Discrimination Case

Unfortunately, discrimination remains to be a social problem still prevalent in today's society as well as others all around the world. Speculations, as to why this is so, range from gender role assignment and stereotypes to outright profiling and other generalized assumptions regarding the capabilities of various genders, races, and ages. Other contributing factors relate back to the expectations, and ever changing "mores" within society concerning what is acceptable and what is not. All of these sociological reasons as well as the examination as to whether these forces will diminish or become more prevalent in the future, will be explored throughout this composition.

It is well known that gender roles have been in place since the beginning of time. However, historical events and societal shifts throughout history played a part in changing the initial expectations of the male and female role. A prime example of this is World War II which out of necessity resulted in hundreds of thousands of women entering into the work force and taking on the job of a man. Even though society has progressed, niches still exist which project presumptions onto each gender. For instance, male nurses were not fully accepted in the work force until the 1960's and prior to that "they were legally barred from practice in most areas of nursing outside of a few very narrow practice settings." (Wolfenden) Part of this is attributed to the historical societal ideas that stemmed from the Florence Nightingale during the beginning of this profession. In correlation with this, "studies have also shown that men entering a predominantly female profession are perceived more deviant than women" ("Men in nursing," 2008) which proves that perception is still a driving force behind gender role discrimination. In all honesty it seems that gender discrimination has leveled off as much as is to be expected, and will most likely remain the same, if not diminish slightly for many years to come.

Racial discrimination can also be linked back to a series of historical events as well. While the civil rights movement caused a domino effect and paved the way for minorities, black Americans in particular; it remains apparent that true equality ceases to exist all across the board among various ethnic and racial groups even in today's society and comes in the forms of profiling, prejudices, and racism. The underlying sociological causes