Women in the United States need to look realistically at their own status in the social and economic spheres of this country today. The media has been responsible for producing a backlash of public opinion against working women and distorting the perceptions women have about their status in society. Through the 70s and early 80s, women were able to win equal treatment from employers due to effective governmental and judicial enforcement of anti-discrimination regulations. In the 80s and continuing to the present, these gains are being eroded through a lack of enforcement by governmental agencies and through the media misrepresentation of women's issues. Women are being coerced and tricked into believing that the women's movement and their own actions are to blame for all the troubles in their lives. These troubles include a lack of status, unequal wages, discrimination, marital difficulties, and remaining single even if by choice. Governmental enforcement of anti-discrimination regulations has fallen to the point where companies are able to discriminate against women in the workplace. The loss of economic equality accompanies a loss of power and status in the private spheres of a woman's home life.
Power and status follow money. Traditionally, women have chosen, or been hired, to work in fields with little prestige and low wages. Female college students tend to segregate themselves by sex into separate majors. Females tend to major in the humanities; this path leads to lower-paying jobs. The hard sciences and math fields are 80 to 90 percent male; these majors usually lead to higher-paying careers (Wolf 243). Only four percent of high school girls who enter the work-force directly from school enter higher paying trade jobs; most girls enter the job market in service and support fields (Wolf 243). Societal institutions and expectations are responsible. As the result two-thirds of the poor in the United States are wome...