Priya Gandhi

Barbara Presnell

5 April 2017

UWRT 1104

Justice Between Genders

While I stood there and listened, as a spectator, I witnessed acts of hatred. I witnessed

acts of gender inequality. My friends were receiving the status of their summer lifeguard jobs.

Out of everyone who applied all ten of the males got the job, and four of the thirteen females got

the job. The supervisor conducting the interviews made a comment on how one male applicant is

more physically qualified than all the women applicants. Speaking strictly from personal

experience I have not encountered an instance where my usefulness as an employee was

devalued based on my sex, however it is definitely within the realm of possibility in the years to

come. Over the past few years, I have noticed people being discriminated in the workplace by

their gender. Of course this issue has always occurred, but it was not apparent for me until I

observed it. In many ways equality is the direct creation of the cultural and social constructs of a

society. And as societies change, so do these conflicts. Conflicts of race, religion, and equality.

For the purpose of this inquiry I will consider both gender roles and disproportionate value in

which they are represented in the workforce. So, why are certain genders valued more than

others in the work environment?

What is Gender Inequality?

In the article, Gender Inequality: More than just pay, it states, Gender inequality comes

in many different forms; it is more than just a salary - it is a form of subtle sexism. The idea of

gender discrimination within the workplace often gets related to word, feminism. Feminism,
according to Merriam Webster, is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of

the sexes. Womens rights and feminism can be related to gender bias within the workplace,

however, that is not what it is solely about. My controversial topic is not concentrated towards

the typical stereotypes on gender bias within the workplace, but directed towards how it can

affect everyone.

Growing into Gender Bias

I think our career choices are affected by our environment and socialization while we are

maturing into adults. Our likes and dislikes, hobbies, and occupational preferences are all

affected by our perceived role in

society. From a young age, we all

were groomed toward beauty and

pride as women, and

aggressiveness and strength as

men. However, these are merely

stereotypes on gender roles and

personality. The ratification of the Stereotypical boy and girl

19th amendment which granted voting rights for women, Equal Rights Amendment that protects

individuals from gender-based discrimination, and the Paycheck Fairness Act which eliminated

gender as a scale for wages has helped to mitigate issues being faced in the workforce. But, a

problem still exists in getting women interested in professions that require a high amount of skill

and education that were previously dominated by men. Our culture exasperates this idea that

some professions are masculine while others are feminine. What I love most about this New York

Times article, More Men Are Taking Women's Jobs is that it is twisting everyones typical
perspective and prospects for women in medical and law fields having statistically higher job

outcomes than for men. Therefore, men are beginning to acquire lower-status jobs that women

mostly did. For example, jobs like teachers,

retail cashiers, librarians, baby sitters, and

hair dressers. According to Miller, studies

have found the fastest growing jobs are taken

over by women, and the job occupations

which are decreasing in size are populated by

men. I liked how Miller stated in the article

how women are starting to get more higher-

status jobs, however, she stated those

women are usually white, educated, native-

born, and married. Towards the end of the

newspaper article Leslie McCall, the

The famous Rosie the Riveter poster. Rosie
symbolized all the women during World War II associate director of the Stone Center on
taking mens jobs.
Socioeconomic Inequality at CUNY, talks

about how in order to improve jobs policymakers should not be focused on gender or race, but

on general working conditions at the bottom of the income ladder. By this I think she means

there is a bigger problem in occupations. Not a problem gender, but with wages and employment

support.

How People View Gender Bias

One of the biggest issues in regards to gender equality within the workplace is related to

the traditional and historical views on masculinity and femininity. As sociologist, Phillip Cohen,
admitted, women tend to dominate in occupations that are in some ways similar to the activities

they performed for generations, such as childcare, nursing, and teaching. Men on the other hand,

have more likely to be found in professions that arent associated with domestic work such as

engineering or construction. I think this dynamic has led to societys demand and preference

shifting towards a segregation in the workforce based on sex. Of course in the modern age,

efforts have been made to decrease this and it is part of the reason many programs at our

University spend time and money attempting to recruit females in order to satisfy this change in

values. An example of such a

program is the Women in Business

Initiative, which promotes the role of

professional women in the College

and provides career-developing

activities to empower undergraduate

students to achieve personal and Disproportionate amount of genders in a

certain field
professional goals and enter confidently

into the business marketplace. Currently, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 26%

of IT professionals are women. I believe the lack of diversity can directly affect the growing

shortage of tech talent.

Issues Within Society

What I consider challenging, in relation to increasing diversity in the workforce, is the

perpetuation of gender based stereotypes and unconscious bias. In a Zurich TED Talk, Eleanor

Hallers talks about a study conducted in 2006 that took 953 managers across Europe and asked

each one of them to identify out of 14 key leadership attributes which sex they more typically
associate each attribute with. Almost without exception, all of the attributes believed that the

taking charge characteristic and behavior men have is perceived to be more competent at said

behavior. While women were perceived to attributes related to taking care types of behavior.

This means that regardless of performance, there is an inclination to believe one would see this

attribute in someone. Which directly relates to gender roles in the workforce. I believe a solution

to this would be to recognize that your mindset matters when considering individuals, a person

should not be expecting to see talent in a certain form.

In this day and age, most would assume communication is a highly sought after value

when it comes to the workforce. It is often required of individuals to work in groups to

accomplish a specific goal and their perceptions and ideologies shape the way they interact with

one another. When an individual believes that another persons viewpoints are not aligned with

their own, they are more likely to disagree with that person. This represents a conflict in interest

in the hiring and selection process. However, Eleanor Haller presented research conducted by,

The Paradigm Forum, stated there are actually more differences among women and among men

than between men and women. This study is very interesting to me because it shows the irony in

the previous statement and highlights the idea of someone being different is more important than

the actual differences they may have. So it is this misconception that shifts the demand for

diversity in team based work environments. A counter-argument for this would be the conclusion

made by Daniel Henley, who conducted an experiment in order to indicate how discrimination is

made based on political ideology in the workforce. This was accomplished by noting the

difference in participant employers and who they would hire based on their political ideology.

He hypothesized that, when compared to liberals, conservatives would be less likely to hire men

and women for gender atypical positions than gender stereotypical positions. Employers start
off by reading through four applicant transcripts. After scanning through all four, the employers

would then estimate the applicants compatibility with the company by examining their political

ideology. Contrary to his hypothesis, the results indicated conservatives were not significantly

more or less likely to hire men and women for more gender traditional occupations than

liberals. Their perception on how compatible an applicant was not affected by perceptions of

political ideology. This experiment is extremely interesting to me because Daniel Henley also

believed that gender bias within the workplace is an apparent issue, however, his views changed

after conducting his experiment.

The Wage Gap

A rather popular notion is that on average women earn less than men for the same amount

of work, but as mentioned above, the Paycheck Fairness Act eliminates this, and to illustrate the

absurdity of this claim one may only need to ask Why dont businesses hire only women? This

idea came from the YouTube video, There is No Wage Gap. Wages are the largest expense for

most companies, so based on

standard business model it would

be logical to assume that the more

women employees there are, costs

can be reduced significantly. The

video reflects the wage statistic

that is often used is devised by

dividing the median earnings of Stereotypical wage gap

all women working full-time by the median earnings of all men working full-time. In other

words, if the average income of all men is say $50,000 annually, and the average income of all
women is on average $38,500 annually, that would mean women earn .77 Cents for every dollar

a man earns. These made-up calculations do not indicate that there is a gender wage inequality,

because it does not take into account education, position, occupation, or hours worked per week.

A study done by the American Association of University Women shows that the actual wage gap

diminishes to only 6.6 cents when you factor in different choices men and women make.

Indicating, the difference is more related to different career choices made by men and women.

Overall, I think the wage has been one of the major issues between genders for generations.

However, the idea has been blown out of proportion. As said in the video, there are ways to end

or prevent it. The video may have some rhetorical references, but it makes a clear argument.

Why is this important?

Why should anyone care that people are being treated unfairly within the workplace?

There are many ways in which ones sex can affect ones lifestyle and occupational choices.

However, it is important to distinguish between individuals and not solely base ones perceptions

on them based on that information alone. I think people need to understand how and where these

inequalities are occurring and how much the world can improve if people are treated uniformly.

This can be rather difficult as our notions on gender roles at home and at the workplace are

shaped by the culture we grow up in. It can be rather detrimental, as it devalues or overestimates

the potential of a person based on circumstance. A solution to this is to market not just high-skill

occupations, but to diversify the ways in which we market to potential employees. It is to be

noted that societys view on historical and traditional roles for women versus men are changing,

and women are now competing for the same occupations that men are, but improvement is still

needed in order to increase diversity and decrease inequality among the genders. All individuals

need to be respected equally, especially in the workplace. A workplace is a professional

environment, and to act with professionalism does not mean to discriminate someone by their

gender. Maybe this controversy highlights more issues than originally conceptualized, but that is

a good outcome. Stimulating discussion opens up the path to new ideas, and with those ideas

comes a change in the way society views those issues.

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