Gender Inequality in the Workplace



Gender Inequality in the WorkplaceLuisa F. DuenasUniversity of Texas at El PasoGender Inequality in the WorkplaceGender inequality has been a big issue in our country for decades and even though now women can vote and work, there is still a gap between how men are viewed apart from women. In a society like ours, it is often hard for a woman to excel in an environment of men because they are looked upon as not capable or too emotional to succeed. For example, in average, for every dollar a man earns, women earn 79 cents for the same job, which seems dumbfounded since many companies pride themselves on having equality in aspects such as race or religion, but gender is often overlooked. The topic of gender inequality in the workplace is used profoundly on the internet and other media, especially during times of change that have people fighting for what they believe and stand for. This issue is addressed in different ways through different genres to inform about the gender inequality there is in the United States. The comparison of the two genres is going to be from an online article and a video. Before researching, there is already an expectation that the video will be more appealing to a wider audience than the article. The article is “Gender Inequality and Women in the Workplace” by Mary Brinton from the website of Harvard University Summer School. It emphasizes the obstacles of gender equality in the workplace and how the United States can increase gender equality. It answers different questions regarding discrimination in the workplace and how it can be demolished. On the other hand, the video is “What people miss about the gender wage gap”, published by Vox on YouTube. It emphasizes the segregation of careers and jobs by genders and the wage inequality between sexes, the difference in salaries in different decades, and how the wage gap is larger as women grow older, responding to the argument that companies tend to hire younger women to older ladies. Structure and DeliveryThe first genre, “Gender Inequality and Women in the Workplace” by Mary Brinton is an online article that is broken up in four sections, separated into four main questions that the author answers in depth. The information is shaped by the article in a uniform layout in the same font to keep the design the same throughout, it is separated by paragraphs because of the space it has. The article is an adequate length, not long but not too short, it’s concise to the point where it can be read once to fully understand the message. The article only has one illustration on the right of the article showing a woman in an office standing a floor below all the men, the image is used to break the text slightly and make the article more vibrant, it also provides clarity of what the article is about. To emphasize certain things, the author uses bold, italics, and words highlighted in turquoise to make her point in the article. The vocabulary is simple and does not contain complicated words, it is kept for a wide audience to read and understand easily, which contributes to the content of the article since people are more prone to read it if it is easy content. And the second genre, “What people miss about the gender wage gap” by Vox is a video blog that contains animated drawing and a voice over to get the viewer to listen to the topic, which in this case is the gender wage gap. The video is approximately five minutes, which is a good length for a video since people tend to get bored and stop watching if the video is more than eight minutes. The content is simple to understand, yet entertaining to watch which improves the quantity of people that will be informed about the topic. The video starts off with an animation of people doing different jobs and the voiceover of a woman starting off with the statistic that women earn 79 cents for every dollar a man makes. The video is entertaining and informative, since the animations illustrate drawings of what the woman in the video is saying. It also shows vintage clips of women’s jobs from past decades, which gives the viewer a reference to a “woman’s job”, which in the clips were caretaker, teacher, nurse, or anything remotely like the usual home duties women are prone to do. The design and colors are helpful to the viewer so they can keep up with the voiceover, while also processing the information given in a simple way. The design keeps the viewer’s eyes focused on the video, informing them about the topic through animated drawings, modern music, and the soothing voice of the woman of the video, together, these features make an informative video that contributes to the issue of the gender wage gap in a fashionable way. Both genres try to keep the audience focused on the content they are providing, whether it was through nice color in their text, or by well-done animations. The article was more professional than the video, regarding vocabulary and a more formal layout, while the video was more freely conducted. Audience and PurposeIn the Harvard article, the intended audience are college students or a more generalized community, one that wants to know more about gender inequality and such. The purpose of the information presented by the author is to inform the reader about gender inequality in the workplace for women, and it is also to persuade the reader to break the gender stereotypes themselves through their actions, which the author calls to at the end of her article by saying that “As a society, we need to continue to encourage people to go beyond stereotypes and recognize the contributions that each individual, male or female, can make…” (Brinton 2016). She is trying to convince people to agree that gender inequality is unacceptable and it should not matter whether the person is male or female, what matters is that they can get the job done well. The article tries to raise awareness in general about the issue. On the other hand, the Vox video’s intended audience were younger people, people that already read Vox’s content, and the discourse community that it was intended for could be feminists, since the company that produced the video focuses on women’s interests. The purpose of the information presented was to inform the audience about the gender wage gap and how it has affected women since the 1950s, but the video’s purpose is also to entertain since it has nice cartoons, colorful displays, tasteful video clips, etc. that can make a person watch the video purely for fun. The video is trying to convince people to agree about the existence of the gender wage gap, while also encouraging general awareness about the subject. At the end of the video, the woman concludes by having a positive note for the viewers saying “the research tells us that the more we make [equal jobs for men and women] work, then the more the wage gap is going to shrink.The article and the video are very different in the way they carry information to the audience. The article was more straight forward, while the video gave plenty of examples with video clips and charts to make a point. The video was more dynamic and energetic than the article, which proves the statement about the video being more entertaining than the article.EthosIn the article, the author shows credibility by referencing to the studies made at Harvard, the prestigious university, to show that the information he is giving is coming from a trustworthy source. The article also shows trust because Harvard published it, and it is known as a source that can be trusted in general. It also shows credibility because the author, Mary Brinton, is sociology professor at Harvard University and she is the instructor of Inequality and Society in Contemporary Japan, which makes her a great candidate to discuss gender inequality.On the other hand, the video shows credibility through having a woman discuss the gender gap in favor of the women, creating a ‘woman to woman’ discussion. The publisher of the video, Vox, is an online news website that normally writes articles about women’s interests and general culture, it’s an official credible source. It is like Cosmopolitan or Vogue, which for a woman, and most men, is seen as trust worthy in itself because of the content they write. Pathos The article shows emotional appeal by comparing the gender equality in Japan to the gender inequality in the United States. It makes men and women alike feel concerned about this issue in their country. It also addresses the public for help to increase gender equality, which can cause the readers to feel an obligation to comply with the author’s plead for a change. The article focuses on ridding of gender stereotypes and addresses the audience “as a society” (Brinton 216) to open a connection to the community, creating a feeling of unity. And the video shows emotion by implying that women must fight for their rights and their equality, which can cause women in general to feel a responsibility or a duty to fight for equal rights by being a woman, creating both happiness because someone finally addresses the issue and anger because the issue still exists. Also, the tone the woman in the video uses and her diction influence women to feel concerned about the wage gap, which could be one of the goals of the video. LogosIn the article, the information has evidence because it shows statistics of fertility rates in different parts of the world, the population of Japan and the U.S., and a statistic on the correlation of age of women and their wage compared to the men’s. statistics and facts like such create physical evidence for a reader to believe.In the video, the statistics and graphs shown give the information in the video plenty of credibility and credit, giving evidence of the data existing from a credible source. It is filled with illustrations with graphs showing differences in annual income, the proportion of men and women with different levels of education and how their gender affected their income, etc. evidence is also presented as the speaker of the video talks about the graphs correlating women’s age and their pay, opening an argument for the gender wage gap, data like this seems believable to the viewer since the information is there to watch. ConclusionThe genres presented are dissimilar, but they provide the same information, maybe to different audiences or with different focuses but with one goal: informing people about gender inequality. Both genres achieved their purpose because they were both clear, concise, and ideal to the topic. The video was more effective in the conveying the message of gender inequality solely because of the entertainment factor and the amount of information put into graphs that was provided, the data was what gave the video more credibility than the article, it showed more content and more concern about the issue. The impact it has on the targeted communities is large because each genre pulls in different audiences, and together they make a wider, more generalized public to inform about the gender wage gap. Gender inequality is a big issue, the fact that different genres can distribute the issue and address the facts in different ways leads to more knowledge in our community of it. ReferencesBrinton, M. (2016). Gender inequality and women in the workplace. Harvard Summer School. Retrieved from people miss about the gender gap. [Video file]. Retrieved from ................
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