My focus for the third, and last, paper was on gender and the American Dream. More specifically it was how the inequality between women and men has made women believe in the American Dream less and less. The chapter that I used from The American Dream in the 21st Century is the 5th chapter, “Whose Dream? Gender and the American Dream” by Sandra L. Hanson. I wanted to research gender and the American Dream because I am a woman and I am curious to how my American Dream is different from a Man’s American Dream.
Throughout writing this essay I have learned a lot about how unfairly women are treated compared to men and how this affects each women's individual American Dream. Hanson discusses gender divide in many ways including race, class, opportunity, politics, education and earnings. By discussing all of this Hanson can show how not only gender effects the way the American Dream is viewed but so do other factors like race for example. Hanson talks about the idea of how men see the Dream more as materialistic while women see their Dream as more moralistic. These two different views allow that "women are more likely than men to see inequity in the Dream" (Hanson, 96). Along with Hanson's views on gender within the American Dream the other research I did shows how your success affects how much you believe in the American Dream. This article called "Breaking the Glass Ceilings" by Benjamin Newman claimed that your beliefs in the American Dream depend on how successful you are and only slightly depend on your gender. The article shows "that not only are women's beliefs in the American Dream responsive to local variation in the economic resources of women, they are highly responsive to the resources of women relative to men"(Newman). Both of these texts allowed me to see how the inequality between women and men can lead to women being less successful as well as them believing in the American Dream less.
The conclusions I have come to from my research shows that the inequality between men and women affect how women perceive their American Dream. Although advancements and more opportunities are becoming available for women, men still have advantages over women solely because of the gender they were born with. The American Dream has a good amount to do with how successful one is and since women feel like they aren't as successful as men because they don't have the same opportunities they tend to believe in the Dream less.
I found it interesting how Newman's argument made sense. But as you think about it, its true. Women don't experience success because society is not in their favor, and then instead of attributing it to inequality forced upon women, society blames women for not working hard enough, and that they deserve the smaller reward. Very backwards but very true.
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