Inequality in Economic Gains Due to Gender and Race-final analysis.

Notes for Inequality in Income Due to Gender and Race

We used the Hays article “Pyramids of Inequality” to springboard the discussion of inequality amongst various groups. Aleksander is focusing on the glass ceiling in women’s economic and political achievements so I delved deeper into the issue of race tied to gender  in inequality. It’s commonly known that women earn seventy seven cents to every dollar a man achieves in the workplace. One of my articles made the astute observation that race, class, and gender all intersect to form inequality. Naturally that got me thinking about whether there were statistics on quantifiable relationships between different incomes based on race. I found that differences between men and women’s income were stark within different racial groups, but came no where close to the inequalities women experiences when held against White males.

The greatest gap was between Hispanic women and white males. Within the Hispanic community, women earn 88% of what their male counterparts earn. When pit against the White Male population, Hispanic women earn just 59% of what White Men have the potential of achieving economically. African American women come close earning only 68% of what White Males earn. An interesting difference in that analysis shows that African American women and men only share a 10% gap of income. While this is a positive for the gaps between this specific group, it still relays that there is a tremendous space of inequality between who earns what in American.

The major explanation for the gaps are the issue of education and the fact that many young Hispanic women are forced to go into low-paying jobs before completing an education. This feeds into the cycle of poverty that we spoke about in regards to the welfare system.  One of the cultural theory reader I reviewed called “Social Class and Stratification”, relayed that “The ‘woman question’ is closely related to the Marxist economic theory of system contradictions via questions whether...women constitute a ‘reserve army of labour’ .” With or without education women are still revered as mostly as domestic or gendered workers, and women of different racial backgrounds other than Caucasian are revered as even less of an asset. Economic standards that dictate the status quo feed stereotypes and perpetuate the inequality of every type of woman.

One of the greatest hardships in bridging the gap between men and women, and more specifically non-Caucasian women and white men, is the acceptance of a lower position in society. Whether it is due to a lack of education or a family-bred mentality that the woman’s place is below a man, many women simply believe that where they exist in society is where they will always stay. An articulate way of putting this theory was found in my reading “A Decade of System Justification…”. The article claims that “Another way in which people justify the way things are is by using stereotypes to differentiate between high- and low-status groups in such a way that inequality seems natural and appropriate (e.g., Jackman & Senter, 1983). “

In a great study done by John Jost and Mahzarin Banaji, the two NYU psychologists studied status
quo strongholds and provided their case studies with explanations for power status differences in 
groups which in turn  increased the validity of stereotypes. Those in the disadvantaged groups actually believed that their powerlessness was completely legitimate and very real. To me, this was deeply intertwined with why the economic achievement gap exists. If people are told or shown continuously that they do not deserve equal pay or rights then they will get stuck into a cycle of believing it is true.