Race, Gender and Career

Posted: September 3rd, 2013

Race, Gender and Career

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Race, Gender and Career

Introduction

Racism is a great problem in America today. Largely, racism continues to affect people in the society despite the fact that they believe it is outdated. To understand why racism still thrives in the darkest corners of the society, a clear definition should be understood. Racism can be described as a belief taken in by human beings to be superior to others due to certain characteristics. Personally, racism continues to exist in the society because of certain experiences I have suffered in silence. Therefore, based on personal experiences, racism continues to thrive in the midst of the society.

Discussion

In the society, a certain race is implied to have certain character traits as compared to the other races. For instance, the black races are taken to be extremely violet and most of the crimes committed in the society are committed by black people. For this reason, when the police are trying to look for a criminal black people are usually placed as the number one suspects while they are profiling. This profiling by the police is discriminatory because a white person could have committed the crime. Additionally, the black race is considered to the poorest race in the society while the white races are presumed to be the richest people in the society. This is extremely discriminative despite the fact that it does not happen in the open as it was several decades ago. This shows that there is a lot of white privilege.

In the case of gender and career, in our society, women are presumed to work at home talking care of the families while the men provide for their families by taking careers. In most case, women do not pursue their careers because they will be discriminated in the job market because of their gender. This has been extremely frustrating for the women over the last few decades. Moreover, they have been psychologically affected being shown that they cannot be able to make it in the professional. This shows that there is no equality at all in the professional world.

To prove these two facts, I have decided to take an implicit assumption test to establish whether I am racist or not. Moreover, I would like to establish whether I am gender biased or not. The test involved quickly identifying the pictures of white and black people as first as I can. Secondly, identifying the pictures with words placed at the bottom of the picture. These words are either bad or good. In this case, the test has switched the word from one picture to the other. For instance, the black pictures are described with a good word while the white pictures are described with a bad word. In the second test, the black pictures are replaced with bad words while the white pictures are replaced with the good words. It should be noted that the black pictures are pictures of people from the black race while the white pictures are people of the white race. Additionally, the good words describe good characters while the bad words describe bad characters.

According to the results of my test, I have been described as slight, moderate, strong, or little with no preference for both implications assumption tests. This shows that I was evenly placed in the test because I was able to answer using the same speed when a picture popped with followed with the word as they appeared in the test. However, this does not mean that I am not discriminative because there might have been some errors in answering the questions. On the other hand, this can be attributed to personal experiences that I have encountered throughout my life.

For example, in the community that I used to reside in the past, it was filled with many black people who were extremely poor. Most of them were criminals and the society hated them. However, the neighborhood community was suburbs filled with many white people as compared to the black people. When a black person was violated in the society, the police were not quick to respond irrespective of whether he or she was from the suburbs or in our neighborhood. On the other hand, if it was a white person who was violated the police were quick to respond and try to solve the case. Often, the black people were placed as suspects to crime.

On the other hand, I have come to dislike the white people. The white people have continuously regarded themselves to be superior as compared to the other societies. In the process, they have mistreated the black people tainting their name. Additionally, they have made the lives of people a living hell. In the past, it was extremely evident that the white people used to mistreat the black people. At some point in the past, black people were being treated as tradable commodities. All this was being done by the whites towards the black people. For these experiences, I have come to dislike the white people.

Additionally, a few black people have decided to take upon themselves and change their tainted name. There are black people who are doctors, scientists and politicians. To say the lists there are those who have become priests and rehabilitators trying to educate their fellow community into doing well rather than becoming criminals. For instance, my current neighbor is a black accountant who often attends the rehabilitation centre to educate the black people to stop engaging in criminal activities and start innovating projects that will help them earn money. Additionally, my neighbor encourages the black youth to stop taking the trend of engaging in criminal activities. Instead, he encourages them to get a good education and work hard in achieving their goals as educated people. This has made me like the black race for the efforts they are doing to eliminate this saying.

Similarly, I have come to like the white community for the several strides they are trying to take in eliminating discrimination. To begin, Americas is densely populated with white people thus the winner of presidential elections is expected to be a black man. However, during the last elections, the white people joined the other races to kick racism out and they voted a black president, President Barrack Obama. On personal experience, one of my friends in school who are whites adopted a black child from the streets after they saw her helpless. They have taking her in as a member of their family and they have provided her with everything as they would have provided their children. This has led me to like the whites for the great initiatives and efforts they are taking to uphold the community.

In the case of gender and career, one time I was searching for a job, a certain woman who had all the qualifications was send away with no reason while a man who had lower qualification was employed. Upon closer evaluation, I discovered that women are not employed in managerial position in the company due to their gender. This shows that there was patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity when the men believe that they are superior to women and they can do anything. Additionally, I came to experience another situation where a woman was fired so that a man could be hired for the same job. The woman had not committed any mistake but the management cited that she was incompetent yet it was not true. In this case, I discovered that women have a long way to go to achieve equality in the professional field.

Conclusion

            Racism can be described as the perception where certain human beings tend to feel more superior to the others based on certain characteristics that they portray. Gender discrimination in career perceives one sex to be weaker than the other sex. According to my personal experience and the implicated assumptions tests, I still believe that racism continues to affect the community. The only difference from the past is that racism is direct. In the past, people used to show it directly by words and actions. In the situation of gender discrimination in career, women have a long way to go before achieving equality in the work forces. Currently, people are showing it indirectly. For instance, in the employment industry or the police force.