Double Jeopardy Essay

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Double Jeopardy Women of color-Black, Latina, Asian American and Native Americans make up 20 percent of the United State’s population. However, women from these minority groups experience the “Double Jeopardy” of racism and sexism in our societies (Gutierrez, 1990). Double Jeopardy is when people experience double discrimination in several dimensions of their everyday life because of their membership in both the subordinate sexual and racial groups. In other words, people who are doubly disadvantaged because they are women and are from a minority group are the victim of double jeopardy. According to previous studies, women earn significantly lower salaries, are overrepresented in low-status occupations and receive average low level of education (Gutierrez, 1990). Women and minorities also experience hostility, sexual and ethnic harassment in work environment in traditionally male and white dominated domains. They also occupy lower paying, less prestigious and less powerful jobs than white men ( Berdahl & Moore (2006). It is extremely important to study the concept and repercussions of double jeopardy because, studies have found that sexual and ethnic harassment (result of double jeopardy) at work pose significant problems for women and minorities correspondingly and are related to poor physical, psychological, and organizational well being. In addition, age has been shown to negatively correlate with salary and the amount of time in current position (Hurley& Giannantonio (1999). References 1. Berdahl, L., J. & Moore, C. (2006). Workplace Harassment: Double Jeopardy for Minority Women. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2). 2. Browne, I. & Misra, J. (2003).The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market. Annual Review of Sociology 29, pp 487-513 3. Hurley, E. A. & Giannantonio, M., C.(1999) Career Attainment for women and minorities: the
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