goatedman13

[goatedman13]

Overview Of Course (Reflection)

Dylan Decker

Eng-3298/Wgs3298

07/27/21

CP Book Reflection:

Welcome to my commonplace book assignment, where I will talk about themes and main ideas that I have learned throughout the semester. To start off, I want to talk about my posts that I have selected, (shown below). For primary research I analyzed my classmates' posts from throughout the summer and picked the ones that best focus on my theme. One theme that I believe is real and evident throughout our class is women equality as well as discrimination. I enjoyed reading and getting a better understanding of this theme throughout the semester, especially because I notice these issues in sports all the time. I am a big sports fan and have been following the news about inequality when discussing men and womens sports. I have reblogged multiple posts below that talk about inequality in pay, attention and  popularity. The highest paid male in their given sport is making double or even more than the highest paid women in the same sport. One popular issue that most people have heard about is the controversy between mens and womens national soccer. The US men's team accumulates to over 38 million in total salary whereas the women only totals to 4 million. There are many words that I can use to describe this situation but to be honest it is simply unfair and cruel. Not only because they are doing the same exact thing, but the women have gained more press and popularity than the men due to their success. Not only have they outscored the men in viewership year after year, but they have also won more World Cups and have been overall more noticeable and appreciated. You may be asking why they aren't being paid the same as the men? Well they eventually had enough of the unbalanced system and filed a lawsuit towards the District Court of California. The case consisted of alleged  gender based pay discrimation which blatantly violated the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. They had hard evidence that the men’s team was making way more than they shouldn't have, in 2015 the women won the world cup and got paid 1.73 million in total bonuses for the players. When the men didn't even come close to winning and still earned 5.38 million in performance based bonuses. If you would like to read more I found a fantastic article that lays out what exactly happened. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/03/12/us-womens-soccer-team-is-better-than-men-thatll-help-its-case/)  

Although there are many other cases of discrimation towards women there are also good things happening to improve our equality. Fortune 500 came out with a graph that shows an overview of the number of women CEOs in the 500 from 1999 to 2020. In 1999 there were only 2 total. Fast forward to 37 in 2020, it shows that we are making changes in our society and letting the old traditions slowly dwindle with time.  Although 37 women may not seem like a drastic change, who knows what the total will be in 2025. I find this to be inspiring and interesting to me, especially because I am a Business Administration major. After school I want to earn my job in the most fair way possible, I would never want to be told that I only got the job because of my skin color or gender. Gender pay gaps are also a massive problem in our world. The issue of gender pay is a problem in everycountry not just ours. I looked at a graph that shows the pay gap between men and women in each country. After analyzing the graph it was evident that worldwide change was necessary. In Estonia the pay gap is 21.7% which is the highest in any country. Which means no matter how powerful or talented you are, if you live in a country like this it is very difficult for a woman to be successful. This deeply saddens me because it's as if they dont even have a chance, this is all due to cultural traditions passed down for many years.

Throughout the semester we have read as well as watched videos on women discussing discrimation towards them and other cultures. One thing I realized overtime is that support is one of the best and biggest things we can do to continue towards an equal society. One tumblr post from sdunk43 stood out to me and best describes empowerment towards women. I believe that inorder to keep this momentum towards women empowerment men have to play a role also. Women helping other women reach their full potential is a great thing, and us men should try to do the same for them. We are not in our grandparents' generation anymore where men “rule the world”. We are in 2021 and it's time to make massive strides towards an equal society where a woman can have and be as much as men. This discussion can go into much more detail, because not only have women been affected from this but peeople of color or a different gender face discriminattion everyday. Throughout the month of June our class focused on issues with the LGBT community, and how to better understand what they deal with regularly. Earlier in the semester our class read and discussed Under the Udala Trees. Although it wasnt exactly accurate it gave us a sense of how difficult it was to fight and struggle for change. I am sad to say that Ijeoma struggled and told her story hoping Nigeria would change for the better, but the country still struggles with this issue in the present day. The LGBT has worked so hard to adapt in different cultures, hopefully if we work together and support them every month instead of one we can make a change thatll benefit our society in the future.

To wrap things up, It is important to keep what we learned this semester and to actually support and do things to make our society better, instead of just saying it. It's one thing to say you want change, it's a whole other thing to actually be a part of it. I personally will continue to follow the news in other countries as well as indulge myself into supporting other people in any way possible. I never was a member of tumblr before this class and was unsure what exactly it was about. But after this class I have realized it's a safe place to share aswell as express how we feel and try to work towards a change. I plan to expand my profile and continue to post and hopefully bring awareness to these situations we have encountered throughout the semester. I wish you all the best of luck and hopefully we can think about this class 5 years from now and notice massive improvement to our society,  and strides to full equality.