Examples Of Gender Discrimination In To Kill A Mockingbird

Gender Discriminations and women’s response

Since human beings have made their society a “human society” instead of an animal community, patriarchy has maintained itself in a broad spectrum of different cultures. Patriarchy refers to a social system in which males own dominant positions and enjoy superior privileges, while females are relegated to be relatively subordinate roles. In this case, women are strongly influenced by inherent gender discrimination, facing obstacles in accessing education, applying for high-salary careers, or attending political activities. Moreover, the stereotype set by the patriarchal society characterizes women as properties of men and puts pressure on those women who go against it. So long, the history written

Reader who pays attention to social roles of the characters depicted in the book will notice that those high-status elites handing overriding powers are always males, while the females often serve as housewives, maids... yet rarely being a politician, a businessman, a lawyer. Women in the book have either no job or have a low-pay job, by contrast, when it comes to the court scenario, there are no women but only men acting as court officials, which is a relatively high-pay and decent job. Besides, Scout was once told by her aunt Alexandra that she should wear necklaces and dress instead of wearing manlike breeches because she “doesn’t need to do anything that require pants” (Lee, 83). For aunt Alexandra, Scout is obliged to dress up nicely as a girl, and activities requires pants don’t suit her, which is boy’s privilege: chasing around, climbing trees, and ripping clothes while playing when they are boys, then holding the position of sheriffs, doctors, directors when they grow up. For girls the expectation will be utterly different: girls should play with mini kitchenware and barbie dolls, then spend the rest of life handling real kitchenware and taking care of babies. That is what women have been assigned to do in patriarchal society. It’s not a law set by government to restrict

Abundant data shows that women, though accounting for about 46% percent of the total workforce in the United States, have more difficulties compared to men in getting to the senior level of enterprises. According to Sky Ariella, there is only 35% of senior leadership position is held by women (Ariella). Additionally, the inequality also exists in the wage gap between men and women. According to Amanda Barroso and Anna Brown’s research, generally, the salary full-time women employees earn is approximately 82% of what their male co-workers earn. Harsh the situation is, women in the workplace are promoting a trend of gender equality, which is growing slowly but steadily. A vivid example is Citi’s new CEO, Jane Fraser, the first woman to hold the position of CEO in one of the major Wall Street banks. She claims that those traits which are always considered effeminate have great power: “Empathy doesn’t represent vulnerability. On the contrast, it can create advantages” (Laurent). Empathy encourages people to cooperate with clients positively instead of simply injecting ideas and giving instructions, explained Fraser. Having crossed sexism barriers in workplaces, endeavoring to break the gender wall and to end men’s monopoly in job market, she is willing to lend a hand to other females