Benevolent Sexism In Business

American sexism has changed dramatically over the years, but it is far from perfect. Today many women in America face sexism in many areas throughout their lives; especially in workplaces. Women face sexist stereotype that holds them back from rising up as corporate ladders, especially in jobs that have a high ratio of men compared to women. Sexist comments such as “women are weak to do this kind of job” , “these are men 's jobs” and ”women are too emotional to work” often causes a woman to be cautious of how she acts, making sure she is not feminine or that she does not cause trouble or repercussions. But, that is not all sexism is doing, often times women face discrimination at workplaces especially after entering motherhood.

According to Metz (2011), women are being deprived of opportunities and being squeezed out of organisations due to preconceptions about their dedication to a long term role, based on outdated gender stereotypes. In general, women experience higher rates of harassment at work, compared to men(McLaughlin, Uggen and Blackstone 2012).

Gender stereotypes are one of the most common encountered on a daily basis. The infamous ‘Glass Ceiling’ still exists in many areas of the professional world, restricting valid promotions simply based on gender. This type of concept can be verified by looking at comparative weekly wages of other professionals in a variety of industries. Most people will generally see female dominated occupations, such as nurse, teacher and secretary as requiring feminine personality traits and physical attributes for success; whereas male dominated occupations such as doctor, lawyer, and business executive are seen to require male personality traits for success (Sanderson, 2010, p. 344).

Over the last several decades, great strides have been made when it comes to eliminating sexism and progressing towards gender equality. However, sexism is still ingrained in our everyday culture. This is evident in the fact that in 2017 women earn about 80 cents to a man’s dollar and are less likely to be promoted within the workplace. It’s an unfortunate fact the most women will experience some form of sexism throughout their lives. In this paper, I will address my personal experiences with both hostile and benevolent sexism, how the two forms of sexism differ, and how these experiences have affected me.

While the significance of gender roles has declined in the past fifty years, they still play an integral part in our perception of others based on their gender. Gender roles create gender stereotypes that influence our view of someone and their aptitude in work and child caring. Gender stereotypes depict women as caring, compassionate, and kind; however, gender stereotypes also imply negative qualities for women such as cranky, overly emotional, and submissive. On the other hand, gender stereotypes classify men not only as dominant, assertive, and powerful, but also as aggressive, violent, and uncaring. Many people apply gender roles in how they view other’s aptitudes and responsibilities in a work or home setting, but by doing so they subconsciously discriminate against a person for his gender. Extreme Feminists focus on the discrimination and harassment women face in everyday life due to traditional gender roles and complain that “men have it so good”. However, extreme feminists fail to realize, due to their blind but justified hatred for traditional gender roles that supposedly benefit men, traditional gender roles disadvantage men as well. Similar to how many women fail to climb up the corporate ladder because their superiors view them as too caring and soft to hold a demanding leadership position, many people look down on men when they care for their own children considering them too tough and insensitive to take care of children properly and label their care as

“Stereotypes are categories that constrain and shape what a person believes about, and expects from, other people” (Bartlett 1910). The workplace is one of the most active environments for women to be stereotyped against. Women are judged in ways such as being weaker than, and not as active as a man. This can be a problem for a woman in a male dominated occupation by making them feel, or seem, not as valuable as a man. For example, women in the police field will face the struggle of being seen as weaker, gentler, and to submissive to fight crime compared to men. This type of behavior leads to women not receiving much earned promotions, and having more struggles applying to male dominating jobs.

During the early history in America women were deprived of some of the many rights given to the male citizens. It has almost been a century since women were awarded the right to vote in the United States. It’s been half a century after the Equal Pay Act was established. “The Equal Pay act led to a reduction in the wage gap, but wage differences based on sex persist” (Korgen & Giraffe, 2015). Sadly, there is still a lot of prejudice towards women in the workplace. Bigotry towards women in the workplace has been dominant through the years. Many perceive women as being weak and not able to effectively provide their leadership duties in their workplaces due to their emotions (weaker sex). Positions in leadership are often given

Women in the Workplace There is a perception that the sexist ideals of the past are gone, no more expecting women to stay home with the kids, cook all the meals, and be at the beck and call of her husband. And while most of it is true, there is still is an immense amount of sexism occurring in today’s society. While women aren’t expected to be homemakers anymore, we are still tied down with the expectations that are on par with those in the 1940’s. We are still talked down to in professional settings, told certain fields aren’t appropriate for us, and many more infuriatingly stupid situations all because of our gender.

Sexism against women in the workplace is still common, particularly in managerial positions, which creates glass ceilings for women who can do as good or better job as their male counterparts. It is a sad fact that sexism still exists in the twenty-first century. What is the glass ceiling you may ask? The glass ceiling is (Bell, Mclaughlin, & Sequeira, 2002) as “the invisible or artificial barriers that prevent women (and people of colour) from advancing past a certain level” (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission-FGCC, 1997; Morison and von Glinow, 1990). As a civilization where we want equality for all – we should strive to eliminate inequality caused by the glass ceiling. I believe that if we do not seek to eliminate sexism, it will have a negative impact on us and future generations.

In modern america sexism is slowly diteriating, but it has not complitly disappeared. Women have worked hard to become astronaut, Ceos, presidentsdoctors and more, but even with these accomplishments women are still discriminated against. Women face a variety of stereotypes in the work place that prevent them from progress, some company's really think that women don't need equal pay because they are not the head of the house hold and their husbands paycheck should do the job. Other business corporations believe that women can not committed to a job because they are the primary caregiver of their children which causes companies to lose money every time there is an emergency. "The paradox is that the world of rigid and hierarchical sex roles

The flip side of these apparent advantages to women is that the seemingly positive effects of benevolent sexism typically only apply to women who are gender-role conforming, rather than women as a whole. Women in traditional domestic roles may benefit, but there are negative consequences for those who do not fit these roles. The idea that women need to be protected or taken care of is in some lights flattering, but it also portrays women as childlike, helpless, incompetent, and as a result suited only for lower status roles. Women are also more likely to accept sexist restrictions on behavior when the reason given is benevolently sexist (Becker & Wright, 2011). By extension of these examples, benevolent sexism is just another way of justifying gender inequality and maintaining the current power dynamic of the patriarchy.

According to Glick and Fiske (1996), benevolence sexism can be a bad thing, in spite of all the positive feelings it indicates for the perceiver. Although these attitudes and comments directed towards women are meant to highlight their achievements, they evidently create an invisible barrier on what a woman is capable of accomplishing, and what she isn’t. A man can perform a job without any disbelief that he can accomplish it, but when a woman performs that same task, the rewards and positive feelings that arise from this accomplishment is guarded with a sense of doubt and disbelief; the doubt and disbelief perpetuates the appraisal of the woman, something that is less evident for a man.

Stereotype threats are negative consequences about one’s race, sex, nationality, or social group. Stereotype threats are used a lot more frequently than people realize. Gender is a powerful stereotype that affects many people’s decisions and actions. The stereotype of women in the workplace has come a long way even in the last twenty years. Many businesses tend to want to diversify their demographics by making the ratio of men to women almost equal. “Demographic projections anticipate that by the year 2000 women will exceed 50 per cent of the total workforce…” (Johnston and Packer, 1987). Women were able to make their way in to the workplace when men were off at war during the 1950s. During this time, women proved their ability to do the same kind of jobs men did. Many women worked as machinist, factory workers, and clergies.

Wu (2006), wrote that in high masculine organizations, very few women can get higher-level and better-paying jobs. In low masculine organizations, women can get more equitable organizational status. A higher score on masculinity means that participants

The first article I reviewed from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology titled "The Compassionate Sexist? How Benevolent Sexism Promotes and Undermines Gender Equality in the Workplace" by Ivona Hideg and D. Lance Ferris examined benevolent sexism in the workplace. Benevolent sexism appears to promote gender equality, but it actually undermines it by contributing to gender segregation in the workplace. It contributes to keeping women in positions in which they are underrepresented, and keeps them from moving up to male dominant occupational positions. This article studies the more complex perspectives of the effects that sexism has on the employment equity (EE) policy (Hideg, I., & Ferris, D. L.). While there are numerous findings showing a negative relationship between sexism and EE policy support, these researchers expanded on the ambivalent sexism theory to see if it always view sexism as hostile. According to Wikipedia, ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which suggests that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" and "benevolent sexism". Hostile sexism reflects negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender such as the idea that women are incompetent and inferior to men, while benevolent sexism is a chivalrous attitude toward women that feels favorable but is actually sexist in that it casts women as weak (Wikipedia). Past reactions to EE policies have usually ignored benevolent sexism, most likely because it is seen as favorable. The