education (Burns, 1976).

According to Messengers (1960), Riddles are part of folklore so through folklores, culture and tradition are transferred from one generation to another. Riddle inculcates the culture and proper behavior of life in a child. Interesting sessions and repetition of asking riddles mostly memorize the children who repeat it with their friends, or other people and learn them (Messenger, 1960).

Research done by Tempest (2001) found that riddles are type of folklores that are used to convey the stereotype messages. These stereotypes are also gender related and these riddles are mostly categorized between boys and girls, sons and daughters (Tempest, 2001).

Another function of riddling is entertainment that plays in leisure time which is called leisure-time riddling. Riddling is also play in greeting occasion like marriage ceremony where people are gathered and enjoy their gathering (Burns, 1976).

Riddle is usually played by people to entertain themselves during long winter nights. Of course it also helps to measure the intelligence of the people. Another time at which riddles are also played when people busy in field with harvesting they also play riddling for time pass and entertainment etc (Green & Pepicello, 1984).

According to Ishengoma (2005), riddles have important educational value because they develop critical thinking and memory among young children. It is meant for entertainment and education as well, especially for child’s learning. In addition to enjoyment, riddles help in memory training for children as they are expected and encouraged to remember the correct answer to the riddles. They play important role in socialization and social learning of children. But riddles are still prevailing to use for education purpose as device to learn about cultural value, attitudes, and to teach dominant and submissive roles (Ishengoma, 2005).

Green & Pepicello (1984) discussed in the research that the main role of riddle is socialization of younger generation, that know about the items of daily routine like name of crops help to know about it, then their season of harvesting and using of that crops, these information are internalize through riddle. Riddles helped children to learn about gender roles and duties, their characteristic, culture and tradition according to which they spend their life (Green & Pepicello, 1984).

On the other side is also criticize that riddle has lacking the capacity to improve the mind, because riddle has stereotype question and answer and mostly answer is already known to the audience (Awedoba, 2000).

Riddles have been a rich oral tradition, without doubt, throughout the world. Some societies play it in present times also. Now the concept of riddling is less in urban and rural population, but still play in rural population. Because in rural population has less source of entertainment like video, television, cinema and many others are not available. So people enjoy through riddles (Green & Pepicello, 1984).

Gender Roles are assigned by different folklores which gives identity. It means these biological and social characteristics become social-identity. These identities are internalizing in every person, and motivated to play these roles which actually culture associated with them, because those roles are socially and culturally accepted (Hassan, 1995).

Culture also constructs the gender specific socio-economic differences in roles, responsibilities, constraints, opportunities and needs of men and women. These are set up in opposition to biological sex.

“Gender is a process of allocation of differences that is varied according to time and space, it needs to be historicized and situated geo-politically but also in terms of other structural variables such as social class, age, race, ethnicity, religion and sexuality.”

(Eagly, 1987)

Gender roles are socially and culturally constructed and are a dynamic term that can be changed over time. Gender roles refer to the rights, responsibilities, expectations, and relationships of men and women. Gender is a logical concept for examining the status of women and men in a culture. Social Construction of gender is an end result of the process of socialization where the values, norms, beliefs, wisdom, philosophy, customs, skills and practices of the society are learned, acknowledged and internalized. (Njau, 1994)

Through the process of socialization, values and behavior patterns associated with maleness and femaleness, are learned, acquired and assimilated. Gender roles are affected by socio-cultural expectations, qualities and behaviors that are expected from a male or a female by their society. These expectations originate in the pre-conception that certain qualities and roles are ‘natural’ for women and ‘unnatural’ for men. Males and females are socialized through social pressure, learning condition and act according to the different traits that society considers ‘suitable’ for them. Socialization aims at preparing individuals for their respective roles in society, installing principles, forming individuals and making them practical members of society.

“Socialization means that people are taught to accept and perform the roles and functions fixed by society for them. Men and women are socialized to accept different gender roles from birth till death. Establishing different roles and expectations for men and women is a key feature of socialization in most societies. While men and women differ on account of their biological and anatomical constitution, gender differences are a product of socio-cultural traditions, which are created and perpetuated through cultural forms such as belief systems and rites as well as through proverbs and tales.”

(Kabira, 1994)

Society is an enduring and cooperating social group, whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with each other. It is also a broad grouping of people having common traditions, collective activities and interests. Social groups develop society. Every society has its own norms, customs and traditions, which depend on its geographical and social culture also. Through socialization individuals, are prepared for their respective roles in society to make them useful members of society (Edgar, 1987).

Male family members are considered the breadwinner and head of the household and make decisions for family members. The sexual division of labor is hierarchical with men on top and women on bottom.

“In Punjabi culture, it is society, who ascribes various roles for men and women in a fixed location and family life is determined by the men folk alone due to the customs of patrilineal character in the families that is found there. Customs and property generally flow from the male persons of the previous generation to the next generation and women of the family have no articulation in family matters.”

(Quduss, 1992)

The study aims to look the functionality and importance of riddles in Punjabi society. The significance of the present study can be used as a source in reviewing the riddles that had been posed in past by village people and will present gender images depicted in riddles. It will also explain how gender is portrayed in these riddles and how this folklore play important role in socialization process. The present study also had a unique dimension as a very few researches had mainly focused on riddles. The purpose to conduct this research is to preserve our cultural-lore which was diminishing with the passage of time. The study would be focused towards collection and analysis of riddles. It was an attempt to capture and understand the feelings of people of the rural society of Punjab.

Heteronormativity is the cultural bias or the view that puts clear boundary between male and female, which emphasizes normal sexual and romantic relationship between two genders. As freshmen in college, I have a friend name Joe whom I did not expect him to be gay. At first, I thought it was impossible him to be gay. But as he began to have boyfriend, I began to see people around them and the society viewed him as abnormal and weird. For example, his parents told him to be straight in order to emphasize about being normal. There are social boundaries to people who are not straight and the society encourages people to be Heteronormative. Therefore, Heteronormativity is a fixed view about living and having normal thoughts about sexuality and gender role.

Prompt 1: Gender Construction in our society

Gender Identity can be defined by the way people act as a male and female, which males have different sets of mind about something that females do not. Even though man and woman have difference in physical part, People learn more about their gender identity through experiences since their childhoods to until they get old. There are many biological differences in both men and women, but it does not have impact on how gender shapes in people’s lives. If gender did not exist in our society, I am pretty sure there would be gender confusion where many females would be considered as “male”, and many males would be considered as “females.” There are many sociocultural factors that have influenced on gender role. Since the social construction of gender is mainly formed by the gender rule and stereotype in our society, gender identity is constructed by the representation of gender norms in mass media productions, parental expectations about gender identity, and the beliefs of different religious traditions about gender. In today’s society, Mass Media Production like movie, video games, and magazines influenced so many young males and females and also some older people. For example in the movie clips ” Miss Representation(2010) ,” clearly portrays how women should act around people and in society. In the movie Miss Representation, the women are shown as sexually explicit figure toward the audiences and also emphasize how women should look like in order to satisfy gender role. Because many women are shown in negative way for most of time, people actually think that women are exactly like in the movie or magazines, which is not true. This movie was trying to say that people are heavily influenced by media. All of people watch TV every single day, and many of them enjoy watching movie. By watching them, they unconsciously think about the actors or models and form their gender roles. In the reading ” Breaking the Model,” the author said ” I wanted to be popular, like the typical girl on TV. I wanted to be thin- to fit in.” (Rodriguez, CP 54). Due to the fact that many of women want to look sexy, beautiful, and thin, they see the model as their dream and it motivates them to be like them, which could cause in eating disorder and depression. They desire to fit into certain group of the society in order to feel good and superior about themselves. On the other hand, the producers of media know what teens like and purposefully make media productions that appeal to them. Finally, the media gradually forms people’s thoughts about their genders by emphasizing that they should look like them. The social construction of gender is caused by the expectation of people and the way society view people. Since the childhood, everyone received certain expectations from their parents and relatives to be either grown up as normal masculine male and feminine female. In the reading from “Night to His Day,” it said that “In social interaction throughout their lives, individuals learn what is expected, see what is expected, act and react in expected way, and thus simultaneously construct and maintain the gender order.” (Lorber, CP 14). Unlike media effect on gender identity, children learn their behaviors and form their minds by listening to their parents and other people. For example, some boys learn to be male by playing tough sports like football. Additionally, girls learn to be female by imitating the way their mothers dress and act. It would be weird for people to act in unexpected way and might result in isolation from the family and the society. In the reading “Why Boys Don’t Play With Dolls,” it said that ” a girl with a doll and a boy with truck “explain” why men are from Mars and women are from Venus, why wives do housework and husbands just don’t understand” (Pollitt, CP 18). Since childhood, we modeled our parents and acted according to what they told us to do. There are gender rules which states that male has to act in certain way and female has to act in another way. Because gender stereotype and expectations existed and people kept acting in expected way for long period of time, people were able to form gender identity by modeling and following their ancestors. All of these would demonstrate how our social norms have big impact on gender expectations for people. Lastly, religious view toward gender would form the social construction of gender and could lead to discrimination about gender, especially toward female. As right now, there are few countries where sexism is still going on against women due to the cultural and religious view among people. In many countries, Women are treated differently than men in various ways. For example in the reading “Night to His Day,” the author wrote that ” In societies that create the greatest gender difference, such as Saudi Arabia, women are kept out of sight behind walls or veils, have no civil rights, and often create a cultural and emotional world of their own (Bernard 1981) ( Lorber CP, 15). Because Saudi Arabia had this belief for long time, the people just think this as religious belief that came from their parents or ancestors. In most of countries, women are seen as weak and emotional through religious belief that was viewed by the society, which lead to certain type of gender identity. Many of religious belief like Catholic and Muslim emphasized about transgender and homosexuality. According to religious belief of Catholic, it emphasizes people not to change their gender through surgical treatment and marrying a same gender. If they disobey the rule of religion, they would lose respect from other people and feel they are not worthy enough to believe in that religion by the fact they did not follow the gender rule in society. It is important to understand that people have high tendency to conform among groups, and it would result in following normal cultural and religious belief toward gender identity and role. Gender is mainly formed by our social construction and each individual is impacted by people and objects they encounter every day in their lives. It is not possible to just form our gender based on body difference between men and women because it does not do anything to our mind and habits. As people grow up from childhood, they begin to actually see how it feels to be fit into the right gender identity group through media production they encounter, expectations from other people that caused from gender stereotype, and religious value of each country. Therefore, I strongly agree that the sociocultural experiences have huge impact on individual’s gender identity through the gender rule and gender stereotype.

Gender bias in the workplace. Why are women paid less for comparable jobs performed by men?

In this essay, a brief history of women in the workplace as well as gender stereotyping with gender specific jobs are discussed. There is a belief that men are paid more than women for the same tasks. Is this notion true in the 21st century? An examination on literature and recent research shows that women are gaining more and more but still have not reached what men are being paid for a comparable job. The reasons this is still happening are thoroughly examined and proposals for changing this are suggested. For this essay, western and industrialized societies are only examined. Studying other cultures and societies would help answer questions raised about universality of this issue, but due to insufficient space this aspect is not included.

In traditional societies the division of labor has always been based on gender roles. We have grown up by learning what traits are suited to our gender and the roles each gender has in a family. Men were always considered to work outside the household being the ones that brought the bread home, thus called the ‘breadwinners’. Women were working in the house taking care of everyone and everything relating to the daily life and were (and still are) called the ‘caretakers’ (Koskina, 2009). It is only that women have actively participated in the career oriented jobs since around the middle of the 20th century and have actually studied in the fields of their work at equally high demanding standards as men who might be seeking to be employed at a job of comparable worth. In contemporary societies, the notion of the traditional family has changed. We also see various forms of ‘family’ with quite a growing number of single parent families where the main caregiver as well as breadwinner/provider is often the woman. Women nowadays almost all work outside the households while still having to find time to engage in childcare activities playing a dual role. This double role women have might lead them to work fewer hours outside the home thus having to accept lower-pay jobs. The human capital approach agrees with the above as it states that women invest less in the jobs, thus ‘harvest fewer rewards’ (Lips &Lawson, 2009).

The feminist argument views the same thing from a different perspective. They highlight women’s different needs and experiences within the workplace through motherhood and the importance of maternity rights (Bryson, 1992; Hare-Mustin and Marecek, 1994) Women still have primary responsibility of their children and their household as they did ‘traditionally’ during the past century. However there are approaches that criticize biological determinism and equating roles of caring and mothering and for over-generalizing women’s experiences. (Evans, 1994; Guerrina, 2001)

Robbins (1999) said that the informal slogan of the decade for women was “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive ten percent of the world’s income and own one percent of the means of production.” There are still in the Western World some societies that have not adapted into a gender-free job compensation system. UNICEF noticed that women who work outside the household earn on average far less than men. They get low earnings, little financial security and no social benefits. (UNICEF, 2007) Gender discrimination affects girls and women throughout their lifetime thus women suffer the most poverty.

From the Daughters of Liberty in 1765 to the first Brazilian woman president in 2010 a lot has changed. During the World War I women’s role in society was expanded as they entered the workforce. In 1963 the Equal Pay Act makes it illegal for companies to make inequities between men and women for the same job. But to what extent did that happen? Do they have equal opportunities for jobs that until recently were thought only to be open for men? In 1968 the Supreme Court decided that women with the abilities can work in jobs that have previously been considered typically suitable only for men. In the 70s, women begin to study more and more at University level entering professions like medicine, law, dentistry and business. An amazing statistic is that during the 80s 17% of total doctors in the USA were women!

Although history has shown that women progressed in the workplace quite fast, unfortunately we still live in patriarchal societies and men seem to be able to further in their careers than women. Rees and Brewster (1995) suggest that ‘where women are segregated into professions and working patterns that are characterized by low pay, we have examples of capitalism and patriarchy working hand in hand’.(Koskina,2009) The notion of the family in capitalist societies plays a vital factor in the gender pay gap. Having children has a positive impact on men’s wages and negative ones on women’s. According to Glauber (2007) having 2 to 4 children can decrease a women’s wages from 4-8%. Budig and England (2001) found a 7% reduction in wages per child. This decrease does not happen for men with children. Glauber (2008) suggested the ‘fatherhood premium’ which means that when men have children wages increase (Lips &Lawson, 2009). In 1967 Blalock hypothesized that the sudden increase of members of underrepresented groups into work environments would be perceived by members of majority groups as an intrusion and as a result would increase bias (Ambady &Richeson, 2001).

The estimates show that women are only paid about 70% of the wages paid to men for comparable work (Sorensen, 1994). Unfortunately, sex stereotyping in the workplace still occurs and men get the higher paying jobs. Men have access to higher paid jobs probably because they have been working far longer than women, who only started to work outside the household in the past 30 or so years and another reason may be motherhood. It still happens to date, when a man and woman with the same experience and academic qualifications are interviewed for a job position, the man has many more chances to get the job because the human resources person knows that the woman might soon start a family and that work will become her second priority and family the first.

Organizations are afraid that accepting a woman to work for them, means that someday they will have to outweigh business with family responsibilities. There have been studies looking into women’s and men’s work related values. In three separate studies, women rated ‘achievement, work environment, co-workers, supervision, prestige, lifestyle values, work hygiene, and social values as more important than men did, whereas men rated creativity, independence, income, and extrinsic values as more important than women did’ (Duffy & Sedlacek 2007; Rottinghaus & Zytowski 2006; Sinisalo 2004). Frieze et al. (2006) suggests that men and women already working have similar work values in their careers. Their research found no gender differences in ratings of work values relating to recognition, helping people, and earning a lot of money. However, women in this study rated “doing an excellent job” as more important than men did. Most studies of work related values have not included values specifically related to accommodation to family responsibilities (Lips & Lawson, 2009). According to Blau and Kahn, two important factors in explaining the pay gap and its decline are occupational distributions of men and women and differences in their age experience profiles (Renner & Rives & Bowlin, 2002).

There is a lot of research on the issue of pay inequities between men and women and researchers have been debating about the reasons that this occurs. As already mentioned men have access to higher paid jobs and get paid more than women for performing equivalent tasks. In the 1980s this gender based disparity raised the concept of comparable worth, or equal pay for equal work. It seems that despite the legal actions, men continue to get paid more than women and it might be because of exceptioning. Exceptioning is ‘the practice of ignoring pay discrepancies between particular jobs possessing equivalent duties and responsibilities’ (Riggio, 2008).

Limitations placed on women like motherhood or lower level jobs are referred to as glass ceiling. This glass ceiling prevents them from advancing to better paid positions. In fact, ‘very few women have managed to break through the “glass ceiling” to occupy top jobs’ and where they have succeeded, this is usually in the public sector (Vinnicombe and Colwill, 1995). As ‘women are confined both to lower-grade jobs and to different jobs’ (Abercrombie and Warde, 2002), the gender pay gap remains a familiar and persistent feature of all European economies.

Research indicates various factors affect women’s ability to get past the glass ceiling. Traditional organizational cultures often reflect continuing gender stereotypes (Bible & Hill, 2007; Boselovich, 2006). For example, the difference between men and women was that ‘women take care and men take charge and that women are not as good at problem solving as their male counterparts’. (Bible & Hill, 2007). Another study by Hymowitz (2005) reported that men felt that they were superior to women in problem solving, inspiring, delegating, and influencing superiors. (Sipe & Fisher& Johnson, 2009) Unfortunately, despite the success of a lot of women worldwide in the workforce, stereotypes of women and of what job they should do, still prevail.

Women are still confined to certain roles based on societies, cultures and religion and limit their participation in economic life on an equal basis with men. Traditional gender roles such as, women are responsible for their family and for their children and elderly, makes it difficult for them to fully participate in the workforce. This unfortunately works both ways. Even if women were able to participate fully in the workforce, discrimination against them persists. Another explanation is related to the lack of information that employers may have about their women employees, resulting in their tending to underestimate the productive potential of women, and, therefore, paying them less and confining them to lower grade occupations.

Patriarchal societies construct women as belonging in the home, better suited for raising children and performing housework. Feminists have argued that this notion keeps women in their homes reproducing privileges towards men. Women have the same rights and privileges and have the opportunity to choose not to marry, not to have children and to have a career. Female gender identities are changing with aspirations beyond marriage producing changes in social practices and in the workforce. ‘Part of the social constructionist task is to identify the conditions of possibility for the emergence and take up of any given discourse, often attributed to large-scale material shifts in power bases’ (Foucault, 1977). Any individual woman can take up the positions offered by discourses to construct a particular identity at a given time (Dick & Nadin, 2006).

O’Neill (2003) argues ‘that since the gender gap can largely be explained by non-discriminatory factors, it is unlikely the gender wage gap will decrease further, even in the absence of labor market discrimination, unless what she terms women’s household responsibilities decrease'(Green & Ferber,2005). The study showed that the main reasons for the above are that, compared with men, women spend more time and energy caring for their families, they are more likely less on-the job training, they are less stable workers who often quit their jobs for family reasons, causing their employers concern about discontinuity and they expect their labor force participation to be intermittent, and therefore choose occupations with wages that are higher early on although they increase less over time.(Green & Ferber, 2005)

Women often work more than men yet are paid less. In 1984, Major et al. suggested that women work longer, do more work, and complete more correct work and work more efficiently than men for the same amount of pay. There is research that shows that there may be a difference between men and women in their sense of personal entitlement for pay. Women and men allocate rewards differently between themselves and others as when they were asked to ‘divide a joint reward between themselves and a co-worker, men tend to take more of the reward for themselves, and give correspondingly less to the co-worker, than do women having the same performance level'( Major, 1989). These factors as well as difficulty to access resources and other basic services, contribute to weakening women’s capacity to earn their own income.

Discrimination against women that are also mothers is another factor. For example, between 2001 and 2003, just under 40% of U.S. women who were pregnant with their first child had to take unpaid time off of work (Johnson 2008). Inadequate leave policies and lack of childcare resources for mothers in the United States appear to contribute to the wage gap (Sigle-Rushton & Waldfogel 2007); such inadequacies may cause mothers to feel as if they must decide between work and family (Williams& Cohen &Cooper 2004). Working fewer hours, taking time off for children or completely stepping out of the work force for young children comes with an economic cost, resulting in lower earnings for mothers (Lips & Lawson 2009).

An approach grounded in Expectancy-Value theory (e.g., Atkinson 1964; Eccles 1989) would suggest that, given ‘heavy domestic and childcare responsibilities, the constraints they expect to face in the workplace and the consequent low expectancy of success, women may place less value on work and more on family, thus falling neatly into the pattern, predicted by the human capital approach, of investing more in family than in workplace success’ (Lips &Lawson, 2009). In contrary, men would be expected to value work more, given a higher probability of success in that area. Thus, they would tend to value achievement, status, power, and success at work. As Frieze et al. (2006) showed through his study, achievement and power related work values are significant predictors of salary. This shows that gender differences in work values might be a reason for gender pay disparities. Another finding of Frieze et al. (2006) shows that work values and career engagement are related but research is inconsistent as to whether there are gender differences in work values.

It is clear that there is a gender bias toward women in the workplace, but evidence shows that it is because of gender roles in patriarchal societies and biological determinism. Women didn’t start to work outside the household until recently, so in a way it’s logical that men have gained higher positions in organizations. The structure of a family is constantly changing nowadays, were we see allot of single parents struggling between jobs and childcare. There are some women who are career oriented rather than wishing to have a family, who strive on being the best in her job position and some are able to get bigger wages than others and sometimes men. There is some other research that entails the idea of women having to choose to work or have a family. Why should a woman have to leave the dream to create a family in order to be able to have the same benefits with a man? ‘Gender is something people do rather than people have’ (Eveline& Todd, 2009). In light of this quote, anything is possible. There has been plenty of research on the gender gap and other ethnic minorities, concluding that there is a bias toward women with a family or young but as times change maybe stereotypes will alter.