The Gender Gap: Women vs. Men

Today in the textbook I learned about the gender gap between men and women. This means, according to the dictionary, “The discrepancy in opportunities, status, attitudes, etc. between men and women.” It’s not something that I’ve really had to deal with in my life but as I’m considering options for my future career it’s something that I need to be concerned about. According to the text, in 2003 women earned 71.2 per cent as much as men. I knew that the gender wage gap existed before reading this but I didn’t think it would be that extreme. And because the career path that I am considering taking is a male dominated industry I am nervous about whether or not I will even have a chance at competing with male co-workers. I don’t understand how this standard could be acceptable to employers. I'm a young woman who wants to have a successful career and I want to be paid equally, especially if I pay for the same education and contributed the same amount of hours as a male co-worker. I think that when applying for a job being aware of what my possible employer’s stance is on a genders pay is would be beneficial.

Ultimately I believe both sexes should be treated as equally capable of completing given tasks. Sure, there can be some definite differences between men and women, like physical strength and abilities to multitask, but this is why both sexes should work together rather than competing against one another. Men and women have different strengths and weaknesses but that shouldn’t be a deciding factor for who is better suited for a job or how much the person is paid.

The Communication Technology Connection

Communication technology has played a huge part in the expansion of women’s rights and has been an extremely positive influence, although it does have its problems. One of them being that many places, mainly developing countries, don’t have access to contemporary communication technologies and therefore are deprived of even knowing about what they can do to improve gender equality. I myself have found that even I was ignorant to the extent of the gender gap and I have full access to resources such as books and the Internet.