Women and the Workforce

In the video you asked us to watch, "Danger- Women at Work," they treat women as fragile dolls. When men did these jobs, I am positive they did not have a video like this worried about their nutrition, or a little scratch turning into a serious infection. This part of the video correlates directly with the movie I have chose to talk about, G.I. Jane.

When O'Neil, the first woman accepted into the CRT Special Forces training, decides to go to boot camp with all of the men she is at first babied. She is treated as a fragile doll who cannot handle the pressure physically, mentally, and emotionally as well as the men can at her camp. Her higher-ups, her peers at camp, and even her friends doubted her. No one thought that her place in this camp was valuable, her place and her goal was actually frowned upon.

"If they(women) behave in ways that are seen as more "male"- such as acting assertively, focusing on the task, or displaying ambition- they are seen as "too tough" and "unfeminine.""(Kirk and Rey pg. 306) In the movie, O'Neil could not keep her femininity and be successful as a soldier at the same time. In one of the most important scenes, she shaves her head to prove that she was committed to finishing the camp. After doing so, she slowly moved her way into being treated as "one of the guys." This shows how society views women in the military. To be accepted, O'Neil had to look, talk, dress, and act like a guy. O'Neil had to throw her feminine side out the window just to be accepted. She was not respected both as a woman and a soldier.

In WLMP under the Ideal Nuclear Family section, this is stated,"The father is the provider while the wife/mother spends her days running the home."(Kirk and Rey pg. 303) In G.I. Jane, Demi Moore's character strives to prove this statement is wrong. Proving that a woman can excel at a men's boot camp in more ways than one is solely the reason she goes. O'Neil does not believe that women are put on this earth to only serves as house-moms and raising children. In this movie, she proves that women are strong and capable of completing the same tasks that men do in the most challenging setting.

In our society today, this idea that women can be just as successful as men in the work place has increase, but inequality still exists. For example, I have worked at Buffalo Wild Wings for four years and our store has been used as a training facility for managers for three of those years. So I have seen at least a hundred of managers in training facilitate throughout the company, and of all of them I can name five who were women. Of those five, only two that I know of are still with the company. So personally, I see inequality in the workplace first hand. They like to have women as servers and bartenders, but when it comes to moving up in the company, seeing a woman is very rare.

So yes, this representation of women's work matches my experience, but not my expectation. The field I am going into is mostly males, but I am determined to be just as successful as any other man in the entertainment sports industry. 


Works Cited:
Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa- Rey. Women's Lives Multicultural Perspective. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2010. Print.