I take a few moments to rant... bear with me.
I not too long ago read an article about how women dominate the school of journalism, but the newsroom comes as a different story. Now , although I initially found this to be quite puzzling -- Honestly, I would accredit this to women's first financial upcoming. Long ago when women first began receiving pay for work, Men believed that women were naturally to do housework and be nurturers. Women were never taken seriously in workplace settings and it was because of this that they felt that women didn't deserve even half of what a man received. Deeming equal pay to be far beyond the zones of comfort, we fast forward to present America and not much has changed. Often overshadowed by equal pay clauses -- this wage gap in general has gone on for far too long.
Published by the Poynter Institute, Margaret Sullivan a woman who excelled in her field brought to light the amount of gender inequality that comes with the field. It was puzzling for her to see the number of women who take up degrees in journalism compared to the number of women who work in these corporate settings. Sullivan said. "Does it mean that women are coming out of these journalism programs and going into other fields, rather than hard-edge journalism? Maybe. Does it mean that newspapers are continuing to hire more men than women even though more women are available? Maybe."
As a young woman soon looking to purse a career in the field of journalism , I find myself moving with extreme caution in searching for a place of work. Is it safe to say that no matter how many equal pay laws pass , that there are companies who will still work off of the guidelines of the people before them? Will my lack of pay compared to my male counterpart reflect the work put into the field or will I be deemed as another female statistic?
A lot of people tend to accredit the women' lack in pay to the idea that we just don't know how to negotiate when this is completely false. I watch women who not only compete -- but, thrive in male dominated fields daily and still receive backlash. Often being labeled as combative and hard to work with... It becomes a task for people to disassociate work related emotions and gender which only heightens the argument at hand. Most men who do dominate these fields generally are older people who have past thinking so ingrained into them that they don't want to believe or let alone admit that a woman can do their job -- if not better than they can.
But hey, Who am I to talk -- right?
