The Feminization of Poverty
I was just reading about poverty for my Sociology 101 class and I came across this excerpt.
Poverty affects women more than men, creating a social phenomenon that sociologists call the feminization of poverty, a huge number of women living in poverty, mostly as single mothers or heads of families. Compared with other industrial nations, the United States has the largest gender gap in poverty. The reason is that U.S. women are much more likely than their foreign counterparts to be both unemployed and heads of families with children (Casper, et al., 1994). In fact, single mothers make up the largest proportion of the poor adult population in the United States. Thus, the feminization of poverty mostly involves poor women maintaining their own households. The problem can be attributed to several changes in U.S. society. Increases in the rates of divorce, separation, and out-of-wedlock birth have caused a growing number of women to become heads of poor households. The increase in divorced fathers not paying child support, along with the reduction in government support for welfare, also has caused many more female-headed households to fall below the poverty line. The fact that women live longer than men has further contributed to a growing number of older women living alone in poverty.
Most important, however, according to feminists, women as a group are more vulnerable than men to poverty because of the sexist and patriarchal nature of the society. Unlike men, who often can escape poverty by getting jobs, women tend to remain poor even when they are employed. Why? Because in the gender-segregated labor market, women are more likely to work in low-paid, low-status jobs. By socializing women to become wives and mothers, feminist theory suggests, the patriarchal society further discourages them from developing educational and occupational skills. This is likely to cause poverty among divorced women or widows, even those from relatively affluent families.
It just seems ridiculous that, in this modern age, we still have this kind of a problem. Doesn't this seem like the easiest thing in the world to fix? Equal pay for equal work, encouaraging young girls to be independent, educating the sexes equally. Aren't these all things that we, as a nation, hold up as proof that we are the most egalitarian society in the world? These are things that are supposed to already be in effect, or at least you'd think so if you speak to a great number of people (mostly men, but a lot of women too) in this country. Clearly we have a lot of work to do before women are truly considered equal members of society.
I was lucky. I grew up in a home where I was always encouraged to be independent and make my own way in life. My parents divorced when I was eight and my dad always made sure that I was taken care of. "Deadbeat Dad" are foreign words in his vocabulary. My mother had not gotten an education, but was never the stay at home type to begin with, so she had a good paying job at a local bank. I grew up in a family, where my dad tells me how proud he is of me, because I've gone against what's normal for a woman in our society... I've almost always held jobs that were considered men's work. I was a plumber, a deck builder, and now I want to teach science - considered to be a subject in which boys and men excel, not women.
Your thoughts?
Poverty affects women more than men, creating a social phenomenon that sociologists call the feminization of poverty, a huge number of women living in poverty, mostly as single mothers or heads of families. Compared with other industrial nations, the United States has the largest gender gap in poverty. The reason is that U.S. women are much more likely than their foreign counterparts to be both unemployed and heads of families with children (Casper, et al., 1994). In fact, single mothers make up the largest proportion of the poor adult population in the United States. Thus, the feminization of poverty mostly involves poor women maintaining their own households. The problem can be attributed to several changes in U.S. society. Increases in the rates of divorce, separation, and out-of-wedlock birth have caused a growing number of women to become heads of poor households. The increase in divorced fathers not paying child support, along with the reduction in government support for welfare, also has caused many more female-headed households to fall below the poverty line. The fact that women live longer than men has further contributed to a growing number of older women living alone in poverty.
Most important, however, according to feminists, women as a group are more vulnerable than men to poverty because of the sexist and patriarchal nature of the society. Unlike men, who often can escape poverty by getting jobs, women tend to remain poor even when they are employed. Why? Because in the gender-segregated labor market, women are more likely to work in low-paid, low-status jobs. By socializing women to become wives and mothers, feminist theory suggests, the patriarchal society further discourages them from developing educational and occupational skills. This is likely to cause poverty among divorced women or widows, even those from relatively affluent families.
It just seems ridiculous that, in this modern age, we still have this kind of a problem. Doesn't this seem like the easiest thing in the world to fix? Equal pay for equal work, encouaraging young girls to be independent, educating the sexes equally. Aren't these all things that we, as a nation, hold up as proof that we are the most egalitarian society in the world? These are things that are supposed to already be in effect, or at least you'd think so if you speak to a great number of people (mostly men, but a lot of women too) in this country. Clearly we have a lot of work to do before women are truly considered equal members of society.
I was lucky. I grew up in a home where I was always encouraged to be independent and make my own way in life. My parents divorced when I was eight and my dad always made sure that I was taken care of. "Deadbeat Dad" are foreign words in his vocabulary. My mother had not gotten an education, but was never the stay at home type to begin with, so she had a good paying job at a local bank. I grew up in a family, where my dad tells me how proud he is of me, because I've gone against what's normal for a woman in our society... I've almost always held jobs that were considered men's work. I was a plumber, a deck builder, and now I want to teach science - considered to be a subject in which boys and men excel, not women.
Your thoughts?