Gender Issues within the Organization - Essay Example

?Gender issues within the organization There has been a rapid shift in the gender roles and perceptions over the centuries since the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. More and more women have joined the workforce. There has been an equal increase in the magnitude of involvement of men in the domestic works that are traditionally considered the responsibility of the women. As a result of this, there is a significant population of the women who are serving in the contemporary organizations as managers. “The idea that management is a male preserve as depicted in Mad Men is so outdated. Since the 1970s women have been coming through universities and into management” (Ian cited in Horin, 2009). There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of women as managers. Women are stereotyped to be too delicate to give their best in the position of a manager since most organizations require the managers to be rough and tough in order to be effective. “W[omen] managers could be $13,500 a year better off a year on average if only they had a sex change. That is the penalty managers pay simply for being female” (Horin, 2009). A vast majority of the contemporary organizations are quite unlike the misogynist workplaces that were omnipresent in the 1960s. Despite that, there is a significant discrimination on the basis of gender in the workplace today, with the women full-time managers earning 25 per cent lesser as compared to the male managers. Although men working more hours than women is frequently identified as a causal factor of this disparity in earning between the women and male managers, yet it is not the only factor that explains the difference in earning. In spite of the women’s empowerment over the decades, gender-based discrimination is still a common factor that influences the organizational culture in the present age. Leila Abdalla is a General Manager who shares her experience of management in these words: “It’s never been a walk through the park to get to the top – and the challenges are more when you are up there because there are some people, who were not very comfortable working for me” (Kibakaya, 2011). There are many factors that make women too weak to be good managers. This paper discusses the gender issues at the workplace and supports the belief that women lack the strength for management. Women are very concerned about their impression on others. “Professional women often come to executive coaches to work on their perceived "weaknesses" in the workplace, with an express wish to change an undesirable behavior or pattern” (Doyle-Morris, 2007). It matters to the female managers a lot how others think of them. While it can be a good thing for a woman in her personal life because this lets her adjust herself according to people’s expectations to gain their love and admiration, this attitude is not quite suitable for a manager. Managers need to know what they are doing and should not care about what others think of them. Otherwise, they are not in a position to do what they think is right for the organization. Female managers display a lack of confidence in their abilities particularly when the circumstances become too tough. Men least care what others think of them. They do what they think is right and it does not matter to them how it affects their image. Such an attitude helps the male managers get through in tough times. Female managers are put off by the criticism that surfaces as a result of their actions while male managers are stubborn and determined. A manager has to take a lot of criticism for his/her actions. Every strong manager takes bold steps that may be found offensive by many employees and stakeholders. These steps are necessary in order to execute the strategies made by the manager. This requires a lot of boldness. One has to take full responsibility for one’s actions as a manager. In such circumstances, a woman manager is often not able to take the criticism. She backs off when the stakeholders threaten her. Bullying at workplace is not limited to the people who make part of the organization. In many cases, people that are not related to the organization but whose interests have been marred by the actions of the manager may bully her. Ways in which they can bully her include but are not limited to threatening upon the phone, sending blackmailing emails to the manager, and spreading rumors about her relationships and affairs with tom, dick and harry. Women are very sensitive about their reputation and take such incidents on nerves. On the other hand, a male manager does not take such rumors as seriously as the female managers do. For many, it hardly makes any difference with whom their name is being connected with. Men tackle the bullies better than women. In fact, male managers consider the bullying part of the game and take it as such. The gender roles that have been cultivating in the society over the centuries require the women to stay at home and take care of the family. While women’s prime responsibility is to take care of the family, men’s prime responsibility is to work and earn money for the family. When women work as managers in organizations, they have to stay away from their home for a major portion of the day. Being away from home, they are neither able to babysit their children nor can they take care of their studies. The woman assumes a central position in every home whether or not she realizes it. Female managers know that they are not available to their children when they need them the most. Such thoughts do not worry a male manager because he knows that office is the right place for him to be in because this is where he is supposed to be by all standards of society, ethics and religion. Hence, when women work, they perform a secondary role often at the cost of their primary role while when men work, they perform their primary role. The consequential feeling of guilt keeps the female managers disturbed and they are not able to reach their full potential in the work. Women are personally engaged in the work unlike men, who are capable of keeping their business and social identities separate. “Female managers are often criticized for not adhering to a hierarchical structure within organizations and becoming too attached to individual employees” (Doyle-Morris, 2011). Women are emotional and sensitive. On the other hand, men may be emotional but are mostly insensitive, at least to the petty matters that bother women. A woman with extreme competence, talent and management skills may just feel low throughout the day at work if a colleague passes a comment onto her in the morning, “You’ve put on weight!” Every woman is very possessive about her looks and wants to look good. Being worried about the looks is their nature and not many can help it. Such comments don’t bother men, so they are able to be more relaxed and calm at work as compared to the women. Staying calm and relaxed is very important for a manager so that he/she can make rational decisions. Women’s way to socialize in the workplace is very different from that of men. Women are far less likely than men to look into the other persons’ eyes while talking to them. This can be partly attributed to the conservative culture in which they are brought up, wherein girls are expected to keep their gaze low and be shy. Girls that execute such behaviors are considered to be more feminine and delicate while others that look at others in the eyes and discuss their views and opinions openly are thought to deviate from the female gender role and are considered boyish. Not many women are prepared to compromise upon their gender roles as the female gender is their identity and is something, they have lived with all their life. “The “nice girl” attitude [women] may have learned growing up doesn’t work in business, and customers and clients may have a tendency to doubt [their] abilities or, worse yet, try to take advantage of [them]” (Swenson, 2011, p. 1). Women frequently apologize while talking to others. They feel sorry at places where they are not even at mistake. Women have a lot of self-defeating habits and behaviors that include but are not limited to apologizing constantly, minimizing their own accomplishments and placing more emphasis upon those of others, and their tendency to remain silent in the meetings saps their ability to dominate others. Many female managers are much more competent than they think of themselves. The lack of competence operates like a time bomb and puts the woman manager’s career at stake, only to eventually explode and sabotage the career. Women’s reputation as managers is often ruined by their poor professional image. An individual is identified by his/her professional image in the business world. Several factors play a role in developing this image of the manager. These factors include but are not limited to the manager’s gestures, postures, volume of speech, tone of speech, eye contact during conversation, and body language. Organizational personnel as well as other stakeholders draw upon the very professional image while developing their perceptions about a woman manager. People tend to develop a personal sense of the manager by making judgments about his/her personality and character. While female managers tend to be nice and kind to the subordinates by speaking to them in a polite manner, many take this as the manager’s guilt and weakness. Perceptions of the subordinates about a manager play a cardinal role in the individual’s success in the management position. A manager can only implement his/her strategies in the organization when he/she has full support of the subordinates as they are the ones that make it happen. Although women have been generally empowered over the time, yet people still hold different kinds of perceptions for the women that have occupied the management positions. In the past, different studies have reached the conclusions that men are preferred over women in the management positions even by the female subordinates. Reasons for this behavior of the subordinates include but are not limited to male managers’ immense tendency to support the female subordinates and female subordinates’ lack of understanding with the female managers. “It is interesting that this is a belief shared by both women and men. I believe that the major reason female supervisors are considered difficult to work for is due to emotional issues” (Abdalla cited in Kibakaya, 2011). Female subordinates don’t like women in the management positions because of their personal jealousy. They cannot absorb it when a woman is in a position to call the shots and they are not. On the other hand, subordinates, both male and female, prefer to see men in the management position. Male subordinates like to see men in the management position because they consider it a success. They like the fact that a person from their gender is in rule while the members of the opposite gender are to follow the rules made by the male manager. For men, it is more of a game of ego than of talent. Hence, they want male gender to overpower the female gender in all areas including work irrespective of talent. The irony is that female subordinates also like men in the management position because they can interact with them at a level that they cannot with the female managers. This makes sense as the male managers are generally more kind and polite with the female subordinates than the male subordinates. Hence, women’s effectiveness as managers is subdued by the lack of full support of the subordinates. Women need to have firm confidence in their capabilities in order to succeed as a manager. A manager needs to have an objective understanding of his/her objectives in order to optimize on his/her management skills. To achieve that, the manager has to focus upon and be actively engaged in the business game, know its rules and keep it alive “by playing at the edge of the bounds. That’s where most games are won” (Swenson, 2011, p. 1). Instead of expecting others to reaffirm them of their management skills, women have to draw on their passion for work. In order to better her management skills, a woman manager has to bring an altogether change in her behavior, whereby when she doesn’t know the solution to a problem, she should say, “I shall find out and let you know” rather than, “I am sorry, I am perplexed!” Such apologetic behaviors are interpreted as weakness by the others. Even the ones that place confidence in her abilities tend to review their opinions when they find the woman manager herself unconfident. Apologies should be used purposefully rather than unnecessarily. Politeness in the interaction with others works wonders at times, but is not always suitable for a manager to display as it may be wrongly interpreted by the organizational personnel. This does not mean that the woman manager needs to be rude, but there has to be a distance between her and others. To maintain that distance, a woman manager needs to be more straight forward and commanding in her approach. In order to attain their maximum potential, it is imperative that the women surpass the limits of the cultural socialization. This means that they need to be more overt in the expression of their views and opinions and be more argumentative rather than submissive in their conversations with the male colleagues and subordinates. Concluding, men are better managers as compared to the women for a variety of reasons. Women lack the magnitude of support and acceptance from the subordinates and colleagues that the men enjoy as managers. Women have more responsibility towards their family as compared to men. Male managers have the confidence that they are fulfilling their responsibility towards their family by working whereas female managers may feel a guilt for not being able to take care of their family the way society expects them to. Women are delicate whereas men are rough and tough. Their delicacy makes the women ineffective as managers whereas men’s toughness makes them suitable for the position of manager. Women are over sensitive and get hurt very easily. Men are stubborn and almost never get hurt, and thus they are able to fully utilize their potential for management. Women lack self esteem and can be easily influenced. For the same reason, they take responsibility for mistakes that they have not even made. Men are often over confident and are very hard to influence. They use their confidence to escape even the blame for those actions that they had executed. Neither female nor male subordinates prefer women over men in the management position whereas male managers are wanted by both female and male subordinates for different kinds of reasons. All of these factors suggest that women are too weak to be managers as good as men. References: Doyle-Morris, S 2007, Smart Women - Is Your Current Management Style a Weakness or a Strength? viewed, 13 December 2011, . Kibakaya, E 2011, Female managers: Are they worse than men? viewed, 13 December 2011, . Horin, A 2009, Female managers $13,500 worse off than men, viewed, 13 December 2011, . Swenson, B 2011, The Seven Worst Mistakes Women Make in Business, viewed, 13 December 2011, . Read More