Muting Of Women In The Workplace

Gender bias has continued to be constructed in communication through marked forms. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg discusses, “When people talk about a female pilot, a female engineer, or a female race car driver, the word “female” implies a bit of surprise”(Sandberg, 140). If everyone continues not to discuss gender bias then the world will continue to use marked forms, which Sandberg sees as a tool for people to be-little others (Sandberg, 140). She concludes this thought by saying “We can no longer pretend that biases do not exist, nor can we talk around them. The result of creating a more equal environment will not just be better performance for our organizations, but quite likely greater happiness for all”(Sandberg, 158).

In the fight for equality, it is obvious to defend against forms of sexism that are used for antagonization. However, chivalrous attitudes that cast women as weak and in need of men are often ignored. Social psychologists have studied the effects of benevolent sexism using experiments testing one’s performance shortly after being labeled as incompetent. Benevolent sexism is not a series of compliments, but rather a threat to one’s ability to think, learn, and perceive information. The workplace is an environment of which benevolent sexism occurs most often and one of which most are familiar with. Benevolent sexism in business does not allow men and women to achieve the same goals within the work place. Forcing an individual into a social role can limit them to only specific simple tasks that do not allow for maximum personal growth.

Women treat men with equal respect, whereas men do not. “Women tend to be receptive to both men and women in superior roles, found a 2014 study titled A Man’s (Precarious) Place. Men, on the other hand, were more likely to be threatened by women in superior positions and were more assertive with female leaders, according to the study.”(Kirkham 2015). Elyssa Kirkham states that women are more willing to receive input from men. This capability creates diversity within the workplace. Diversity leads to more talent within the workplace, an advantage for companies determined to strive. Pallab Dutta, of Demand Media, states, “Access to a larger talent pool is one of the biggest advantages of having an employment recruitment policy that values diversity.”(Dutta 1). This diverse environment leads to more talent, which results in “creative solutions for problems and better organizational productivity”(Dutta 1). Having employees that can endorse equality, accept both men and women’s input, is key to success within a business. Without it, a companies who do not support equality will not thrive. This acceptance towards both men and women creates a positive atmosphere within the workplace. This positive energy, that women acquire, inspires motivation within employees which results in an increase of business

According to the statistics presented in the article, The Problem With Women In The Workplace Is Men, 50% of the US work force is comprised of women (Ferro, The Problem With Women In The Workplace Is Men). This data is simply an “illusion” of equality. The ratio between women and men in the workplace may be the same, but the distribution of men and women are not equal in all fields of work as well as the different rungs of management within specific companies. In fact, according to the article, How Men Drown Out The Voices

Modern day sexism can be a very delicate topic, but people need to recognize that it 's still a problem in the workplace. Before jumping to the conclusion that this is another extreme feminist perspective, it 's important to understand one thing. Although significant progress has been made in the past few decades, women are not treated as equal partners to men in the many job fields. Freida Pinto, the leading actress in Slumdog Millionaire was interviewed recently. She did an excellent job clarifying a common misunderstanding of feminism. "Feminism to me is equality. There is no man over woman and vice versa. Feminism is a very misconstrued and misunderstood topic. "As soon as we say feminism, it does not mean all men should become subordinate and women should be the ones who rule the world. The only way we can have a progressive and successful country or world is when men and women treat each other as equals." It 's sad to think that a term for someone who is in support of gender equality is now a negatively viewed thing. An important thing to remember is that gender equality means equality for both genders, and reverse sexism is not the solution. Once you grasp that it 's easier to understand modern day sexism.

Although women have been apart of the workplace for the past few years, this does not mean that they are going to be treated equally by their coworkers, both men and women. As written about in chapter seven of, I Can’t Believe She Did That! Why Women Betray Other Women at Work Nan Mooney explains Tokenism, and it’s effects on the workplace to this day.

Women are perceived as being less knowledgeable or less qualified than men. They are also viewed as being less responsible or unreliable, due to family related issues, than men are. In addition, women are seen to be less committed to labor force participation than men. "High turnover rates and low productivity levels in females-dominated occupations" produce this stereotype (Adler 450). Gender stereotypes of this nature result in loss of opportunity for women to gain the necessary job experiences for advancement (Bell 67).

An article published in The New York Times called “Why Women Stay Quiet at Work” addresses the missed opportunities companies have when women do not speak up during meetings. Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant discuss a study conducted by Ethan Burris that found women who challenged a problematic library system were seen as “less loyal,” so the team was therefore 
“less likely to act on their suggestions” (Sandberg & Grant). This illustrates the pity of how women feeling incompetent and being interrupted can cause a company valuable ideas that could have improved their productivity. The need for a supportive environment should begin in schools, where females are able to positively contribute to their classroom

“Marked: Women in the Workplace” by Deborah Tannen exclaims the continuous struggles women face throughout their social life and professional careers. Tannen catches herself at a work conference with an array of eight men and four women. Without realizing, she subconsciously began judging and analyzing the appearances of the women. This presents the conflict women face consistently, everyday and by everyone; themselves included. Tannen claims that the term “marked” refers to “the way language alters the base meaning of a word by adding something”. Women are marked because everything they do is critiqued, if a women enters a workplace dressed in tight and revealing clothing she will be marked as a women who wants to look attractive. However, if she enters the work environment dressed very casual with loose clothing, she will look like she is not trying enough. Additionally, women are marked by their association with men. If a women is married, she is a “Mrs.” while “Miss” symbolizes she is not. In a hypothetical, professional workplace such as a doctor’s office, there is a male nurse and a female doctor. In many cases people who visit the office will assume the contrary; the man is the doctor and the women is the nurse. This results because females are marked as supportive roles while males are given the lead role, whether it be true or not. Essentially, women aren’t marked whether or not they do something; they are marked for simply being a women.

Acker (1998) posits, despite years of advancement and equity practices; a gendered substructure explains the persistence of male hegemony and the female disadvantage. There’s a conventional assumption of an ordinary worker to be a man without obligations outside of work that will be a means of distraction. According to a study, it was found there is significant proactivity in implementing equal opportunity strategies under the guise of ‘organisation of work and conditions of service’ (Strachan & French, 2007). Furthermore, segregation at the workplace has remained almost unchanged, despite two decades of equal employment opportunity legislation.

From the beginning of time the male and female have been expected to perform certain roles in society. Males have been expected to work and provide for their family while the female raises the children, cooks, cleans and keeps the house in order. Today many women have broken that tradition and are starting their careers and becoming more independent. Even though females today are braking away from that stereotype, they are being discriminated in the work place because there are still individuals out there that believe that women should play a certain role and that they are not strong enough to work in a cooperation or

After reading the White article, my initial reaction was to say that her argument was working too hard. In my opinion, more evidence was needed to support White’s claims surrounding of the role of gender in the workplace and the differences in gender in technical communication. In general, today’s workplace is progressive and gender issues rarely come up. However, I started thinking about my own experiences in the workplace and was somewhat surprised with what I noticed.

The highlights of organisational structures on ‘Token’ women is in contrast to the fucus on individualism for women’s voice literature, but both of women’s voice and Kanter’s token women theories are view gender as neutral. One of the most important study is Kanter’s Tokenism Theory, which attempts to expose hidden dimensions and brings new understandings of gendered power through her study of “Indosco”. Kanter (1977) drawed attention to the relationship between numbers and organisations in which the way shows a numerical disadvantage for women in the workplace, and this is about “visibility”. In her study, she explored the visibility of “token” women working in male- dominated environment and proposed four types of groups: total, balanced,

Sexism happens almost everyday in the workplace. There is a large gender stereotype everyone is taught when they grow up. This stereotype is portrayed in the reading Feminism: A Transformational Politic by bell hooks, “men should have greater authority than women” (hooks, 468). In reality, women are not always dominated by their male counterpart, women are becoming more independent and strong. hooks

Throughout the years women have made great effort to become equal to men. This effort has led to great advances in the movement, but not all of the problems are solved yet. One of the main problems as of right now is the unequal treatment of men and women in the work place. Women are not equal to men in the workplace because of unequal pay, a lack of women in managerial positions, and sexual harassment in the work place.