Women Do Not Have The Same Opportunities Than Men

4.2 Women Do Not Have The Same Opportunities Than Men

In everyday social life sometimes women can not have equal opportunities than the men. Women usually just stay at home and take care of the housework. Women are usually not in habit to do the work in office and not important for a women to get a job, because women usually will only need to get married and become a good housewife. While men, he was on duty to earn money for his family. In here showed that women have limitation to actualize themselves. As Popenoe 1986:334 states that: Men and women are different physically, and they think, feel, act, and relate to others in different ways. Mens are rational, and womens are emotional. Men go out and earn living, women are mother and homemakers. Men seek money and power, women find fulfillment through their husband and children. Women do not have good opportunities because of gender role in cultural influences. According to Gelles 1999:361 stated that: Gender involves differences in power. Like race and social class, gender assigns roles in ways that afford women lower opportunities and prileges than men enjoy. It distinguishes between two kinds of power. ‘Power to’ refers to ability to act , which often requires such resources as education, money, land and time. Typically, women have less power to pursue education, innerit land, get high paying jobs, or choose to get married or divorced. ‘Power over’ refers to the ability to assert one’s will even against opposition from others. Women ussualy have less say in family decisions, lower position in the work place, and little representation in goverment or influence on public politics. Universitas Sumatera Utara And Brigham 1942: 338 said that: As more and more mothers began working outside the home, many people woried about the effect of a mother’s employment and subsequent lack of contact with her offspring during the day, on her children. Many man and nonemployed mothers believe that working women are worse mothers than women who do not work. That statement explains that its better if women do not working and leave her house, but she must just stay at home to take care her house and her family at home. Thats why, in this play Amanda said to her daughter that bussines careers are not to important for women because she think that bussines careers jus for a man. Here Amanda want to explains what women should do according to their gender, that women just need to married with the right men for her future. Amanda: Girls arent cut out for business careers wind up married to some nice man. [She gets up with a spark of revival.] Sister, thats what youll do The Glass Menagerie, p.1266 Amanda gets her thoughts on gender roles from observing the outside world. Gender inequality is “the inequality resulted from the organization of society, not from any significant biological or personality differences between women and men” Ritzer, 2003:210. From the theory above, inequality not only come from men to women, but also from what society do to a gender. Society often makes prejudice to a gender to do something. Society sticks to women as a householder, cooking, parenting children and doing everything to support their husband. Universitas Sumatera Utara Here Laura does not have the same freedom of opportunity too which is owned by Tom, her brother to be able to go anywhere that he wants. In this play Laura is only asked by her mother to stay at home waiting for the gentelman callers. Her mother always demands Laura to be stay fresh and pretty to attract gentelmen callers and to get attention from men. While Tom can go out, go to the movies whenever he need. Here Laura is always at watch by her mother in doing an act so she is not free to do what she wants, she just take care her glass menagerie at home because it makes Laura be still fresh and preety. It can be seen on page 1294: LAURA: I dont do anything - much. Oh, please dont think I sit around doing nothing My glass collection takes up agood deal of time. Glass is something you have to take good care of. The Glass Menagerie, p.1294 And as Ritzer states in Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots 2003:210: “Although individual human beings may vary somewhat from each other in their profile potentials and traits, no significant pattern of natural variation distinguishes the sexes. Instead, all human beings are characterized by a deep need for freedom to seek self-actualization and by a fundamental malleability that leads them to adapt to the constrains or opportunities of the situations in which they find themselves. To say that there is gender inequality, then is to claim that women are situational less empowered than men to realize the need they share with men for self –actualization” Universitas Sumatera Utara CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusions