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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)
/^t/First of all - women's work is undervalued. It is commonly known that they earn only half of what men generally earn. Their work is treated less seriously as it has mostly grown out of domestic work - caring, cooking, making clothes - things females have done for centuries for their families without payment. Some men consider those jobs as being part of women's natural role. Cleaning activities, clothes manufacture, retailing, homeworking are almost entirely staffed by women and as a result the fields became "feminised", and what is really annoying, lower paid. One potent myth which keeps women's salaries low is the belief that women work for "pin-money". Despite the fact that more and more mothers are becoming the sole wage earners, either because of growing unemployment or because they are single parents, this opinion results in women getting lower pay than their male workmates. Some men still think women do not need the money as desperately as male bread-winners and because of this they should work only part-time to fit in with their family commitments. It is sad, as they do nearly all the domestic work at home and they cannot find full-time good quality childcare, working part-time seems to be the only way out for them. In addition, having children does not help the situation at all and it can severely damage your career in your boss's eyes. Many women are led to believe that they should be grateful to their employer for giving them a job at last and they should just "keep their head out of the firing line". Some male bosses have sexist, hostile attitudes that females should stay at home and raise children. Moreover, extra or merit payment for good employees can often be extremely different for sexes - women are judged unfair where employers make up the basic rate of pay with heavy overtime - they have to devote far more time to their families than their male co-workers.