11-16-03

                        	Different Relations to Work

      Since the dawn of civilization, work has been a custom in which every individual has developed a different core meaning and value towards. In our primitive society, work has provided us with a way to become distinguished, earn money, become socially active, and express our fullest capabilities as an individual. The values and meanings which encompass the true nature of work  have never been perceived as the same for each specific person. Issues such as social class, family support, and gender have created controversy over the specific topic of work in the past, and have forced Americans towards different beliefs of what work entails in each separate family. In our world today, these issues still place a profound impact on work but not to the level in which they have centuries ago. 
      
      Work has been a custom to American culture for centuries. Americans have been working for a long time, but the work in which was performed has changed to different degrees in today’s society. Whether one were working on the farm or working as an employee for an organization, we were still trying to pay off the bills and accumulate an abundance of food for the family. Women have not had the same role of work in retrospect to the past. Before the push for women’s rights, men and women had different duties to perform pertaining to work. For a long time, woman’s area of work solely dealt along the premises of taking care of the house. Men viewed women as not geared emotionally or physically able to worry about their specific role in work. Women were perceived as being weak and domesticated. Their work consisted of doing the dishes, cleaning the house, watching after the kids, and caring for their husbands. Men, on the other hand, specifically dealt with all matters outside the house. They were perceived as being social, political, and the sole provider for the necessities needed within a house. While the men received money for their work in which they strived for, women received self-satisfaction from completing their share of the work, in believing that they gave their full and complete effort towards every aspect of work. In today’s society the idea that women are still the caretaker’s of the house, while the men are the ones who provide for the entire household, is a hallucination of the past. Women have become a very social gender and they have been proving that they have capabilities in which surpass those of the men, for certain fields of work. Women hold a number of the world’s positions in the workforce. Lately, women have ranged from being doctors to becoming plumbers. However, there is still some inequality which encompasses women in the workforce. Men tend to make more money than the majority of the women, for the same position in a specific line of work. Women are also perceived as not being able to complete the same work as men are capable of fulfilling, largely due to the spread of sexism in our world. However, more women have become active in fighting to gain equality among all men. While gender places a profound impact on work, social class also has become an important factor with work. 
      
      Social class has played a role in the thinking process related to work for quite some time now. Americans have been separated into three distinct classes, poor, middle class, and wealthy. Those Americans who belong to the poor class, usually are the laborers within a corporation or an industry. Americans within this class, usually do not move up the economic ladder. They are simply laborers who get stuck making a minimum wage and they have to strive to pay off their bills and provide food for their family. The family’s attitude in relation towards work is very diminishing to the value and the meaning in which is supposed to be incorporated from work. The poor class usually does not develop a sense of pride from work, due to the low wages and the lack of ambition. Americans in the middle class place a greater role in the workforce. Their attitudes towards work are healthier and more positive. This class usually has more ambition to express their full capabilities at work, because they develop a sense of pride. Employees which make up the middle class, usually have some kind of desk job and a majority of them hold a manager position of some form. The families of this class place a stronger opinion on the topic of work to their children, and their expectations are higher for the family. At the highest end of the spectrum are the wealthy. This class is usually very distinguished and powerful. They make up the presidents, CEO’s, Vice presidents, committee board members, and other prestigious positions within the workforce. Their family values are very strict and failure is usually intolerable for a member of ths class. Their children have heavy expectations weighted down upon them, which require an enormous amount of work and dedication. In today’s society, the members within a higher class always appear to be more ambitious and dedicated to their area of work, compared to those in the lower classes. Unlike members of the poor class, the wealthy have no trouble in paying their bills and keeping food on the tables at all times for their families. As a result of their time and dedication to work, they also have an enormous amount of money in which they can use for social gatherings or just a night of partying and dancing. Besides social class and gender dealing with the area of work, family also contributes to one’s view and meaning of work as well. 
      
      Family places an important impact on their children in relation towards their desired profession in the workforce. A majority of children look up to their parents and tend to imitate the professions in which their work encompasses. An example to this assertion would be one of my own accord. My mother is a manager at National City Bank. When I was younger, she once took me to her office and I pretended that I was a manager of the corporation. When I graduated highschool, my aspirations were to go to a 4-year university and receive an M.B.A. in Business Administration. I am currently in college striving for the achievement of a business degree, and come this summer I am going to get an internship at National City Bank. Our families also place an important impact on whether or not we are ambitious enough and determined to succeed within our line of work. Those families’ which provide strong positive support, usually result in their children succeeding further than those children who lack the sense of overwhelming inspiration within their family.
      Since past generations, work has changed to some degree within our society.  Issues such as social class, family support, and gender have forced Americans into developing different views on the values and meanings which encompass the area of work. Social class has proved that the wealthier an individual becomes, the more dedicated and ambitious they are towards work. Family also placed a role within the area of work. It expressed that the stronger the bonds are between the parents and their children, the more dedicated and ambitious the children will become, due to the overwhelming feeling of inspiration within the household. Lastly, gender has created controversy over the area of work. Gender has created sexism in the workforce and has subjected men and women into being viewed differently towards their relationships to work. Women were viewed as being the house workers, while men were viewed as being the workers outside the house. This has placed a profound impact on gender roles within work, and even to this day there are some examples of discrepancies occurring with the women’s role at work. These issues have paved the path for where work is today in society. These issues are still seen today within the area of work, but not to the manner in which was portrayed in the past.