2012年5月1日星期二

Women Face Challenges in Universities




EAP WRITING 110,01

Final Paper

May 1, 2012


        There's situation which catches our attention today- more women occupied the professional jobs in workplace. A study from Economist points out that the number of men in workforce has decreased from 80 percent to 52 percent. On the other hand, the number of female employers increased from 20 percent to 48 percent of the whole workforce in the United States (Angela Harrison). Comparing with the two data, it seems like that men and women get the equal economic opportunities. However, women still get low pay even though they do the same job as men in many top 500 international companies, which exactly expresses that women still face some unequal treatment in modern society. BBC News recently pointed out that the figures showed us there was a 4 percent rise of female professors in the UK universities in 2011 (BBC News). In the past, professor was considered as a male job which needs ability of counting and more professional skill. However, more and more women become professors in universities. By the end of 2009, a study showed 27 percent of professors are female. In some famous universities. Like Columbia University and Yale University, this number are 37 and 38. These figures seem like women are doing good at universities. Unfortunately, female professors still face many challenges in universities. These challenges come from many different areas, such as discrimination, sexual harassment, unequal pay, causing many misunderstandings in universities.  

        Today, many female professors still suffer from discrimination in many ways. In educational area, female professors are deemed to be less respect. Many college students think they can easily break rules in female professor's classes. For example, students usually think they can hand in homework late if they can find some excuses which the stereotypes are caused by women's mother roles and more sympathy than male professors.

               On the other hand, universities usually have two main methods to make money. Part of their money is come from student's tuition. Another large part is come from the project they do for many big companies and get money from them. These big  companies only chose male professor to do research about their project because they think female professor that they have less mathematical ability. Because of this kind of discrimination, female professors usually get lower income than male professors. This problem is very serious in engineering school and computer science school which are two schools could finish a lot of projects from many big companies.

               Another discrimination is female professor usually meet resistance when they want to get higher position in universities. A female professor from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, said the university put resistance to prevent her from getting full professor. Finally, she get 620,000 dollar compensation (Fisher). In general, female professor suffer many discrimination in many ways. In their career, they have to disperse much energy to deal with these discrimination in universities, which influence their normal life. This trend hasn't been changed a lot recent years, it is still happening in our daily life even someone mentioned this issue in universities, which is still ignored by most people, even the female professor themselves.

              Not only female students in universities sometimes suffer sexual harassment, but also many female professors suffer from sexual harassment. First, we need to know what is sexual harassment. Sexual harassment, a untypical crime, which can occurs whenever somebody talks or does anything sexually related which you don’t want them to say or do, regardless of who they are (The University of Iowa). Whether such unwelcome sexual behaviors are sexual harassments depend on the circumstances that the behaviors occur. This is a definition of sexual harassment from the University of Iowa. A sexual harasser may be anyone in University. But From many reports of universities, a lot female professors always suffer sexual harassment from male professors, teaching assistants, research assistants and so on. Female professors are always vulnerable groups in universities which are easily suppressed in the universities. There are many reasons result in female professors suffer sexual harassment in their workplace. Although almost employers in universities usually get high education and degree, some of them are still short of the basic ideas of morality in some ways. First, many female professors are ashamed of telling others that they suffer sexual harassment from others because many of them are conservative and traditional women which always pay attention to their reputation. Second, the United States is a country of law. Everything needs evidence in the court. Many sexual harassment failed to publish the criminal due to short of evidence or the victims are shamed of Testifying people who did sexual harassment to them. A professor from MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) points out that the main reason for the fail charge of sexual harassment is the victims are short of the feelings of protecting themselves. Overall, universities should make specific rules to project female professors.

              Another big issue in universities which the female professor faced is that unequal pay. Although the United State government has already make the law about equal pay for women, which acted in 1963 (Equal Pay/Compensation Discrimination). It has almost 50 years history of the law. President Obama has pledged to “keep up the fight” to pass the law recently. It seems like we have enough time to practice this law pretty well, Unfortunately, a study from the University of Iowa pointed out that averagely women get 12 percent lower that men if they do the same jobs (77 Cents on the Dollar Isn’t Fair). In the same study, they also pointed out that the female professors usually get 15 percent lower than male professor even they are in the same position. A real story happened in 1987 when the law of equal pay has already existed more than 24 years. A female assistant professor sued the college in Maryland where she worked, because she felt she was being paid less because she was a woman. She found a male professor who hold the same position with her has a higher income. That male professor has a 20 percent higher income than her in 1986. At last, she failed the case because the court thought the female professor was not doing works as much as that male professor. Although female professor did the same works as the male professor, they are always considered to do less than male professors even if they do the same work or more than what male professors do. This problems caused by a lot of gender stereotypes. First, the universities may always think the female professor seldom ask for leaving work and female professor often ask for leave with some excuse. This because comparing with male professor, female professor may face some personal problems. They may need to take care of their children or husband. Sometimes, they need to have a long break because they have babies. All in all, equal pay is a serious problem which female professor faced in universities.

              Although more and more female professor stated to show their knowledge and glamour in many big universities, they still need to pay attention and work out for many challenges they faced in universities. The first one is discrimination in universities, which is a most common one that almost every female professor faced in universities even in the interview. The discrimination usually contains three majors. Less respect than male professor from students, No chance of taking research project for many big companies and big resistance for going to higher position. The second challenge is sexual harassment, a serious one, which people usually ignore it. This one serious damages female professor's feeling and safety. The third challenge is equal pay. The law of equal pay has already there for 49 years. But the truth and figure have told us the equal pay is still a big problem for the female professor need to deal with in many universities.

              It is still a long way for female professor to relive their goals and dreams in universities. It seems like female professors get really equality and freedom in universities. However, female professor should know what they need to fight for themselves. And just doing it in the way they think is correct, showing their social intelligence and conversation ability in the work (Rosin).


 




Work Cited

77 Cents on the Dollar Isn’t Fair.”, New York Times, New York Times. 20 April 2011. Web.  26 April 2012.

Equal Pay/Compensation Discrimination, "www.eeoc.gov/", 2012, post.

Fisher, Bonnie S. University In The Ivory Tower. London:  Sage Publisher, 2009. 39-40, Print.

Harrison, Angela, "http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16633634", unction        correspondent, BBC News, post, January 19 2012.

Rosin, Hanna. “The End of Men.” Global Issues 11/12. Ed. Obert M. Jackson. New York:        McGraw Hill, 2011. 195-199. Print.

Sexual Harassment on Campus, "www.sexualharassment.uiowa.edu," The University of Iowa, 2010

Trei, Lisa, www.wageproject.org/files/MD_paystory.php "It Happened To Me:     Unequal Pay," post, 1998.

2012年4月22日星期日

Reflection of My Presentation


        This Tuesday, I did my final presentation which is about media images of gender. In my presentation, I chose Sylvester Stallone as my main topic. Stallone has one important series movie named The First Blood which also lay his foundation of the most famous action movie star. In his First Blood serious series, Stallone played Rambo, a retired soldier from Vietnam War, who showed us strong, independent, violent in the movies. These characters always come from people's traditional ideas. They always think men should act like this so that Stallone's move chose this style. Although people changed a lot about gender stereotypes of men, these main characters are still existing in people's mind. That's why Stallone played Rambo four times.

                                                                


         I believe this presentation gave us a deep understanding about how the movies show us the gender roles and gender stereotypes. Through my researches from internet, I learned that the in Stallone movies, he showed us a man should be brave enough, never give up and fight for myself. This kind of movies influence people a lot about gender stereotypes and make them believe a man should has all these characters in the movie. This presentation makes me feel that gender stereotypes are always strengthened in action movies.

2012年4月10日星期二

Images of Gender Roles in Advertising


Images of Gender Roles in Advertising

       This advertisement is about how women show their power. We can see big blue words at the top of the picture. It said "GET THE POWER." It seems like women are becoming the dominate sex. However, we can see a small group words under "GET THE POWER" which writes " THE POWER TO CLEAN ANYTHING." This advertisement has the meaning of satire, which tries to show us that women are still playing less important role in daily life. The advertisement tries to sell us the cleaning agent for kitchen and bath. The meta-message of the advertisement is that men are still the dominate sex in the society. Women should be a good housewife.

       I believe this advertisement must be failed in current time. Today, women are becoming more competitive. They want to get power and get success than any time in the past. In "The End of Men," Rosin points out that more women get college degree and professional jobs than men in America. Women are realize that it's time to fight for their rights and become more successful than men. Finaly, I believe that the advertisement of the cleaning agent has discriminatory meaning, it may be with a lawsuit in today.

2012年4月5日星期四

The Reflection of The Video


The Reflection of The Video

         In this video, the toastmaster and three guests discussed "Are women and men really equal?" They point out that men don't against women today and women almost enjoy all the rights as men. However, people still think that is not really equal between men and women. Although women have rights to vote, to go to college, to get professional jobs, men occupied more top jobs. In the video, they gave a chart which is about the percentage of women get the executive jobs and board seats is still low, which is just about 13% to 17%. Another problem is equal pay. Despite America make the law of equal pay, women still get lower pay even they did the same job with men. In the video, the toastmaster also invite audience join their discussion.

         I don't think women can get really equal as men. It's clear that the society still has some prejudices about women. We can find it is hard for women get a top job like CEO. For example, in American history, no women present. However, situation are becoming positive to women. More and more women find the problem and they want to fight for their equal rights for themselves. Furthermore, women and men have different physiological specialty. That means they need to act different roles in daily life. After matriarchal society, these roles have little change. I think it's hard that women get really equal in the world because the society endows different responsibility to men and women. Obviously, men need to responsible for more duties than women. Therefore, women can't get really equal as men.

2012年3月10日星期六

Midterm paper


Yicong Yang (Yang)

110.01

Midterm research paper

Final Draft

Mar 9, 2012



Women might not live with freedom and dignity

       Today, women's rights have become a global good which caused plenty of debates in the modern society. It seems that women can go to school and get college education, they can have their own career, they can choose their marriage freely, they can vote for their country's president, they enjoy the same rights with men. In fact , most countries are not really free for women. Although women who live in new economic time are endowed more right, obviously they will not live with freedom and dignity. A real freedom and dignity society for women is still a big challenge for humans because they will meet the challenges from religious practices , cultural practices, beliefs and rules which are really exist in most undeveloped and developing countries.

       Religious practices, specific customs of religions, which negatively influenced women's freedom and dignity. Today, women in some religious country are short of rights because the religion affects these countries a lot. Fundamentalists are afraid of modernization and changes. According to "Feminist and Fundamentalists," usually women in developed countries have more equal rights with men. Women in developing and some religious countries are suffer unequal treatment with men. Fundamentalists are afraid of changes because they think the past world is better than today's world. Furthermore, they usually think women should have the equal rights with men. Most fundamentalists even think women are part of men. in Afghanistan, the religion believes only women' husband can see what his wife looks like. Every woman in Afghanistan cover their face even the whole body. According to "Women in Saudi Arabia to vote and run in elections," unequal rights between men and women. In the past, women even didn't have rights to vote or become the candidates. They usually are not allowed to attend to political program. People in Saudi Arabia who believes that women only need to stay at home and take care of her husband and children. Although his King Abdullah passed the new policy that women can vote for selecting the local government and become the local candidates, fundamentalists, extremely opposed his new policy, who believe the new policy will damage their traditional culture and religion which they have followed it for thousands years. According to "Hillary's Women's Rights Problem," women can't go to school and get educated in many developing countries like Afghanistan. Afghanistan people think women don't need knowledge and a knowledge woman is bad. Besides this, women also don't have equal economic opportunity to get more jobs or do some business because these countries' culture require women only stay at home and take care of their husband and children.

        cultural practices, which means some customs of culture, also extremely affect the women's freedom and dignity. Many countries have thousand years history. The history made a lot of specific negative influence about women' rights and freedom. Through the thousand years development, the local people who live in these developing and undeveloped countries think some bad cultural customs are their traditional culture. They want to keep these corrupt customs. According to "Feminist and Fundamentalists," there are many unequal and very inhuman treatment to women in developing countries. In Ethiopia, people cut girls' genital when they were just 7 or 8 years old. It's hard to believe there is still exist the inhuman customs in the world. Their people think the custom can show the loyalty to women' husband. According to "Infanticide, Abortion Responsible for 60 Million Girls Missing in Asia," parents are prefer boys in China and India. Even some families have girls and they usually ignore girls' education due to their traditional culture. In Chinese culture, boys can continue their family and raise their parents. According to five thousand years history, men have responsibility to raise their parents when they become old and don't have ability to raise themselves. Furthermore, this traditional thought make people think men are more important than women. Another example, women need to bear the expensive dowry on their marriage in India, which also can prove culture affects the women's freedom and dignity. Because of this traditional custom, many families refuse to have a girl. Besides this, traditional culture in China and India thinks men are better than women and women are just part of men because in the past, the economy is based on men. According to "The End of Men," women are in a low status in most culture in the world. Many culture believes that women just can do some easy work, like house works and sale works. They think women can't do some professional jobs like lawyer, scientists. Because of these cultural practice, women can't live with freedom and dignity in the future.

       At last, Challenges of beliefs and rules also have negative influences on women's freedom and dignity. Especially in religious countries in middle east, many Islamic countries, their laws are based on the Koran, which limits women get the equal right and status. According to "Women in Saudi Arabia to vote and run in elections," there is a role that make women can't enjoy voting right. In Saudi Arabia, women can't vote for the election. They even can't become the legal candidates. Beside this, women also can't drive. People in Saudi Arabia, thinks women driving is dangerous. Another role also makes women in Saudi Arabia can't enjoy freedom. Saudi Arabia government ban women go outside without her husband, brother or father. This law totally limit women enjoy their freedom. In "The End of Men," Rosin points that women get more professional jobs than men. In fact, women get more medium management jobs. This kind of jobs need more communicate with employers. Unfortunately, men in charge of most top jobs, like CEO. This not means women don't have enough ability to handle these jobs. This is a kind of rules. People who stand in the highest status don't believe that women can have ability to do these works. On another word, traditional culture prevent women go to the higher status. Besides this, there are also some policy prevent women get freedom and dignity. In "Infanticide, Abortion Responsible for 60 Million Girls Missing in Asia," Karabin argues that China has "Only One Child" policy and this prevent the development of equal rights of women. Belief and rules usually exist more than thousand years , which make people think the ideas which are different with them are totally wrong. All these fats force women live in a society which is hard for women to get real freedom, dignity and the equal rights with men.

       In conclusion, all facts prove that it's seems like a impossible dream that women can live with freedom and dignity. There are three main challenges which prevent women get equal rights and real freedom from the future society. The first challenge comes from religious practices which force women to follow the old religious doctrine. The second challenge comes from culture practices that force women must to follow the old and outdate customs which are nearly disappeared in developed countries. The third challenge comes from beliefs and rules which always limit women' freedom. It's hard to challenge their traditional ideas and thoughts. The only way to change them need to use advanced culture to assimilate their old culture. All these facts are showing a result which women might not live with freedom and dignity in the future.

      





































































Ramdas, Kavita. “Feminists and Fundamentalists.” Global Issues 11/12. Ed. Robert

       M.Jackson. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. 19. Print.



Rosin, Hanna. “The End of Men.” Global Issues 11/12. Ed. Robert M. Jackson.

       New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. 195-196 . Print.



“Women in Saudi Arabia to Vote and Run in Election”  BBC News. 25 September 2011. Web.

25 September 2011.



Karabin, Sherry. “Infanticide, Abortion Responsible for 60 Million Girls Missing in

       Asia”. 06/13/2007




2012年2月25日星期六

Reflection of "How Economic Development Helps the World’s Women."


Yicong Yang

Reflection 4

Feb 24, 2012


       In " How Economic Development Helps the World’s Women ." Florida points out women get more rights and equal treatment with the development of economy.     Florida mentioned a important word, that is GWI. GWI means "Global Women's Index. GWI can express the relationship between women's rights economy. In fact, Florida believe that the developed countries usually did a great job in dealing with the women's right. In these developed countries, for example, Sweden, England and Holland, stand in the first place in the whole world. Florida points out the countries where women were treated less inequality and get more opportunities, are always good in knowledgeable economy. If a women get less opportunities, that means this country are always not the developed countries.

       Obviously Florida's opinions are correct. I believe a developed country must have a advanced idea about women's right. Compare with developing countries and developed countries, most developing countries existed the inequality in women's right. At last, I agree with the author that modernize a countries must have a open view about women rights.



Florida, Richard. “How Economic Development Helps the World’s Women.” The Atlatic Cities Place Matters, 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 23 Feb 2012

2012年2月11日星期六

Reflection of "Missing Asian Girls"


       In " Missing Asian Girls," Karabin points that there are about 60 million girls were aborted by couples in recently years In Asian countries. Not just these parents should responsible for the tragedy, but also the government should bear the most blame. Because of parents prefer boys, it made a gender imbalance in the two countries. Gender imbalance makes a lot of social problems. In China, there were 25 million men can't find wife. In order to continue their family and have a child, 800 thousand women were trafficked from Vietnam, North Korea, Laos to China every year. Besides this, sex slaves become another problem in China and India. Three reasons caused gender imbalance. First, The Chinese government made the only one child policy which many family aborted the girl baby in order to have a boy. Second, in India, girl's family needs to pay the dowry. It's a big bear for most common families. Third, In these two countries, people were still follow the traditional ideas that boy can continue the family and support the olds. In order to solve the problem, these two countries made a lot plans. In China, government started "Care for Girls" plan which give girl more opportunities to get high education. In India, " Save the Girl Child" is a important plan which would stop couple aborted girls.

       In my opinion, change ideas is much more important than any plans. In these two countries, especially in China. People were influenced by the traditional culture more than 5,000 years. It's hard to change people's ideas immediately. The only way we can do is using other countries' ideas to change their ideas a little bit. As the day wore on, people will change their ideas a lot.



Karabin, Sherry. FoxNews.com.Published June 13, 2007