Blog #10: Last Blog Post

I can't believe this is the last blog post..and I just realized how many we did! That's crazy. Who knew I would read and learn so much about the American Dream in an RWS class. I never realized until now at the end of the semester how much we actually studied on the American Dream...like if you include all the articles, sections, and books we did a LOT. 

Anyway, for my last essay, we are working with the book American Dream in the 21st Century, and I am focusing on the chapter written by Hanson which focuses on gender and the American Dream. I've been learning a lot about my focus from the chapter. First off, she starts off the chapter by doing three main sections, and explaining why women experience inequality in these sectors. I am focusing on these and they include occupations (job/workforce), earnings/wages, and education. I am especially interested in the education system and in learning why women tend to feel a sense of discouragement from the system in comparison to men. I am also very interested in the wage gap that exists. Hanson shares that the statistics on annual incomes reveal that in 1961 working women earned 59 cents to a man’s $1, and currently women earn 77 cents to a man’s $1. It's crazy to me that it's still such a big difference. Progress, but not enough. I also thought it was interesting that Hanson mentions that women tend enter college with one major, and end up changing it to a major that is considered "lower-status, lower-paid female-dominated occupations." ALSO!! HALF of the women who go into science majors end up switching majors. That is so crazy to me and there has to be something behind it

Other things that I am learnings about from my research is that a lot of people have written scholarly articles on women earnings, versus the other focuses I am trying to research on. For example, my first source called “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Local Gender‐Based Earnings Inequality and Women's Belief in the American Dream" talks about women's earnings and its effect on how women perceive American values and American society. The author, Benjamin Newman, writes that his research "suggests the importance of the ratio of earnings between men and women in a local area as a contextual variable of potential importance in the generation of local female empowerment.” I think that is so interesting.

The conclusion I am coming to is that gender inequality is a very complicated, tricky thing...especially to fix. It's complicated because for example the way they take statistics about the wage gap is a complicated process, and some people believe the research isn't true because they have to use the jobs women have compared to the jobs men have, and they are not always the same. So that creates a problem. But anyway it is important, and definitely has is related to the idea of the American Dream that exists. Overall, I think that American needs some change.