Critique #3: Most U.S. Workers Are Women, But Their Needs Are Still Ignored

This week's top news stories are mainly centered around politics and coronavirus. Although, one opinion piece that stood out is related to women in the workforce. This is a common topic that has been focused on in many of my classes and I think it's important that people are aware of the issues we face as women.

C. Nicole Mason opens the piece with an angle of her personal experience. She starts off speaking about the jobs she has experienced creating a personal story for the audience to have empathy and understanding towards where she is going to take this story. She is clear and by the end of the first paragraph, she states, "which is true for many women in the workforce." This is a decent transition into the nut graph which provides the statistics behind the issue.

When reading through opinion pieces, everyone goes about a certain style or format depending on the writer. Mason stood out to me because she hit many aspects of the criteria we have looked at in a good opinion piece.

It is evident that she did her research because she backed up many of her statements with valid statistics to show the audience why this matter is important. The use of percentages makes it easy for the audience to get a perspective and understand what she is talking about. Also, in the end it states that she is the president and CEO of the Institute of Women's Policy Research and the links I clicked on are credible. Therefore, I think the statistics she provided are reliable.

I have to admit, she had my attention throughout because of the way the piece flowed and how she formatted it into sections. This is something I have noticed is not always effective, but in this situation it had me intrigued in wanting to know more.

People tend to think issues like this are women being feminist and being overdramatic. Being surrounded in a place like High Point University with many children who have it well off and money is not an issue, they tend to look past topics like this.

Whenever I bring up topics like this to some people I know, I don't think they are educated on it enough because if it doesn't phase their family it doesn't phase them.

But the thing is, when they get out in the real world and start working, it will phase them.

A fact Mason stated that caught my attention was, "Across the board, women earn less than men in nearly every occupation for which there is available data."

This is crazy for me to grasp because there are many women I know that work just as hard as their husbands, if anything, sometimes more.

Throughout her writing, she almost makes you feel like her entire piece is a call to action. She wants the audience to be informed and educated. She provides you with solutions at the end and makes it clear that she knows this topic inside and out.

The only thing I was disappointed about was the ending.

We talked about it often in class that your ending is just as important as the beginning. The ending can really make or break the story, and not that that's what Mason's piece did, it was definitely not up to par.

She started off talking about her personal experience in the workforce and building a connection with the audience. It was not so much an emotional story, but you still were introduced to her as a character. I think it would have been powerful to somehow tie everything together by incorporating something from the beginning to wrap it up.

The last line was simply just boring to me. She had me all the way till the end but the last sentence was just somewhat of a disappointment.

Overall I enjoyed this piece because it was very educational and I think other than the ending, Mason hit the criteria of what is needed for a good opinion piece. This is a topic that more people need to be familiar with, especially young adults our age who are about to participate in voting are heading into the workforce.

Article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/03/05/what-women-need-from-candidates-address-pay-equity-dependent-care-column/4927873002/