ABSTRACT

Discrimination is the provision of unequal benefits to people of different ascriptive statuses despite identical qualifications and merit. Race and gender inequality may or may not be caused by discrimination. One of the reasons why for so much debate over how much racial inequality exists in the United States is that different statistics show different things. There has generally been a greater reduction of gender inequality than there has been for race. Gender, race, and ethnicity—and in some cases, religion and sexual preference—are attributes one can be born with. One can only understand the racial and gendered dynamics of workplaces by understanding not only the attitudes of individual workers and employers, but also the realistic constraints they are operating under that limit their freedom of action. The most important mechanism for creating gender inequality in power and status is occupational sex-typing. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.