Question

In 2000, women held 45% of jobs classified as executive, administrative, and managerial. But, in 2011, women held only 16.1% of Fortune 500 board seats, filled only 14.1% of corporate officer positions, and were 7.5% of the country’s top earners. Citing gender stratification in the workplace, in your own opinion why do you think women are being held back from obtaining these top positions?

Answer 1

Over the years, women have conquered important achievements in the workplace. However, historical gender inequalities as far as representativity is concerned. Still persist. This is seen especially in senior management and executive positions where women remain a minority in the top positions.

Gender inequality in organization or workplace is a complex phenomenon that can be seen in the structure, processes and practices of the organization. For women some of the most harmful gender inequalities are enacted within human resources practices, this is because the HR practices affect the hiring, training, pay and promotion of women. The workplace has sometimes been referred to as an inhospitable place for women due to the multiple forms of gender inequalities present.. In other words, workplace discrimination contributes to women’s lower socioeconomic status.

1. Some of the reasons behind gender inequalities in workplaces where women are the only loser regarding the job titles and the high posts as compared to men are the incompatibility between the behaviour of the women which is empathetic and kindness and the behaviour associated with leaders such as self- confidence and assertiveness can lead to distortion of the expectations of a female leader.

Further, women search for a style that is not particularly masculine or feminine. As a transformational style is more androgynous, it can be adopted by women in search of a neutral style avoiding the prejudice of being incompatible with the traditional idea of a kind woman and of an agentic leader.

2. Motherhood is also one of the reason because for an organization maternity leave might also be an issue, especially when it comes to their replacement at work. Tn this sense, a unique barrier has been created for women which would never occur for men in the same position.

3. Demands of family life is the barrier most women face at some point in their career. Women continue to spend a lot more hours a week than men on household chores and looking after their children.

4. Childhood experiences in sharing household chores is one of the issues that influence how adults behave is how their parents behaved during their childhood. Seeing the mother at work, the show s the daughter and the son that women can work and have a family that the two complement each other and are not mutually exclusive.

5. Underinvestment in social capital is one of the most destructive results of women's double the workload, is the little time left for socializing with peers and networking. To promote work and confirm status and competence is not a communal expected behaviour for women, it is unusual. While men can exhibit their achievement, modesty is expected even from very successful women.