A Multi-directional Approach To Gender Stratification.

Essay by blikUniversity, Bachelor'sA, February 2004

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According to Light Donald, «gender stratification refers to the fact that males and females generally occupy unequal positions in the social hierarchy» (319). To define gender stratification even better, one could imply from the above that, it is a set of rights, obligations, expectations, and privileges that determines men's and women's behavior within the society. The last 40 years, women are getting high education and some of them combining their talent in the working field, are capable of doing as well as men in their jobs. On the other hand, some women who complain about outspokenness and assertiveness are treated unequally and have negative effects in their professional lives.

One of the most basic effect, that has an impact on women's professional life is the lower status which by definition is given to them. By definition I mean that women are supposed to be the «weak sex» according to the ideology that existed in the past in the social cycles of men.

As a result it is believed in the western contemporary societies which remain patriarchal, that they cannot carry out a work or an assignment as successively as men.

The above pressure from the psychological aspect, reflects on women as being «dependent, passive, unassertive, and emotional.», as Light Donald supports (320). They are seen by males this way, because the majority of women 40 years ago looked like this. Nowadays, men are stuck out for this belief, and they are not giving women the chances to prove the opposite. Many times, when something similar happened, women were able to show that they can do as well as men, or even better. The other side of the coin would be for women to occupy places in the workforce which were up to now held by men, such as lawyers and...