Major Project Unit- Women in Business

A major story element I wish to explore in the 3rd episode of Ascension is Cindy working at a finance agency, and her struggle to maintain equality in her workplace. Her boss, Mr. Sherwood is revealed to be a sexist, bigoted man who strongly believes that women have no place working with business and finances, and should instead work in menial positions such as cleaning and child-care. Of course, this philosophy is severely outdated, and women have proven to have formidable business skills and have excelled in their work.

Since the Suffrogette Movement and women's rights activists taking a stand, their have been some improvements in the way women are represented in business, however even today some women believe that they're degraded and not treated as fairly as men in the work place, with some reporting lower wages,  less opportunities for employment, and having to work harder than men in order to maintain and thrive in the workplace. With this in mind, I decided to conduct a small investigation into women in the business world. The main reason for this was so that I could present a realistic depiction of sexism in the work place, and one of the ways I could learn about this was to see how the position of women in the work place has evolved over time.

"Women in Business: A Historical Perspective" documents the rise of women in business due to a feminist movement, and claims that the watershed moment for this happened in the 1970s (which coincidently happens around the time my series takes place) and makes the claim that by the late 1980s, women owned half of all american businesses, indicating a major shift in percentage of which gender owned what amount of business.

Although I do want to present Sherwood as a sexist man, I would have to be very careful with how this is done. I would prefer to have Sherwood have subtle jabs at Cindy for her gender, rather than outright telling her that he doesn't value her due to her being a woman. Having Sherwood be a straight out sexist male, mistreating Cindy would be too "disney villain"ish and afterall, if she was mistreated enough, Cindy could just quit.

The reason for Sherwood bringing Cindy into the company when he clearly doesn't like women very much is due to influence from the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union who has been on his case about hiring more women into his workforce.
Many unions have a strong belief that every person should have equal opportunities, regardless of gender, race and disability, and therefore it is quite realistic that Sherwood would agree to hire a female employee to keep the union happy.