Women Still Earn Less Than Men Because of Sex Discrimination

I found this article very interesting because although many years ago men were payed much more money than women, I thought that in today's age and day, women and men were payed equal wages. Currently, on average, men still make 23 cents more than women (out of every dollar earned). Many years ago, women earned less money than men because men were given more opportunities, especially in the educational field. Today, many people believe that women earn less than men because they have children, which causes them to bring down the women's average wages. When women have children, a lot of times, they either stop working, work less, or some believe that they do not work as hard. There are a variety of reasons and theories why women have lower wages in the workforce, but the author of this article believes that the true reason why women earn less is because of sex discrimination. The article states, "Employers still flatly refuse to hire fully qualified women into a wide variety of jobs: forklift drivers, firefighters, salespeople, electricians, regional managers, stockbrokers, senior executives. Or they hire women, but refuse to promote them—as happens to grocery clerks, police officers, university professors, and management analysts." This shows that even if women are just as qualified or even more qualified than men, they may not receive a job, due to their gender. I believe that women should not be discriminated against and that women do have the abilities to be salespeople or electricians. Many years ago, these jobs were considered "unfit" for women and only men had these jobs. However, nowadays, people need to realize that women are able to accomplish these tasks and that they should not either be payed lower wages or not given the job, due to their gender. I believe that it is very important for women to receive equal opportunities, advantages, and privileges and it is quite evident that although women have been given more rights in the workforce, sex discrimination is still present. By reading this article, I learned that even though the movements and organizations women formed to win their rights decades ago did help to gain some equality, there is still a lot of gender discrimination in the United States currently.

Graff, Evelyn Murphy and E.J. "Women Still Earn Less Than Men Because of Sex Discrimination." Opposing Viewpoints: Working Women. Ed. Christina Fisanick. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 6 Feb. 2010 http://find.galegroup.com/.