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Категория: Английский язык
"Does your mother work?" — "No, she's just a housewife". This familiar exchange reminds us of women's traditional role in American society, and it reminds us that women's work has generally been viewed as unimportant. The United States Commission on Civil
Rights concluded that the passage in the Declaration of Independence proclaiming that "all men are created equal" has been taken too literally for too long. This is especially true with respect to employment.
A Statistical overview states that American women are increasingly participating in the nation's paid labor force. No longer is the adult woman associated solely with the role of homemaker. Instead, millions of women-married and single, with and without children-are working outside the home. In fact, a greater proportion of women are seeking and obtaining paid employment than ever before in American history. In 1986, more than 55 per cent of adult American women held jobs outside the home, as compared with
43per cent in 1970.
Unfortunately, women entering the American Job market find their options restricted in important ways. Particularly damaging to women workers is occupational segregation, or confinement to sex-typed "women's jobs". For example, in 1986 women accounted for 99 per cent of all dental assistants, 98 per cent of all secretaries, 96 per cent of all private household workers, and 94 per cent of all registered nurses.
By contrast, women are not found in occupations historically defined as "men's jobs", which often carry much greater financial rewards and prestige than women's jobs do. For example, in 1986 women accounted for roughly
44per cent of the nation's paid labor force. Yet they represented only 6 per cent of all engineers, 4 per cent of all dentists, 18 per cent of all physicians, and 18 per cent of all lawyers and judges.
Key roles in the mass media and the entertainment industry have similarly-been regarded as "men's jobs". In 1984, only about 50 of the nation's 1700 daily newspapers had women as publishers. Women held less than 10 per cent of the managing editorships at newspapers with circulations of more than 25,000. In broadcasting, as of 1987, only 6 per cent of all presidents, vice presidents, or general managers of local television stations were women. Hollywood studios have also been reluctant to place women in positions of authority. The researchers reviewed the 10,000 job titles held by some 51,000 workers; they found that there is complete occupational segregation by gender in jobs employing 17 per cent of California's workers. That is, these jobs are held either only by women or only by men. Social scientists have traditionally argued that the psychological and social effects of tokenism become evident when a dominant group constitutes 80 per cent or more of those fulfilling a role. Using this criterion, 63 per cent of the California workers studied by Bielby and Baron are in occupations where gender balance is severely skewed. Despite these dismal statistics, women now account for more than one-fourth of all students pursuing a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree. While big business has become somewhat more receptive to women than in past decades, barriers still remain. In 1985, a survey by the Harvard Business Review revealed that only 47 per cent of male executives would feel comfortable in working for a woman. Perhaps as one response to this attitude, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of business firms owned by women. Women are now starting their own businesses at a rate three times greater than that of men. By 1982, women owned 24 per cent of all firms in the United States.
