1. Gender
Women are getting college degrees at higher rates than men, so why are they still complaining?

2. Gender Individual Interactional Institutional
Are individuals able to choose to escape gender?

3. Do men and women experience economic and political systems equally in the U.S.?
Economy
Labor Market
Educational System
Health and Illness
Access to social institutions
If not, how is gender inequality maintained?
What data would we need in order to be able to say that men and women experienced economic and political systems equally in the U.S.?
What would the data need to look like for us to conclude that men and women do not experience economic and political systems equally in the U.S.?

4. Gender Stratification: those social systems in which socioeconomic resources and political power are distributed on the basis of one’s sex and gender.
Objective Indices
Income
Educational attainment
Wealth
Occupational status
Mortality rates
Access to social institutions
In this section of the course, we are not talking about gender in personal relationships or in your own family experiences. Rather, we are focusing on stratification in social systems—the focus is on a structural level of inequality that relies on aggregated data to understand how inequality is a systemic problem.
What assumptions are researches making when we examine these structures and institutions?

5. Education Sadker and Sadker (1994)—Failing at Fairness
Boys receive more and better attention
Girls invisible and praised for feminine traits, not for intellectual prowess
NPR (2006)—Boys Falling Behind
Boys continue to have greater payoff for education

6. Education and Earnings Ratio By Gender at specified earnings percentile 2000
10th
25th
50th
75th
90th
Less than HS
34.5
.769
.704
.667
.658
.673
HS, no college
41.7
.674
.680
.686
Some College
44.9
.730
.700
.721
.694
.679
BA or more
39.5
.784
.751
.652
.551

7. Occupational Segregation
Occupations are segregated by race and gender.
This phenomena has its roots in the ideal of a two-parent family with a stay-at-home mom and a breadwinner father.
Immigrants and/or non-whites function as a pool of cheap labor (split labor market creates racial tension and gender resentment)

8. Why Should We Care? Pay Status Freedom to Choose
As a society, we want to realize our full potential. Inequality keeps us from tapping all available talent.

9. Occupational Segregation Pay Inequities
Feminized occupations pay less.
Women still suffer from the wage gap in predominately male occupations.
Men also pay a penalty if they choose to enter feminized occupations
Data

10. Feminized Occupations Pay Less
Median Weekly Earnings
Pre-K and Kindergarten Teachers
98.0
$455
Childcare
100
$251
Dental Assistants
97.8
$460
Construction Trades
13.7
$605
Engineer
11.5
$1,161
Mechanics and Repairers (except supervisors)
4.8
$666

11. Wage Gap in Predominately Female Occupations
Men’s $
Women’s $ %
General Office
69.6
$734
$594
80.9
Social Worker
73.4
$741
$632
85.3
Registered Nurse
91.1
$957
$870
91.0
Elementary School Teacher
82.3
$836
$750
89.7

12. Wage Gap in Predominately Male Occupations
% F
Men’s $
Women’s $ %
Engineers
11.5
$1,180
$1011
85.7
Transportation and Material-Moving
7.9
$591
$449 76
Physicians 31
$1626
$947
58.2

13. Segregation Career Opportunities
Glass ceiling
Glass escalator
Networks: Social Capital
Status Gap over the life course

14. Responses Affirmative Action Equal Pay for Equal Work Comparable Worth
Place economic value on unpaid household labor.

15. Problem
All of these policy programs can accomplish a great deal both symbolically and effectively, however, as long as gender continues to be reproduced in ways that reproduce inequality, the struggle will continue. Gender inequality will change form, but not function.