¶ … Gender equality establishes the concept and attitude of unbiased and impartial allocation of corporate resources and prospects involving men and women. It establishes equality for men and women in terms of opportunity in social circles. But the corporate world is based on certain gender norms and stereotypes of role provisions. Hence these roles have made certain divisive identities (Sharma, & Sharma, 2012). The social norms of women being the housewife and caretaker of the family have infected eastern and western civilization. Corporations have been hiring women for mid-level and lower level positions, but they are blocked from top level positions (Ntermanakis, as cited by Mihail 2006).
According to Schein, Mueller, Lituchy and Liu (1996), women are afflicted with the typical think-manager-think male norm. In Nichols (1994) opinion, the popular opinion is that women aren't cut out for the tough decisions and roles of management position; hence they are kept out from these positions (Michailidis, Morphitou & Theophylatou, 2012). The gender inequality is influenced in the manner of leading, speaking and influencing. Hence, men and women have been deemed as two dissimilar kinds of people (Merchant, 2012).
Women's Barriers to Positions of Power
The office place is an environment, where gender differences are noticed and maintained. Work plays a pivotal role in determining status and power of men and women. It leads to gender differences in job description of both men and women. With postmodern era, some strategies are implemented in office place to overcome gender discrimination. Gender difference remains a key workplace hazard in developing countries as of yet (Sharma, & Sharma, 2012). Women's promotion in the corporate sector has come a long way during the course of five decades. Research shows that men still dominate the top executive positions, while women still retain the mid-level positions by a larger number. Women are less visible in:
Directorship
Governance
Executive position
This scenario sets the concept of women promotion on back foot. The media and popular culture has shown that women have acquired management positions when contrasted to women of the 1960's; they deem to have achieved equality (Schmitt, Spoor, Danaher, & Branscombe, 2009, p. 49), the fact of the matter is that, they haven't. Hence, this wrong assumption of women acquiring equality while statistics show a different side creates misunderstanding, although popular view is that women have made their way into top management position, but they still are outnumbered by men in:
Directorship
Governance
Executive leadership (Schwanke, 2013).
Stephanie shows lack of women in notably qualified fields.
Project-based work is handled by such firms, which entail a few consequences as well for instance:
Long hours of working
Opposition to reductions
Overtime due
High expectancy of clients to meet their demands
Employees rooting for flexible hours of working along with a project manager
The research shows that women stand to lose in such a system, which clearly explains the underrepresentation (Stephanie, 2010; Sharma, & Sharma, 2012).Glass ceiling in Cornell University's opinion is a term which was used by Nora Frenkiel in 1984 in Ad week (Catherwood Library, 2005) for highlighting the invisible corporate barriers women face when they work in mid-level positions. They are restricted after this barrier and remain in mid-level position. Media and popular culture shows that this glass ceiling has been broken through, but reality indicates otherwise (Schmitt, Spoor, Danaher, & Branscombe, 2009, p. 56).
Labyrinth is another term used more commonly recently for indicating the arduous challenges women endure in acquiring senior positions (Guerrero, 2011, p. 382). Even though, advancement has been made in lower and midlevel positions, but in senior positions, women remain underrepresented. Only 16% of women according to Fortune 500 companies are board members and corporate officers (Catalyst, 2007, p. 1). These positions were acquired by at a price as they have endured the following discomforts:
Stereotyping
Prejudice
Sexual harassment
Tokenism
Isolation (Barreto, Ryan, & Schmitt, 2009, p. 9).
Hence the term glass ceiling and labyrinth are used for women's endurances in corporate sector. The root cause of this gender disparity hasn't been explained or defined (Schwanke, 2013).
Prevailing Perceptions of Gender and Leadership
The research hasn't shown much indication of competent leadership in case of men and women, the gap still persists (Guerrero, 2011, p. 382; Rosener, 2008, p. 411). Gender biases claims that leadership traits are present in men only, they remain rooted in most organizational cultures and hard to pass through. Women when claimed to showcase such qualities is mostly dissuaded (Guerrero, 2011, p. 383). The general view of the society's...
Particularly, as slavery and segregation had contributed to the establishment of a wealthy ownership class in the United States, so had the nature of its 20th century consumer culture helped to enforce separate racial societies. Thus, even as white women struggled for recognition and equal rights, the climb from domestic servitude would be a great deal more arduous for a female African American culture which had been conditions through centuries of slavery toward assumed domestic servitude.
Male Nurses Is Nursing Women's Work? With all of this talk about diversity, the global economy, and focus on a nondiscriminatory policy in the mass media, in the new millennium we would like to convince ourselves that we have shed many of the stereotypes that once defined our culture (Chung, 2011). It is true that in many professions we have raised or nearly destroyed the glass ceiling that once existed for women.
Workplace Diversity "The benefits of diversity cannot be achieved with isolated interventions. To the contrary, a complete organizational culture change is required in order to promote appreciation of individual differences… diversity is a multifaceted reality…" (Martin-Alcazar, et al., 2012) The need for diversity in the workplace has been well established in the literature, but the need for managers and executives to build a culture based on diversity is still on the drawing
It is no longer an economically viable option to pursue family life to the exclusion of professional life. Even in households with children (or especially in these households), it has become expected that both men and women would work outside the home. Too often, this trend is driven by economic circumstances rather than professional ambition as such. It is furthermore significant that men do not occur in high frequency in
Just like with other forms of sexual assault, sexual harassment brings a set of impacts and consequences such as having physical effects, emotional effects, job and school related effects and current and future financial penalties. Harassment also has harmful costs on the environment that victims are in and can lead to an aggressive and less productive work and school surroundings. It costs businesses and schools due to the damaged morale,
Judy identifies this as a "skills gap" currently emerging in the workforce, which is likely to continue to emerge as a major trend (Judy). Yet as emphasized by both Tannen and Judy, the increasing mix of workers of different genders and backgrounds will introduce new problems to the workforce at the same time as it will introduce new solutions. Traditionally, many careers have been subject to gender specific designations. Obviously,
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