Violate Gender Norms

Women are better in business, because they are better in leadership, entrepreneurship and know how a business is run. Every human being who is an executive, CEO, or a chairperson of a certain company has different leadership skills, no matter the gender of that person. Being a leader of a company is not easy, but women have proved that they can lead a business. “(A recent BusinessWeek article titled “As Leaders, Women Rule” (Nov. 22, 2000) pointed these differences, reporting findings from a number of comprehensive management studies conducted across the country. By and large, the analysis showed that women executives, when rated by their peers, teams, support staff, and bosses, scored higher than their male counterparts on almost every skilled measured)” (Gentry). This quote proves that women are capable and have the skilled measures needed to

One identified contributor to women's slower than expected assent into leadership is the persistence of assumptions and stereotypes that women are intrinsically "communal" or "dependent" and "passive", and therefore, lack the capacity to succeed as leaders. (National Academy of Sciences National Academy of Engineering Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2006 as cited by Isaac, Kaatz & Carnes, 2012).

First, being a woman and embracing my femininity has both positive and negative impacts on my ability to lead. Because I am a woman I have to work harder to glean access to similar caliber opportunities as men. Even though the gender gap is not as large as it was in decades past, it still exists with in my society and is a huge obstacle to my

On the other hand, it is said that women are seen as being more supportive and less managerial. Women tend to display high levels of compassion and team-building skills. Additionally, women leaders are able to view situations from many different perspectives, enhancing their persuasive ability and making them better at persuasion than males. Women are also said to like a challenge. “An international study found that 70% of businesswomen asked their bosses for new challenges at work, which is less than half of the businessmen that did so.” Lastly, it is said that women are honest and hard workers. It was found that 54% of women worked 9-11 hour days compared to 41% of men. It was also found that women are more likely to do work during their vacations and less likely to spend their “sick days” playing hooky.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women make up half of the workforce today and 40 percent of women are either equal to their male counterparts or the singular breadwinners in their household (Institute for Women’s Policy Research). And most Americans find women are better than men in key leadership traits such as intelligence and competence for

In prior studies, leadership roles have been based off one’s sex instead of gender. According to Park, male gender qualities characterized as; aggressive, independent, objective, logical, rational,analytical, decisive, confident, assertive, ambitious, opportunistic and impersonal are distinguished from female gender qualities described as; emotional, sensitive, expressive, cooperative, intuitive, warm, tactful, receptive to ideas, talkative, gentle, empathetic, and submissive (p. 12). These characteristics brings up the notion of how women pursue being leaders because they are opposite of men who dominates the leadership

As societal human beings, we are constantly immersed in a world of gender norms. Gender norms are behaviors that include ways of speaking, ways of presentation, and even types of body language that are associated with certain genders, typically to the resilient two-category system of men and women. Sociologists West and Zimmerman describes the action of performing these gender norms in daily, social interactions as “doing gender” (35). Gender norms are an essential part of society, to the extent that the general population will only notice and acknowledge the presence of gender when the norms are breached and questioned. For this particular assignment, I have decided to enact a gender norm violation of demonstrating masculinity by wearing a tie, sitting while taking up as much room as possible, and building furniture with an aggressive, loud and assertive approach. My uncharacteristic behavior at my workplace, a conventional law firm, drew both subtle and unsubtle reactions from my coworkers and I was eventually held responsible for my actions. This report of my experience also reveals the conflicting responses of respect and reprimand towards the consequences of breaking a gender norm.

Northouse (2016a) describes the development of female leadership. It was once a question if women could lead; yes, they can, but a gender gap exists. Differences between men and women that affect their job attainment. Although men and women may have equal access to entry and lower level positions, men hold more prestigious upper level jobs. Why does this occur? Generally, women have invested less than men in human capital: job history, training, and school. Women invest more time than men in taking care of family. As a result, men obtain jobs that require more responsibilities (Northouse, 2016a).

Thesis statement: Leadership depends on the leader’s leadership style and there way of communicating ideas rather than the leader themselves. Both women and men believe in similar leadership styles however women prefer a more participative leadership approach.

In another scholarly source called, Defying Gender Norms in rural Bangladesh: A Social Demographic Analysis written by Deborah Balk is a statistical analysis of women who defies gender norms in Bangladesh, and figure out why they do so. They try to figure out the women’s decision-making authority inside and outside the home. They did this study to better understand the characteristics of women in their authority. Balk states, “Class inequality and gender inequality have tended to be treated separately in the women’s status literature, which has ignored the role of the class. However, an understanding of an individual women’s status relates closely to both to her class and her gender.”. This relates to the Coquette, because both authors discuss

One might be able to make a fleeting attempt at justifying the disparately of female representation in leadership roles if opportunities for each gender were equal or if the most qualified individuals got the jobs. When one examines the qualifications of women in the workforce however, this argument quickly loses its footing. Northouse (2013) points to the research fo Catalyst (2011) who demonstrated that, “Women earn 57% of the bachelor’s degrees, 60% of the master’s degrees, more than half of the doctorate degrees, and nearly half of the first professional degrees awarded in the United States” (as cited by Northouse, 2013, p.352). Clearly the qualifications of women are not the cause of why so few have reached the pinnacle roles in organizations. One must wonder then, what are the barriers that prevent women from achieving success.

One reason women are not directly associated with leadership roles is the inconsistency between the qualities that are associated with women; friendly, kind, unselfish, caring and the qualities that are believed necessary for a successful leader;

According to Folkman (2015) other aspect that women in leadership ranked higher than men are; drive for results, willingness to develop others and inspiring/ motivating employees. As it has been noted earlier leadership has was seen as a role for men for a very long time.

Gender and leadership? Leadership and gender? A journey through the landscape of theories start off by giving a statistical summary of percentages of women in higher echelon position in the workforce. With this information in the intro, the article quickly highlights the limited representation of women in exclusive positions in Fortune 500 companies. Next, the paper examines multiple theories why this problem exists in the workforce. The four theories examined are biology and sex; gender role; causal factors; and attitudinal drivers (Appelbaum et al, 2003, p. 44).

I think women still fill far fewer leadership roles than they should in terms of their qualifications. It is still the case that men have a tremendous advantage in that they are expected to be leaders and that their acting like leaders is seen by others as entirely appropriate. Conversely, when women display the exact same behaviors and skills, they earn unfair reputations for being "demanding." Until society does a better job of breaking down the social expectations about how men and women are