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What are the social limitations and posibilities of your gender?

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WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL LIMITATIONS AND POSIBILITIES OF YOUR GENDER? CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 2 ARE THERE SOCIAL LIMITATIONS? 2 A. Inequalities for women in society 1. Employment 2. The Household 3. Education B. Statistics: The truth? WHY ARE THERE SOCIAL LIMITATIONS? 3 CONCLUSION 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY 5 INTRODUCTION In this essay, I shall go into detail about why there are social limitations for women, concentrating mainly on the gender pay gap as I feel that it is a good example in which to answer the set question. It would be impossible, if not insulting, to cover the whole issue of women's social limitations in two thousand words. However, I have given two other examples not relating to the gender pay gap, to illustrate that paid work is but a part of a larger picture. "Today, in western societies, women have the same life chances as their male counterparts." Common sense and experience of life could tell us that the above statement is untrue. In this essay I shall illustrate some of the inequalities between the genders, explain the divides, and explain some of the ways in which this is changing. ARE THERE SOCIAL LIMITATIONS? Here are three examples of inequalities within society. Explanations for these inequalities will be addressed in the next section. ...read more.


As I mentioned in the previous section women in Scotland are paid only 72.4 per cent to that of their male counterparts. There are several explanations for this; however, I shall detail two of the most influential. Mincer and Polachek developed the Human Capitol Explanation (Inga Persson and Christina Jonung 1998: 16) which explains the gender pay gap in terms of economic outcomes based on productive differences between the sexes. This explanation considers that employers see female, or future female, employees as having a shorter or discontinuous working life due to family commitments. Looking after the children, pregnancy, meeting husbands needs which could involve moving around from place to place with husbands as his job requires it are all but a few examples of family commitments. Employers also consider that these family commitments mean that women will have less incentive to invest in vocationally advanced training than their male counterparts. Women also tend to be guided into jobs requiring little investment by either themselves, their employers or where wage penalties for career interruptions are smaller. The results of this model are that women themselves choose low paid vocations or are lead by employers, for the reasons above, into these jobs creating occupational segregation. ...read more.


CONCLUSION Throughout society, we have evidence that women have social limitations, especially in terms of the labour market. If we look at the Gender Pay Gap, we see that there are several factors that account for the difference. 1. Women are seen to have shorter, more discontinuous careers than men, by both employers and family oriented women. 2. Many women themselves feel the above to be true, as they are expected to perform household duties (unpaid) as their central role within the family, with men expected to be the main breadwinners. 3. As well as household duties, women are expected also to contribute to the family income, thus working part time or in low paid jobs. 4. Career women are discriminated against by employers on the basis of prejudice (e.g. woman may halt career and concentrate on family). 5. Overcrowding in "female" occupations drives their labour market value down and women are consequently paid less. For these reasons, it is seen that women, by social expectation, are discriminated against in the job market and in career advancement. Their choice of occupation is limited to low paid occupations in many cases because of either expectations or discrimination. I feel that the lack of equality in the employment market means potential is lost to employers and the people being discriminated against. ...read more.

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