SOC320

The goal of this course is to investigate women's representation in the professions. Women make up half the population and have earned more than half of all undergraduate degrees in the U.S. since the early 1980s; yet women constitute only 17% of the U.S. Congress, 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs, and 16% of the board of directors of major corporations, 20% of partners in law firms, and 33% of research faculty at universities and 4 year colleges. For women of color, these numbers are considerably lower. Why are there so few women in professional fields like business, law, government, engineering, and medical and scientific research? Why are there even fewer women in leadership positions in these fields? In this course we will learn and evaluate many explanations for these disparities, discuss the cost to society for women's underrepresentation in positions of power, and examine how organizations and individuals increase women's leadership and be more inclusive of the diverse people that make up our society. Because gender inequality goes beyond sheer numbers and because many of the explanations for women's low representation also pertain to other forms of inequality, we will also examine inequality in terms of promotion and pay. Students will engage in an empirical project to investigate gender inequality locally, in Tucson or at the University of Arizona.