Valenti: Material World- Sex discrimination, etc.

Valenti does a wonderful job of discussing sex discrimination in the U.S. Before I comment on what Valenti wrote, I want to share a personal story. When I lived in Ecuador, my Ecua-mama told me that she once applied for a promotion at the bank where she worked. They required everyone who applied to take the test. There were 10 promotions being offered. Mama found out that she had the second highest score on the test, and she was so excited for her promotion. Her boss never called. Eventually, she contacted him only to be told that she did not get the job, because she was a divorced, single mom with too many problems in her life.

I have told many women the story about my Ecua-mama and most are upset afterwards. What most women do not realize is that sex discrimination is still common in the U.S. In fact, there was recently a woman in Huntingdon county named Kiki Peppard who was turned down a job for being a single mother. Wal-mart was involved in a scandal a few years back where they did not give their female workers benefits. In her article, Valenti mentions a few other examples, including Virgin Airlines and Viacom. As Valenti says, it is illegal to discriminate based on sex, so why does it still happen?? The people who do the hiring like to hire people who look like them. The bottom line is if white men do the hiring, then...yeah...

I was surprised to hear that women without children are hired 44% more than women with children. I was also surprised to hear that when women with children are hired, they make an average of $11,000 less than women without children. $11,000 is a substantial amount!! It is horrible that companies assume that kids automatically make women less hard-working and devoted to their jobs.

Valenti's article also taught me that if women were paid for their labor in the household, their salaries would average $134,121 a year. America is also one of only two industrialized nations that does not pay leave for child care. In addition, some Americans pay up to half of their salaries for child care. This is a huge turn off to having kids!

Valenti also said that women are 40% more likely to be poor than men. She questioned is this is because society naturally pays jobs dominated by women in the social services (teachers, waitresses, etc.) less. The government has recently been promoting marriage as a method of dealing with poor women!! Bush restructured the welfare program to put $100 million a year towards religious marriage promotion programs instead of towards education, job-training, and childcare!!

All in all, I really liked this article by Valenti. She is probably my favorite feminist author I have read this semester. I feel like I can relate to her completely. She makes her articles fun and informative to read.