Annotated Bibliography Agars, M. D. (2004). Reconsidering the Impact of Gender Stereotypes on the

"In 1950 about one in three women participated in the labor force. By 1998, nearly three of every five women of working age were in the labor force" (Heatherfield, n.d., para. 4). In 2008, the U.S. Department of labor estimates that women will make up 48% of the workforce (Heatherfield, n.d., para. 6). As the number of women in the workforce rises so do the numbers of women who hold higher titles such as Chairman, CEO, Vice Chairman, President, Chief Operating Officer, Senior Vice President, and Executive Vice President. This number has increased from 7.3% in 2000 to 9.9% in 2002 (Diversity statistics, 2006).

Gender oriented trends in the job market are telling of the how inequality between men and women has shaped a typical woman’s career. According to the United States Department of Labor, in 2015, managerial positions among men is the third most held occupation, just behind sales workers and truck drivers, while managerial

Marie A. Chisholm-Burns states that “perhaps no sector has been more publicly scrutinized for its gender disparities than the corporate world” (312). While women tend to do most of the shopping for the household, they still lack the ability to voice their opinions about what can be done to improve consumption or shopping. USA Today recently wrote an article that was boldly named “Sexism in the Workplace is Worse Than You Thought” which talks about the gender bias women face in the workplace as they progress in their career (Chisholm-Burns 312). Since white males are considered superior in today’s society, diversity is hard to find in high-paying jobs. Because women face discrimination, many businesses struggle to reach their full potential. The glass ceiling is also very condescending and causes women to act negatively towards themselves. The discrimination in pay between men and women has caused many women to form anxiety or stress disorders, such as depression. It also causes women to not strive to be the best they can and because they struggle with this, the possibilities of having great women in leadership decreases even lower than it was originally. These low levels of female leaders also lack encouragement from good role models who would help them learn how to be a leader. If equality becomes a strong focus for corporations, then they should see a positive overall

Catalyst (2012) indicated that corporate world data showed that women represented only 4% of chief executive officer positions within Fortune 500 companies; similarly, DeFrank-Cole et al. (2013) advised that the lack of progress for women is dumbfounding considering that for the last 25 years; women’s entrance into professional and managerial careers has been on par with their male colleagues. Relatedly, Barsh (2012) identified a disparity of gender representation in senior leadership within the corporate pipeline from 2012 to 2015. Hannum et al. (2015), added that fundamental changes are underway in the higher education segment; noting that female leaders are needed who are familiar with navigating growth and diversity with a focus upon diminishing gender discrimination and bias. Moreover, DeFrank-Cole et al. (2014) acknowledged that mentoring and leadership development programs geared toward women are needed; yet, difficulties in locating a mentor persist (Haley & Jaeger, 2015), within what is recognized as a male dominated culture. Contrastingly, within a recent gender neutrality study, a significant disparity in female viewpoints were found related to their organizations voice and if the organization had an active approach to gender diversity (Jones, 2016).

Since the 1990s, advancement towards gender equality has slowed for three main reasons: people's attitudes, occupations, and the gender age gap (Scarborough, 2018). Data was collected to figure out if gender equality played out in management by examining three major factors: women's representation in management, the occupational gender segregation among managers, and the gender wage gap across managerial positions (Scarborough, 2018). It was found that women's representation in management positions is at an all-time high with 4.5 million new jobs created since 1980, women obtaining a majority of them. However, with the increase of women's representation in management, there has been an increase in occupational gender segregation of managers. In 2010, it was discovered that there were female-dominated and male-dominated occupations with female managers concentrating in people-centered caring skills and men concentrating in production-centered skills (Scarborough, 2018). Keeping in mind these issues from the past, it is also critical to recognize the challenges we face

In recent years, women have broken through the glass ceiling by achieving senior executive status in Fortune 500 companies – including General Motors, IBM, Oracle, Yahoo, and Facebook, to name a few. However, in 2012, women only made up 17% of Fortune 500 company board directors. Thus, women are still feeling the effects of discriminating employers. This paper will assess two organizations in the United States that have recently made headlines for policies regarding women in executive positions, one for better and one for the worse, and recommendations for improvement for the latter.

In the 1820’s women began being hired by companies because they could pay women less. They were willing to accept less money than men for the same work. “Workingmen often saw them as threats to their status, especially as new machines permitted less skilled operatives to perform tasks formerly assigned to craftsmen” (The Labor Site). Men see women as threats to their masculinity. Perhaps some of this fear or anxiety about women in the workplace has been transferred into the DNA of men. Many upper levels of management have remained male dominated. It’s as if they didn’t want women to join their “boys club.” Certain industries are worse than others, but the issue is across the board around the world. Only 14.2% of top executives in America are female. When you close your eyes, and picture the CEO of a company, who do you see? If you are like a predominant portion of Americans, you probably see a male in the role. This isn’t simply a problem caused by men, women play a large role in this issue.

When it comes to sexual orientation, I noticed that its linked to one persons display,

Men and woman both go to college but does one gender make it to that corner office quicker and easier than the other? Men are typically the CEO’s of Fortune 500 Companies. Woman can be but, men are trusted more than woman with finances and being the boss. There are 23 female CEO’s of fortune 500 companies, today which means that

Historically, women are viewed inversely than men when it comes to managerial positions. Moreover, having the belief that women differentiate in skills and abilities from men constitute a sex-role stereotype (Brown, 1984). Furthermore, women of different ethnicities are also treated very differently.

The article examines the relationship between gender and gender color stereotypes, through tested experiments with 98 Israeli preschoolers and 3rd graders. In the experiments Karniol have two types of coloring books, one blue with a Bratz doll on the cover, and one pink with Batman on the cover. Inside the coloring books there are three coloring options, an action figure, a fairy, and five stars they have to color in different colors. In conclusion they find that the boys try to distance themselves from girl-stereotypes, so that they won’t appear feminine, especially the color pink. The children do however, chose to color the figures in their appropriate stereotyped colors, since a fairy is seen as feminine, it is colored in bright colors.

For my research question I will be asking: “How is America making progress on gender equity?” Fundamentally, I believe that women are still misrepresented, and are still facing many challenges in the workplace, especially in the business world. The gender stereotypes play a considerable role in the way the society sees women as leaders. However, it will be judicious to consider the small but noticeable changes that have been made over the past years concerning gender equality in the American workplace.

Even though numbers are slowly rising in the United States, there are still more men in executive positions than women. According to one survey, female workers only made up 43% of legislators, senior managers, and senior officials whereas male workers made up 57%. In congress, congresswomen make up only 17% of representation compared to congressmen making up 83% (Ferrante, 2011, p. 312). Gender stratification is one explanation for the tremendous gap. Ferrante (2011) describes gender stratification as the unequal distribution of opportunities and resources amongst male and female employees. (p. 311) For example, male workers have an increased opportunity to receive a promotion than a female worker. According to Tinsley (2013), women are more likely to receive executive positions when a company is doing well, rather than when a company is suffering. Some companies stereotype that women workers will leave the workforce soon to bear children, limiting their chances of achieving executive status (Ferrante, 2011, p. 316).

“The wage gap has narrowed by more than one-third since 1960”(Hegewisch, 2010) and “the share of companies with female CEOs increased more than six-fold” (Warner, 2014) since 1997. As well as the truth that men and women’s earnings differ for many other reasons besides the presence of sexism. “Discrimination in labor market, in education/retiring programs, unequal societal norms at home and the constrained decisions men and women make about work and home issues” (Hegewisch, 2010) are also factors that can contribute to the unequal treatment of man and women in the workplace. Yet even with most of these variables removed women are still being paid less than men, sexually harassed in the workplace and hold very little managerial positions.

Women have been a part of the working world for hundreds of years but only very recently has the world of work truly changed for women (Higginbotham & Romero, 1997). Educated, experienced women are well aware of the value they bring to the workplace. According to a 2004 study of 353 Fortune 500 companies by Catalyst (2004) explored the link between the representation of women in top management and a corporation's financial performance. The study revealed on average, those companies that have higher women's representation on their top management teams financially outperformed with a 35% higher return on equity than those companies with lower women's representation companies. Purpose for the Study The persistence of wage differentials between men and women with identical productive characteristics is an