Belana Sanchez

Professor Rodrick

English 115

18 October 2018

Women in Society

Our identities and who we are is constantly being constructed and affected by our

society. Our environment shapes us to who we are and determines how we will live our everyday

lives. Whether it be negative or positive, our space immensely shapes the identity and persona of

specific people in our population such as men or women. In our current society, space has

negatively affected women’s everyday lives through limiting our opportunities, silencing our

voices, and giving us reasons to be careful every day because of our place in society where men

are superior.

It is common knowledge that women have less business and work related opportunities

than men do. Our society shapes women to stay at the bottom. In the Social Indicators Research,

Naidu Suwastika and Chand Anand studied the correlation between women and work inequality

through research. Their conclusion showed that “​women face more difficulties than men due to

inequality in the labour market. This has resulted women to choose small business ownership in

an attempt to escape challenges that they will face from this inequality.” (​Suwastika, 5). ​ Due to

the inequalities women face, they lose the confidence to aim higher. Since women already know

the hardships, they settle for something smaller because they already know how hard it would be

for them. The space in which we live in has been built for men to stay superior to women in the

workplace. It is more difficult for women to get to higher positions because most men just want
to stay at the top and women are forced to conform to the rules of their superiors which are all

men. Because of this, space limits the opportunities women have in a workplace.

It is not just work problems women face but also health problems. Everyday women face

the dangers of harassment. In the Des Moines Register, Brianne Pfannenstiel had statistics to

prove this. She stated “41 percent say they've experienced unwanted sexual attention at some

point in their careers. For men, that number is 9 percent, including 2 percent who say it's

occurred during the last three years. Several female poll respondents said they didn't feel they

could tell their stories publicly, fearing repercussions from co-workers or employers.”

(Pfannenstiel 3). Almost half of women have experienced some form of harassment and this is

just in their careers and workplace so it is not including at regular places such as a random store.

The number of women facing this issues is about four times higher when compared to men. Our

space has made it unsafe for women because of the way they are viewed which are objects.

There have been various cases that have gone unheard because of this. The author also found,

based on a poll, that most females did not want to speak up whenever something happened to

them because they were scared of what others in their workplace would think.

Women’s voices and opinions are drowned when it comes to certain topics. Because of

this, they do not even bother to speak up as shown in the poll. In her article, “Women, silence is

not a virtue in the workplace,” Linda Bernardi attempts to convince her female readers to ​raise

their voices and not be afraid to do so. She stated, ​“women's silence happens at every level, in

companies of all sizes. It's an issue I've been passionate about both in my work in technology and

as a longtime founding board member (now Emeritus) for the Anita Borg Institute.” (Bernardi 3).

Women’s silence, specifically in a workplace, can happen to any women at any place. Whether
the company is small or big and whether the women is a superior or not, it can still happen. The

author is a superior figure and knows first hand about the silence of women in our society. Since

it is mostly men in superior positions, women stay silent because they would just be reporting

about men to men.

Space undeniably shapes how we live our lives and how we interact with others. It also

influences our choices and the way we live our lives. Women’s identities are shaped by the

people around them in our society and space. They are forced to conform to society's norms that

put men above them. Space shapes women into staying silent due to fear that of what others will

say. Space has negatively shaped women into having to work twice as hard to get half of what

men get in life. The extent that space has shaped women’s identities has not been a good one and

there is no real solution to it unless our society and space itself changes and starts shaping

women into stronger people.

 Works Cited

Bernardi, Linda. “​Women, silence is not a virtue in the workplace.” ​The Washington Post, ​May

2015. ​General OneFile,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A415437942/ITOF?u=csunorthridge&sid=ITOF&xid=04

b9fac7​. Oct 19 2018.

Suwastika, Naidu and Chand Anand. “National Culture, Gender Inequality and Women’s

Success in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.” ​Social Indicators Research,​ vol. 130,

January 2017, pgs 647-664. ​ProQuest,

dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1007/s11205-015-1203-3. Oct 18 2018

Pfannenstiel, Brianne. “41% of women harassed on job: They say they faced unwanted sexual

attention at some point.” ​Des Moines Register,​ December 2017. ​ProQuest,

libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.libproxy.csun.edu/docview/197762

5035?accountid=7285​. Oct 18 2018.

http://blog.pslove.co/5-ways-gender-inequality-and-bias-exist-at-your-workplace/

https://www.borgenmagazine.com/10-examples-gender-inequality-world/