Gender bias in the workplace Natalie Brown Bryant & Stratton College SOSC 102: Principles of Sociology Annetta Gad July 15, 2012 Abstract Women are represented as being underneath men in an organizational hierarchy. They do not earn as much money as their male counterparts, even though they may work as hard. Gender bias does exist in the workplace. It is the main cause for women not being able to break that invisible barrier, which keeps them from reaching senior levels. A woman can have the same degree as a man but will not be offered the same job as him, simply because of her sex.
Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex. The harassment can range from derogatory comments to unwanted sexual advances and threats to sexual assault, and rape. These acts affect all employees, but can have particularly negative impact and result on employees in low-wage jobs because these workers can least afford to have their livelihoods endangered. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy on sexual harassment was “…each person thinks of themselves as a rational creature who is entitled to dignity and respect.” ( Gilbert, 2008) Kant, and sometimes Sigmund Freud, perceived the sexual impulse and acting on it to be something nearly always, out of place to the dignity of a
Discrimination: Still Present Today In today’s society discrimination is a particularly controversial issue. From the end of the 19th century, women’s growth of education, and demands for greater equality of opportunity has increased. [1] The Gender Discrimination Act in 1975 prohibits discrimination against a certain gender in areas of employment. [2] Another highly debatable topic is amount of ethnic minority in the media and its visible under representation as well as stereotypes in news. Minorities use to be slaves, and had very little status in society, but that status was built up to the point where there now suppose to be equals.
They do not believe that women should go out and have a professional job in the work force. Now, in the modern society there have been changes and men should cope and adapt to the changes of today’s society. Sexism is expressed as a separation of gender roles and differential access to privileges and opportunities. Traditional gender role stereotypes describe women as nurturers who are emotional, sensitive, and warm. They also describe women as unambitious, incompetent, weak, and conniving in their relational power (Adams, 2009; Williams & Best, 1990).
They were attempts to both keep women in their place and to protect them against corrupting influences in society, and within themselves.” Women are always portrayed as inferior to men. Women should not do what men did because women do not have the abilities and capabilities like men. It is only been in recent decades where gender equality is accepted although not as much as it should be. To start with, women drivers did not start out on the right note when cars became popular in the 1920's. Cars were known as manly machines because it was hard to spin a hand crank to start a car, difficult to work on a car and then to operate a car thus creating lacks of faith from men towards
Gender Inequality: Gender-inequality theories recognize that women's location in, and experience of, social situations are not only different but also unequal to men's. Liberal feminists argue that women have the same capacity as men for moral reasoning and agency, but that patriarchy, particularly the sexist patterning of the division of labor, has historically denied women the opportunity to express and practice this reasoning. Women have been isolated to the private sphere of the household and, thus, left without a voice in the public sphere. Even
Anderson points out that despite continuing occupational sex segregation, a lack of appropriate child care, and the lingering negative attitudes regarding female employment, women persisted in gaining employment and opening doors for themselves and later generations. The necessities of wartime America undermined a somewhat sex segregated labor market and the ideas that perpetuated it. Lacking national uniformity, local municipal government and attitudes greatly influenced the breath of change. Such themes arose was mobilization where employed several rationales in convincing women to pursue employment among them patriotism, the prestige of war workers, and “a stress on women’s capacities for nontraditional work.” For women themselves, several factors encouraged them to find work. While patriotism remained one, others such as economic necessity, escape from the home, desire for social independence, and preventing loneliness or anxiety provide a few examples.
When a company is large with many location around the world it’s easy for something like sexual harassment to get overlooked. Sexual harassment is broadly defined as unwanted sexual advances or comments directed toward a person. This is a very broad definition and applies to both men and women. Women are not the only people to suffer from sexual harassment in the workplace. Men are just as susceptible to sexual harassment as women.
Assess the fashion industry using the feminist perspective Feminists argue that that in society men oppress women and that women do not have equal rights when compared to men, they argue that the family serves the needs of patriarchy and that we reside in a patriarchal society where males are the dominate sex. Feminists take a critical view on most things in society but a main one being fashion. Feminism itself simplifies down to equality. It is shown to be not about attacking men but improving society and having equal chances between both sexes. It states that many women’s focus is on her wardrobe so they can impress the opposite sex as they feel useless if they fail to impress, they also argue that fashion is a more female dominated area, they show that most of the top fashion designers are male ruled and that Radical Feminists such as Germaine Greer believe that all key societies (including fashion) have been found on patriarchy (ruled by men).
Men and women have different perceptions of sexual harassment. What may be a lighthearted joke to many men may be offensive to many women. In fact, the courts have said that professional and unprofessional women are more adversely affected by sexual harassment than men, and it happens in the public and private sectors. Define sexual harassment as the term is used legally. Sexual harassment is a form if sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.