Introduction
The representation of women compared to men in the work place is different and much skewed with men having a higher representation than women do. This is not because women are lesser human beings but it is because women are discriminated. Societies see women as people who are incompetent yet they are not and even the few who are in employment are subjected to less secure jobs, lower employment rates and are employed less longer.
One of the key tools to employment opportunity is education. In most of the societies world over, men are taken to school to the highest levels while women are denied the opportunity to study hence this leads to the skewed sex ratio at the work place.
The skills of the few token women who are in employment are undervalued just the same way their domestic work is undervalued. Many a times, economic contributions of women are rarely recognized in official statistics hence portraying them as economically inactive. Again women get no protection from unions or employment legislations.
Main body
Certain professions are also considered male domains hence few women represented in them and even those that are considered as female professions, it is the men who hold top positions. For example, in the health sector, majority of women serve as nurses while men are medical directors and departmental heads. Black and minority women are most likely to be unemployed because of cultural stereotype hence they end up taking jobs at a lower skill level than most qualified for while white men are most likely to be employed or have self employment.
When it comes to wage earnings, women usually earn lower wage rates compared to men and some of the factors that contribute to this are:
Women do dropout for some period of time to take care of the newborns hence this reduces their total earnings even though satisfaction got in raising ones own child is high. Also in the workplace, women usually avoid physical jobs such as the ones in the airline industries which pay quite well. Again, women tend to choose advanced degrees that at the end result into lower paying opportunities such as therapist than degrees with higher paying opportunities.
Culture also contributes to this in that; earning potential is believed to be high in men than in women. Women who are in the field of (private) business investment such as counseling will relatively charge less compared to men in the same fields thereby making their total earnings less compared to men’s earnings. Most employers also consider women as secondary workers whose labor is only admitted once all the primary workers (men) are exhausted and this causes wage differentials. Certain employers also pay wages on the basis of profit where they believe that men are more profitable in production than women. Unequal access to and wage premiums for supervisory positions at the workplace also leads to gender wage gap. Therefore it is necessary to find out if both men and women in the same job scale and with same level of qualifications earn a salary of equal level.
Kantar explanation to unequal position of women in large –scale corporations is based on the theory of tokenism which explains that women’s experiences at the workplace and how they react to those experiences depends on their total number of ratio to men.. Kantar explains that for the barrier to women full occupation to stop, employ more women in job opportunities that are mainly dominated by men. Token status of women has led to their inability to achieve equality; low promotion in a workplace dominated by men hence the need for affirmative action. So the only solution to this is to increase the number of women proportions in male domains such as forces and managerial positions so as to enhance their decision making in key policy issues such as those affecting women in the workplace.
What is homosocial reproduction? Homo means same or a like in features while social means able to interact with others. Therefore homosocial refers to same sex relationships that are not of a romantic and/ or sexual nature. It neither implies heterosexuality or homosexuality. It merely means social bond between people of the same sex.
Homosociality involves male bonding and female bonding. It is a process in which the status quo replicates itself instead of possibility of change. Homosociality influences sex differences in the work place in various ways in that, societies in which we live are historically shaped by male. Most of our societies are dominated my males in high job positions thereby discriminating females even if they have qualifications. Men at the top positions favor their male counterparts more than they do to women. Most men more often than not cooperate with fellow men and most women cooperate among themselves hence leading to homosocial reproduction at the workplace.
Conclusion
Women usually have very few role models and mentors in employment and this affects the perception of younger females negatively because their lives are not inspired and this is a spill over effect of homosociallity. Also women who are in the workplace suffer isolation and exclusion from their male counterparts, and challenges from their authorities. This makes them to put pressure on themselves to perform better than men hence not in position to support other women.
Work cited
- Kanter, R. M. (1977) Men and women of the corporation, New York: Basic Books
- Kanter R.M. Innovation: the classic traps, HBR, 2006.
- Tokenism and Women in the Workplace: The Limits of Gender-Neutral Theory Lynn Zimmer Social Problems, Vol. 35, No. 1 (1988), pp. 64-77 (article consists of 14 pages) Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems