Gender and Communication: Breaking Gender Barriers in the Workplace
Gender barriers have existed within the workplace ever since women in America came out of the kitchen and went to work during World War II. Like with any new experience of empowerment, when the men came home, the country's women were wholly a changed group. Women had entered the workforce, and they were there to stay, despite the misgivings of much of the country's male population. While the working environment in today's day and age is certainly far different and equally far improved from those initial days undertaken by women in the workplace, the truth remains that gender inequality within the business world is a factor that is still vastly relevant, despite mandated government equality rules. Though men and women enter the same businesses every day, in order to do the same jobs, certain gender barriers continue to exist. Further, in understanding this facet of the business world, one can better understand how these barriers can be remedied or eliminated by viewing the scientific differences between men and women in terms of leadership styles, and working to utilize these different styles to strategize for complete gender equality in the workplace.
Male v. Female Leadership Styles
While men and women have been considered equal within the workplace in the eyes of the law for quite some time, the scientific truth remains that male and female leadership styles differ significantly from one another. It is in this way that conflicting leadership styles between the sexes can be viewed as a significant gender barrier within the workplace. As either of the sexes typically does not know the idiosyncrasies of the other sex's working style, an understanding of these differences presented within the workplace can prove to bring the sexes -- and the workplace in its entirety -- to a middle ground in order to build upon in terms of employee interaction and understanding.
Research has found that leader sex does not often have a significant influence on subordinate satisfaction or productivity either by itself or in interaction with leadership...
In a situation where the domain of the opposite gender is simply different than that of the other this can occur. Using the previous stereotypical example when a woman drones on and on about some aspect of cooking that is important to her but not to the male listener in the room, the quite participant may simply "tune out" and the same is true of a man speaking within
Men tend to talk more than women do and have habit of talking over them or interrupting them when they are speaking. In the nonverbal sense, some the differences from men and women are the majority of men do not interpret body language, a nod from a woman means to a man that she agrees with what he is saying and that she is listening to what he is saying.
Gender Communication and Language In the "enlightened" age of the 21st century, it appears logical to assume that men and women are finally accepted as equally competent and intelligent, both in the workplace and social settings. It is therefore interestingly shocking that communication studies reveal wide-ranging differences in the way in which men and women communicate. Many of these communication styles date from social systems where women were seen as incompetent
This means that in so much as a direct and solution-oriented conversational style is preferred in the business setting, it does not mean that this style is the most efficient. There are "cultures" or other sectors in the business environment that uses female communication style because they are able to appeal more to the people or audience. A woman handling a focus group discussion on a product may be
Communication and Gender in Movies Cinematic Gender Communication Gender plays a fairly important role in regards to communication and its effectiveness and nuances. This fact is largely due to the immense value which people have always placed upon language, which can be thought of as a means of identifying and, in some instances, even defining what it means to be of a particular gender since "communication is thought to be, at once,
Communication theory is described as any systematic explanations of the nature of the communication process. It's important for businesses and organizations to understand communication theory because they can't accomplish their objectives and goals without effective communication between workers. Since it focuses on analyzing the processes with which information is transmitted from the sender to the receiver, communication theory also focuses on the various ways with which information is transferred from
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now