My first three classes I ever took at Arizona State University were taught by women (who looked more than a little frazzled).One was a women studies course so it didn’t surprise me and the other two were English and history but as I progressed from taking 100 levels to 300 hundred levels I saw the amount of female teachers dwindle most of the professors where older men or PhD students that were men, I also saw that the students responded to male teachers a little better than they would female teachers. What struck me was a difficult professor that was female was a witch but a male professor was just difficult. I don’t see sex segregation that much in the staffing departments or student workers in fact I have had more female TA’s than male. I read in Women’s Health magazine a few months back that women are becoming more educated and are more likely to hold jobs than their male counterparts these days and it is getting more difficult for women to find a significant other equal to her education. Good news in some ways, right?
I was lucky enough to have a very open minded liberal house hold when it came to gender roles. I am also Italian so that means Mama ruled the house with an iron fist, when it came to me they didn’t really give me a lot of dolls and ‘nurturing’ toys like a kitchen set I more often got legos, books, and coloring books instead. My parents worked a lot so both of them split the chores and expected me to help out as well. In that sense I was very lucky and didn’t have gender roles forced upon me I did however hear ‘act like a little lady’ a lot when we would have guests which meant be polite don’t talk a lot and smile so I guess we did have a certain set of gender rules, that or my parents just wanted me to stop yakking away. When I got older gender roles started becoming more prominent by ways of dress, hair ,and make up this didn’t come from my parents so much as my friends who where all discover boys and stealing their mom’s mascara.
What is so crazy is that women may be getting paid less but women are not losing their jobs at the same rate in this economy. Women are taking more jobs to earn wages to keep their family afloat their husbands who work mainly in construction, engineering, and financial institutions which are getting hit the hardest. Women who work in health care and more government jobs (teachers) are still in demand and are not being put off because they are needed. Women work more often in jobs that are female dominated and do not realize they aren’t getting paid well enough, women in the areas getting hit harder aren’t being paid what their co workers are so employers may not cut them as quickly as someone they pay more. This doesn’t touch on the benefits package that many women do not receive because either they don’t make enough or they are part time. What’s unfair here is that since women aren’t getting paid enough at their main job is they have to take second jobs to keep their family clothed and fed while their husbands look for new work. Women still are feeling the economic problems in our country and we are lucky enough to find second jobs or keep our same ones but we still aren’t being compensated enough for a hard days work.
