Sara Keranakis

UWRT 1102

Cassandra Blanford

January 26, 2015

Inquiry Project Proposal

For centuries women have been fighting for equal rights among men. Still to this

day there are feminist who do not believe that this has been achieved. Being a female

pursing a predominantly male career has given me first hand experience in fair and unfair

treatment due to my gender. I am a female Civil Engineering student here at the

University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In all of my classes I am included in the 5% of

female students in the College of Engineering. Being in this minority is not always

simple and can become challenging at times. I have witnessed both sides of the way

people view women in a so called “man’s world”. All of these encounters lead me to my

inquiry question that I wish to investigate. My question for this class is; are women of

today still feeling the job sexism of yesterday?

Needless to say women in the pass were not equals to men. Women, along with a

few men, fought for the rights of women in America. Women received the rights to vote

in 1920’s over a century after white men in America held their first election. Women

have been working in the same fields as men since the 1870’s. Working women in this

time were unequally paid compared to men and to this day women are still not receiving

equal pay. Studies show that women in 2013 make 77¢ for every $1 a man makes. In this

inquiry I am not looking for a yes or no answer but yet examples of this topic to help

myself come to a more basic understanding of how far women have come and if there is

still room to improve.

I am planning to investigate the different types of careers that people perceive to

have single sex dominance over the other. I wish to investigate the wage gap between the

sexes and ask questions to further my knowledge of why this gap occurs. There are both

sides to this story and I also want to look into the advantages one’s sex can have over the

other when entering into the other genders dominant career. Most of my data for this

assignment will be taken from studies done comparing the genders in the workplace. For

my research I may also use blogs or biographies written about the struggle of being a

woman in a man’s career. I may use movie references to address how the media affects

this topic. In an effort to unscramble this question, I desire to get interviews from both

professional men and women on their view of this topic.

I choose this topic because I am very passionate about this subject. This question

affects my life in a very strong way. I will have to deal with this issue throughout my

entire career as a female engineer. Finding answers to some of the many questions I have

will help me have an improved understanding of both sides. Optimistically I hope this

investigation will assist me to tolerate the inequality I may encounter. Women of the

workplace today are treated better than history has shown, but is there still room for

improvement?