In the United States, women and men have relatively equal access to educational opportunities. Both males and females come across gender expectations and pressures in school from kindergarten through college. In the past women were discouraged from advanced studies because many believed that if women got a good education, it might “unsex” women. The only field that was proper for women was either a nurse or teacher. These two professions present women as caring, loving mothers.
Now a day, females achieve better at all levels of education and earn more and higher degrees than men do. Despite that, not all barriers have vanished. Women still face few barriers because of cultural stereotypes of femininity. “Many studies show that women score lower than males on math and science.” (192). These studies think that females are less able than men in math and science. From my life examples, we are eight girls in my household and none of us wanted to enter the math and science field because the stereotypes in my cultures that woman do not perform well in those fields. Males are more likely than females to be encouraged to pursue careers in math and science, where as females are to be encouraged to enter careers that involve more direct interaction with people. In today school, young women tend to exceed in advance studies in high schools around the country. For example in my son’s AP science class, he have four boys and twenty girls. That shows us that more and more females are gaining further educational success.
3 comments:
Response to Sireen's post
As I have mentioned in my previous post, I have read an article in a magazine called Science Daily 05/2008.It talks about how being an enterpreneur is percieved as a male dominated career. This perception leads to less women and more men to go into the field, despite the fact that some of the attributes needed as an enterpreneur are typical female qualities,such as caring and nurturing, building relationships with others, and humility. As aresult of societal stereotypes and expectations, however,men are more likely to go into the field.
Sireen:
Great post! I agree with you that women have the same access to education. Because of that fact, it is nice to see so many women taking advantage of that opportunity. Women in other countries are not as fortunate and here, we have a great deal of opportunities that as women, we should take advantage of. I also agree with you that math and science are difficult classes for women. The book states that it is stastically shown and as a matter of fact, I spoke with a male coworker this morning who said he loves math. See, it just seems to come so naturally for men. I also agree that women having jobs as nurses and teachers appeals to our nurturing sides and that is why women mainly pursued those jobs. However, now, women can attain any level of education in any field. By doing so, we are afforded the same opportunities as men - something that women's rights groups fought so hard for.
And, I have seen an increasing number of students in my business communication class over the last ten years too.
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