Throughout history, women have been treated as the “inferior” sex and they were mostly assigned domestic jobs, such as taking care of the house and the children. However, during the industrial revolution in the UK, this took a turn — women were finally allowed to start working outside of the house and in factories. Of course, this came with a lot of prejudice that has carried over to modern times. In the workforce, women face gender bias when it comes to what jobs they can ‘handle’, with people claiming that women aren’t strong or smart enough for certain careers. While many women have proven this wrong, the majority of people working in STEM fields and industries requiring manual labor are men.
Women are also pressured to look “pretty” in order to get a job. Workplaces often hire based on what they deem “professional” and studies have shown that women that interviewers find pretty are more likely to get the job. According to the Business Insider, in an Italian study that sent out 10,000 identical resumes (with names, addresses and pictures changed), 54% of “attractive” women got a callback, compared to only 7% of “unattractive” women. This perpetuates the idea that women who fit modern beauty standards are superior to women who don’t.
Additionally, no matter what job a woman does, she is almost always sexualized in some way. Halloween stores often sell a “sexy” version of professions that are often exaggerated caricatures of the jobs they are portraying. These issues all stem from misogyny, which takes time and effort to unlearn, but most misogynists won’t want to fix these issues as it benefits them. Our patriarchal society allows these practices to thrive, which must change (although it is not easy).
Written by Lilia
Artwork by Mrishana
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