Wal-Mart vs. women #2

In the article, “Wal-Mart vs. women: Sisterhood should draw line in sand,” Beth Quinn states that she started a boycott of Wal-Mart five years ago. Sam Walton, who was the founder of Wal-Mart, thought that women should be housewives for cooking and raising children. In addition, Wal-Mart paid less money to women than men and did not support women to get a better job. Some managers who work at Wal-Mart said that Wal-Mart would not admit women who have a family because they have responsibility to raise children. Some women, who wanted to work in Wal-Mart hardware, were told, “We need you in toys. You are a girl, why do you want to be in hardware?”(Quinn, 2005, par. 12). Every woman who works in Wal-Mart is slave labor. In Bangladesh, young women work from 7.30 A.M to 8.00 P.M. every day, sewing shirts and pants for Wal-Mart. They have no health care and maternity leave; moreover, 40%-70% of their wages are less than legal wage in Bangladesh. Some women do not go to Wal-Mart even though they will have low prices, but some women cannot resist low prices on pants or towels or canned goods.

There are many ways that Wal-Mart treats women different from men.

The first and most important way is Wal-Mart has paid less money to women than men, even though they have the same position as men. For instance, a male assistant manager at the store will get $60,000 a year, but a female will get $23,000 or less than. Women also do not get promoted as often from Wal-Mart.

Not only does Wal-Mart pay less money to women than men, but it also has no health care and no maternity leave. Women have a job every day like men do, so they should have health care. For instance, women work from 8.00 A.M. to 7.30 P.M.; however, Wal-Mart should give benefits welfare to them because they are workers. Every worker should have welfare not only men, but women also.

Furthermore, women cannot work in a Wal-Mart technical job such as a hardware department. Wal-Mart would like women to work in toys because they are women. Sometimes, women know some information about hardware or a technical department. For instance, some women can know well about hardware because they might have experience from their work. On the other hand, some men might not know about this information, so women should work in the hardware department if they know well about hardware.

In conclusion, there are many ways that Wal-Mart treats women different from men. First, Wal-Mart has paid less money to women than men. Second, Wal-Mart has no health care and no maternity leave for women. Last, Wal-Mart does not want women to work in technical department. In the end, Wal-Mart should have equality between women and men because sometimes, they can do the same work as men.

Reference
Quinn, B. (2005, July 5). Times Herald-Record, Middletown NY. Wal-Mart vs. women: sisterhood should draw line in sand. Retrieved on Jan. 30, 2006 from http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/07/05/bethcolj.htm

link to the article