First Paper

Jason Kleinman

Professor Simonson

Introduction to Women’s Studies

February 18, 2011

Underlying Gender Inequalities

Gender inequalities are prevalent in modern society whether people realize it or not. This holds true in many areas of our culture. The workplace is one location where gender inequality often goes unnoticed because of a phenomenon called “gender fatigue”. Similarly, in modern media, gender inequality has seemingly disappeared but, in reality, it is still a huge part of what we see and hear every day through many media sources. In modern media, attractive women who play violent roles in films and on television are objectified but neither they nor the audiences seem to notice. Sexism that isn’t identified is very disturbing because it is impossible to remedy a problem that is undiagnosed.

Women have been fighting gender gaps in the workplace for as long as they have been in the workplace. While this gender gap narrowed over the last century, there is no doubt that it still exists. According to “College Times”, although women make up 46% of the total U.S. labor force, they only make 77.5 cents for every dollar that men make. Additionally, women often have to work longer to receive promotions than men do. Finally, four out of every ten businesses worldwide have no women at all in senior management. All of these statistics may be striking but what is more surprising is the ignorance that men in the workplace have to these discrepancies. Yvonne P. Mazzulo, in her article “Gender Discrimination, Gender Bias and now…Gender Fatigue”, talks about gender fatigue, which occurs because most workers do not acknowledge gender advantage in the workplace. The problem that this creates, she explains, is that gender fatigue makes it impossible to have productive discussions about the inequalities between men and women in the workplace. This concept, and article in general, relate extremely well to Peggy McIntosh’s article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Her article speaks of the privileges that white people experience every day without even noticing it. She gives fifty examples of daily situations when being white gives her an advantage over minorities. She then relates this white advantage to the unnoticed advantage that men have over women. This is exactly what Mazzulo is referring to when she speaks of gender fatigue. Gender fatigue is similar to white privilege. Gender bias in the workplace is a statistical fact and the idea that most people don’t recognize this fact makes it so that gender fatigue and gender bias are almost impossible to overcome. It also makes it so that meritocracy becomes somewhat of a myth. McIntosh explains that someone’s life is not always what he or she makes of it, because opportunities may exist for certain people and not others.

Another area of society where vast improvements have been made but gender discrepancies still exist is in the media. I came across an article entitled, “Top 5 Sexy Women Who Kick Ass in Film”. Immediately, without reading the article, I realized how discriminatory and sexist this title is. In modern society, this article might be seen as complimentary. It is written by a man who is actually praising five women he believes are extremely “sexy”. What’s wrong with that? The problem with it is that he is objectifying these women and treating them like they are only successful because they are sexy. The worst part about this seemingly harmless article is that it is not the author who is sexist; this article represents a societal issue that plagues the media every day. Women have made a remarkable amount of progress in the media within the last century. However, like women in the workplace, women are not treated the same way as men in the media and no one pays attention to it. Susan Douglass in her book “Enlightened Sexism” discusses a phenomenon known as enlightened sexism. Enlightened sexism is the concept that women have come such a long way that now they can focus on pleasing men and looking good. This unquestionably comes to fruition in the media. Women believe that they are in control of their own sexuality and it empowers them to be on the “big screen” in tight leather pants, a shirt that barely covers their torso, holding a whip. “Top 5 Sexy Women Who Kick Ass in Film” describes women who fit this mold almost exactly, including his top choice, Rhona Mitra who wears tight leather outfits and handles catfights with ease. While the author sees this as complementary, many would see this comment as objectifying and highly offensive. This is the major problem with enlightened sexism. While it is nice to think that women have made huge strides toward gender equality, enlightened sexism has set women back decades. The women in this article, Rhona Mitra, Devon Aoki, Milla Jovavich, Uma Thurman, and Rose McGowan, all believe that they are empowered through their roles as sexy women who are violent. However, the reality of it is that the people creating and casting most of these movies and shows are men (wherein lies the objectification of these beautiful women). Modern media and the workplace are just two of many examples where male dominance is not noticed in society. Mazzulo states in her article that not recognizing that there is a gender bias is the worst possible situation because if a problem is not known, it cannot be addressed and fixed.

Another aspect of the top five women article that cannot be overlooked is an infatuation with women who are violent in the media. This is not a fascination that this one author has, but a societal obsession among most men. Douglass explains that women being violent in film are considered sexy by men. During the 1990’s women’s violence became a media sensation. It spanned across many forms of media from movies, to magazines, to news sources. While it is clear that society has an obsession with women being violent in the entertainment industry, real women were made famous for their violent acts as well. Amy Fisher and Lorena Bobbitt are great examples of this media frenzy. They were both arrested for violent acts and became media sensations. Even though the famous actresses described in “Top 5 Women Who Kick Ass in Film” are simply playing roles, the infatuation with women’s violence is undeniable and these movies are playing into this societal fixation. This idea of women’s violence is just another subtle way in which gender inequality plagues modern society. While no one pays attention to the fact that violent women, fictional or not, are seen in a completely different light than men, it is clear that this is another discrepancy and gender inequality that affects every day life.

Women have made unbelievable progress over the last hundred years in terms of closing the gender gap. Nevertheless, unnoticed gender inequalities still affect modern society. In the workplace, most people are completely unaware of the disparities that exist between genders, yet there are statistics that substantiate these inequalities. In the media, many men and women agree that sexy women wearing almost nothing on screen is acceptable and commonplace. Women will go so far as to say that this is empowering. Nevertheless, it is clear that women are being objectified. Finally, women who are violent in the media are seen completely differently than men who are violent. Whether it is a fictional character that men drool over because of her violence or a real woman who is made famous for her violence against men, men in similar roles are not treated the same way. Fixing a problem is impossible if it is not recognized as a problem. Both of these articles exemplify gender inequalities that go unnoticed in society. These gender inequalities are ideologies that are so entrenched in modern culture that most people have no idea that they even exist.