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SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 Cultural Diversity
Cultural differences refer to all the social differences such as race, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, culture, socio-economic status, age, and disability among others as part of social relationships. From a sociological point of view cross-cultural means operating in the manner in which these categories affect individual relations (micro level) and social organization (macro level). In this way, it is possible to relate micro-level experiences related to cultural diversity to macro-level trends and theoretical assertions. Borrowing from the SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 various concepts learned in class, this essay aims to narrate a person’s experience of multiculturalism so that the experience can be analyzed and evaluated against what has been learned so as to have a deeper understanding of multiculturalism in the American society today (Allen, 2020).
Personal Experience with Sociological Concepts of Power
The real-life example of gendered vulnerability that I want to discuss is gender discrimination at work, whereby my input was dismissed by male workers, but the same input was only accepted when said by a man This situation is best explained by sociological concepts of power with an emphasis on how power relations shape gendered experiences in employment.
Power Dynamics and Gender: This accounts for Max Weber’s perspective in regard to power whereby he defines power as the capacity of an individual or group to exercise their will despite the latter of other people (Weber & Lawrence, 2019). In this sense, SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 male co-workers had a dominance within the working environment, thus they were privileged whose solutions and decisions were accepted and approved. This unequal distribution of power is work-related but it points to a patriarchal social relations of work where men are given more power and control, especially in cases of masculinity-dominated organizations.
Conflict Theory: This situation can also be explained by the conflict theory which Karl Marx created where society is seen as existing in a state of constant strife over scarce resources. In this case, the power and recognition at workplaces are the tangible resources that are usually skewed towards the side of men. That is why the dismissal of my insights can be seen as an enactment of this larger fight, in which power remains at the service of the gender status quo and continued subjugation of men to women.
Data to Make Valid Sociological Inferences
In order to comprehend the gender discrimination that I experienced at the workplace more specifically it is necessary to discuss information on gender relations in the working environment. Pew Research Centre (2020) revealed that 42% of working women in the United States of America had experienced gender discrimination in their workplace, some of the discrimination, working women had to earn less than their male counterparts for the same job, had been treated as less capable or competent than men, or had been provided inadequate support by their seniors. These SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 statistics are evidence of gender prejudices and violence in the world and correlate with my case and the concept that what happened to me is not a unique situation, but rather a part of the system.
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Gender Wage Gap: A common and very well-known type of discrimination based on gender can be described as gender wage discrimination; a situation in which female employees are paid relatively less than their male counterparts. Data obtained from the U.S. bureau of Labor Statistics (2021) suggest that women worked to be paid 82 cents for every dollar paid to male workers in the year 2020. This gender pay gap is even worse for women of color; the Black woman earns 63 cents, while the Hispanic woman earns 57 cents to the White, non-Hispanic man’s dollar. This wage gap aims at the disparities between male and female employees in the control of economic resources, this shapes organizational power relations and organizational culture, who gets their ideas implemented and heard.
Representation in Leadership: Other findings also reveal that women are promoted to leadership roles fewer than men and this helps in maintaining gender power differential. According to the McKinsey & Company report that was released in 2021, women occupy 24% of the executive suite positions in US corporations although women comprise almost 50% of the workforce. Such labor market segmentation perpetuates masculine power relations and shuts women out of leadership positions in which they could influence decisions and allocate rewards, such as promotions and visibility.
Laws or Policies
Specifically speaking, the following laws and policies that address and or seek to prevent gender discrimination in the workplace exist. In the United States, the main charter is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, of 1964 which provides that SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin is unlawful. Title VIl holds that discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin is unlawful, extending to employment decisions, it means it is unlawful for an employer to hire, fire, and provide compensation or other conditions of employment less for such applicants or employees based on these categories (U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2020).
Title VII and Gender Discrimination: Unfortunately, gender discrimination stays bothersome even though Title VII works as a protection against such violations. This is because discrimination is sometimes hard to come by, as it can take the form of silent attitudes of some employees or subtly planned unequal pay for equal work. However, Title VII has had huge significant contribution in some of the most special cases that helped society understand gender bias at the workplace. For instance, there was Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co which was a case on pay discrimination that prompted the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which provided for the extension of the time within which a pay discrimination case can be filed (Wang, 2019).
Equal Pay Act: Another important Act on the regulation of gender-based pay discrimination is the Equal Pay Act of 1963. One is where it demands equal pay for equal work, regardless of the sex of the employees involved, within the same establishment. These jobs do not have to be the same job but have to be comparable in the kind of skills, effort, and responsibilities they entail (U. S. Department of Labor, 2020). Still, SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 presents is gender wage disparity even after the Equal Pay Act, as has been described in the earlier parts of this work. The second issue of implementing the Equal Pay Act is some employers’ secrecy in the remuneration policies making it hard for women to realize discrimination in their remuneration (Bishu & Alkadry, 2020).
Strategies for Addressing a Cultural Diversity Issue
Within the context of gender discrimination in the workforce, a number of legal provisions and measures seek to eliminate the issue of disparities. The main legal regulation in the USA is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is aimed at stopping discrimination at the workplace due to race, color, religion sex, or origin. Title VII directly concerns employment practices and renders unlawful for employers, who are within the jurisdiction of the EEOC, to hire, discharge, promote or determine the compensation, retention, upgrading, or classification of an employee or employees, or refer them for employment to any facility owned, operated, controlled or managed by an employer using criteria or specifications containing a prohibited basis (U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2020).
SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 Gender Discrimination
Title VII and Gender Discrimination: From this, we can see that gender discrimination has not been eradicated even with the provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is due to the fact that discrimination in most cases is not easily demonstrative, as it might be in the form of implicit bias, or SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 unequal pay. But, all the credit goes to Title VII for the following cases which were landmark cases associated with gender discrimination in the workplace. For instance, under the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, the issues concerning pay discrimination were brought in, and therefore after a lot of pressure, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was passed to provide for a time extension for filing for the pay discrimination case (Wang, 2019).
Equal Pay Act: It is followed by other major pieces of legislation including the Equal Pay Act of 1963 which seeks to eliminate gender pay Discrimination. It ensures that equal wage is paid to both male and female employees if they undertake similar work in the same organization. There is no requirement that these jobs must be similar, it is mandatory that these jobs should be similar in the way they are being performed, in terms of skill, effort, and responsibility involved (U S Department of Labour, 2020). Nonetheless, GAP exists evidenced by the inequalities in the remunerations paid to the employees as expounded in the foregoing sections. Another issue that can be noted as a drawback of enforcing the Equal Pay Act is that there is usually opaqueness when it comes to pay structures thereby making it hard for women to notice instances of pay discrimination (Bishu & Alkadry, 2020).
Personal Characteristics or Experiences
Self-attributes and experiences influence the ways that people think, feel, and respond to diversity matters. My background includes upbringing in a multicultural neighborhood, my parents’ focus on empathy and acceptance of people’s differences, and all these aspects significantly impacted my attitudes towards diversity, describing a couple of discrimination-related situations.
Cultural Background and Upbringing: Due to this, it is only appropriate that I come from a family that embraces diversity and appreciates cultures, traditions, and people with different opinions. My parents wanted change in society and we were always taught not to judge people by color, gender, or any other prejudice. This upbringing endowed me with a good orientation in handling diversity issues especially ethnicity and race by developing an emphatic appreciation of fairness.
Personal Experience with Discrimination: A time that can be considered as a defining moment regarding issues of diversity was when I saw my companion harassed in school based on their ethnic background. It made a significant impression on me as that was the first time that I watched prejudice impact itself in an individual. I could only feel angry and I really wanted to come to my friend’s defense. It made me realize the kind of moral compass I had been raised with and made me more determined to fight discriminating people.
Conclusion
Looking at my own experience as a multicultural individual I can see how much our past, current, and future interactions with culture, people, society, and the world affect our response to the concept of diversity. This kind of assessment has allowed me to relate my personal experience to the general sociological principles and types of theories that define the interaction of an individual with society. Thus, SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 1 realized the sets of sociological paradigms that define power relations, prejudice, and identity, which helped me to experience diversity management both personally and in terms of organizational career. The awareness of the significance of prejudice and discrimination derived from the experience and the reflection on the concepts of Kitts’ social identity theory and implicit bias has established the necessity of comprehending the occurrence of prejudice and discrimination and taking concrete actions to cancel prejudice and discrimination at the institutional level. In addition to this, data and trends concerning the diversity issue I faced have heightened awareness on the fact that there ought to be systematic rather than isolated approaches employed to solve the problem. The above psychological insight aptly exemplifies the importance of knowledge in the strategies and measures in creating a society that is transformative in its fairness.
References
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