Representation of Women - Essay Example

Representation of Women The issue of wage gap has been raised since women and men gained equal rights in job opportunities. Hence, it was claimed that indeed women can apply for any jobs they want if they have sufficient educational background to perform the jobs on required levels. However, the problem of women job discrimination hasn’t vanished and women are still considered to be less effective and not able to perform certain jobs, which are stated to be men’s jobs, because men can do them better. Multiple studies conducted on the matter have revealed that the job inequality is absolutely unfair and, apart from all the existing stereotypes concerning women’s disability to work as efficient as men, women definitely are able to perform the same jobs as good as men do it. The roots of the most common stereotype concerning the fact that men are considered to be better workers than women trace back to the times when women weren’t allowed to occupy the same job positions as men. The so-called “glass ceiling effect”, mentioned in the article “The Glass Ceiling Effect” by Cotter et al., appeared in the late 1990ies and was characterized by difficulty for women to get high positions on their workplaces (655). The problem occurred concerned the fact that on account of their gender identity women couldn’t progress up the career ladder because of some barriers created for them by men. Since the glass ceiling effect appeared, it has become one of the greatest concerns within the scopes of labor issue. It would be more obvious to analyze 1990ies on the matter of restriction of women in their career rising, but it sounds even stranger to talk about glass ceiling effect in modern liberal era. However, recent statistical researches have revealed that even though nowadays women get higher job positions and play significant roles in so-called “men’s jobs”, still only “5 percent of senior position are held by women” (“Glass Ceiling Commission Report”, 143). The problem is that huge corporations are less likely to hire women than men because there are more problems with women because of their lower productivity and possible maternity perspectives (Ibarra n.pag.). Even more severe situation is engaged with non-white women, who suffer from double-discrimination on their workplaces. Thus a 1992 Heidrick and Struggles report, Minorities and Women on Corporate Board, has shown that only 0.3 percent of those 5 percent of women that are holding high job positions are African-Americans (144). It turns out that women are being discriminated on multiple positions and are held from getting to the top of career ladder. Hence, since the phenomenon of glass ceiling effect occurred, women have been fighting for job equality with men, although they haven’t been taken seriously, as they even have been paid less than men for the same jobs. It may seem strange, considering the time of liberal societies that modern people live in; however, the problem of job inequality still exists. For instance, during his last campaign President Barack Obama asserted that “women are paid 77 cents per dollar doing the same work as men” (Rosin n.pag.). The reasons for such wage gap are considered to be multiple. Some studies have revealed that women are offered less money for the same job positions that are usually occupied by men, because they are less reliable and lack of professionalism in these areas (Kitroeff & Rodkin n.pag.). However, in order to evaluate the claim it is important to define the criteria according to which women’s working capability is being estimated as less sufficient than men’s. The first criterion according to which any working ability to perform a job must be evaluated is educational level, which is supposed to be sufficient for the job. Nowadays men and women are capable of getting the same degrees in similar educational institutions, so the outcomes they acquire after their graduation do not depend on their gender but concern the efforts they’ve made in order to become as competent in their chosen realm as possible (Rosin n.pag.). Hence, estimation of women’s job performance in accordance with the criterion of lack of education or knowledge obtained in the same with men educational institutions is totally unjustified. Another common stereotype concerning women’s efficacy on the workplace and their wage gap in relation to men concerns the fact that women are thought to make wrong career choices that lead them to job discrimination. Thus some economic studies have revealed that women tend not to choose high-paying jobs, when men are believed to choose the kind of jobs that bring higher revenue (Covert n.pag.). For instance, women are less likely to choose engineering or technology development spheres (which are quite profitable nowadays) than men. Still the statement about women’s career choices is absolutely irrelevant nowadays and it has been proven by multiple researches. Hence, Kitroeff and Rodkin in their study on the matter denote that in modern developed societies like American women technically are able to apply for various job positions (n.pag.), so they indeed often choose the professions that used to be considered as typical men’s jobs like construction workers or technicians. However, the point is that they are often not very welcomed at such jobs, as there is a stereotype that they wouldn’t be able to perform the job as good as men do; moreover, they are not even trusted to take a chance and prove their capabilities of performing these kinds of jobs. The point is that all the claims concerning women’s lack of capabilities to perform so-called men’s kinds of jobs contradict the real-life examples of multiple successful women who have managed to achieve astonishing accomplishments in the realms that had been considered strictly men’s scopes of activity. For example, in times when women were believed not to be able to perform in science on the same level with men, there was a woman, Marie Curie, who managed to sacrifice her life on behalf of one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science – radioactivity. The shining example of the woman’s tremendous achievement in scientific sphere proves the fact that women deserve to occupy equal with men job positions, because they are actually capable of major researches and high-performing working efficacy. Another research on the wage gap has revealed that there are certain “men’s jobs” in which women are even more effective and therefore are paid higher wages. Recent reports show that urban women earn 8 percent more than male peers (Goudreau n.pag.). Thus in such male-dominated kinds of job like construction and building those “females construction laborers, construction supervisors, maintenance painters, and aircraft and vehicle mechanics earn slightly above the median earnings for both sexes—despite holding just 3% of these jobs” (Goudreau n.pag.). The point is that being in minority makes a sex more effective and less stereotyped by the job approaches, which is why women are considered to be more creative and hardworking on the positions where they represent the minority of the staff. Even though in this case women’s efficiency depends on the circumstances and working conditions, still it is not exclusive of women’s capability to work as good as men and even better. However, certain researches on occurrence of discrimination claim that it is not only gender that makes men become suspicious about women’s capabilities, but also women’s being a minority on the men’s jobs makes them less trustworthy. According to the social barriers hypothesis, it doesn’t matter what kind of minority it is, one way or another representatives of the majority would try to suppress and discriminate representatives of the minority (Rodriguez 349). Applying the theory to the job discrimination, it turns out that men are used to considering women as not capable of doing their jobs, because their biases about women’s abilities concern them being a majority on this kinds of jobs in relation to women (Herring 13). It also works vice versa when, for instance, men are less trustworthy and are less likely to be hired in such typical women’s jobs as babysitting or counseling, even though there are such men who would like to work in these realms. Moreover, certain studies conducted by an auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers have revealed that women over 55 make better bosses than men and hold their positions because of their high authority in business sphere and the best working performance (Alexander n.pag.).The reason for this is women’s flexibility and capability of consideration of a subject from multiple perspectives, which allows women to notice more than men. The following two examples are probably the most doubtless in nowadays society. Angela Merkel, current Chancellor of Germany, in the age of 60, is the most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes (Alexander n.pag.). Her political accomplishments are definitely countess and her political and economical skills would not disgrace the accomplishments of the greatest politicians of all times. Another brilliant example of great job performance is Oprah Winfrey, an American TV host, media proprietor, producer, and philanthropist, who is considered to be one of the most influential women in the world and also one of the greatest businesswomen-billionaires worldwide. Moreover, Oprah’s racial and gender identities that caused a lot of troubles in her path to success didn’t stop her from achieving the tremendous success in multiple spheres. A famous English philosopher, one of the establishers of Utilitarianism, John Stewart Mill, who was also a great defender of women’s rights made a good claim concerning men and women inequality. When his opponents asked him why had he such thought about men and women being treated equally, when women were naturally determined to be inferior to men, Mill answered that nobody could have possibly known what women are capable of, because they had been hold from higher education and most jobs for centuries (Warburton 144). The argument is definitely reasonable, as since women have gained their equality a short time ago, they are just developing and gaining their position in society. Although there are a lot of countries in the world, where women still cannot get equal wages and good jobs, still they are rapidly extending their influence and often achieve even better success than men do nowadays. These examples prove that women indeed are capable of achieving great results in the men-dominating spheres like business, construction, politics etc. Furthermore, the fact that women are entering these spheres makes it possible to say that probably the problem with former rejection of their employment didn’t concern women’s lack of abilities to perform as good as men in the same realms. The genius women who are on a par with men in their discoveries and achievements prove that women are able to be as much effective as men. Works Cited Cotter, David A., Hermsen, Joan M., Ovadia, Seth, and Vanneman, Reeve. "The Glass Ceiling Effect". Social Forces. 80(2001): 655-681. Rosin, Hanna. "The Gender Wage Gap Lie". Slate. August 2013. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/08/gender_pay_gap_the_familiar_line_that_women_make_77_cents_to_every_man_s.html Covert, Bryce. "People Say The Wage Gap Exists Because Women Don’t Pick High-Paying Jobs. Here’s Proof They’re Wrong". Think Progress. November 2014. Web. Retrieved from: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/18/3593232/gender-wage-gap-mbas/ Kitroeff, Natalie and Rodkin, Jonathan. "Womens Career Choices Dont Explain the Gender Pay Gap". Bloomberg Business. November 2014. Web. retrieved from: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-11-14/women-make-less-than-men-even-when-they-are-equally-qualified-mbas Goudreau, Jenna. "The 15 Jobs Where Women Earn More Than Men". Forbes. March 2011. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2011/03/14/jobs-where-women-earn-more-than-men/ Alexander, Saffron. "Its official: women over 55 make the best bosses". The Telegraph. May 2015. Web. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/goodlife/11618322/Its-official-women-over-55-make-the-best-bosses.html Heidrick & Struggles. Report: Minorities and Women on Corporate Boards. Chicago, 1992. Ibarra, Herminia. “Personal Networks of Women and Minorities in Management: A Conceptual Framework.” Academy of Management Review, 18 (1993),n.pag. “Good for Business: Making full use of the nation’s human capital”. A Fact-Finding Report of the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, Washington, D.C. Rodriguez, Marnie Salupo. "Perceived Discrimination: Multiple Measures and the Intersections of Race and Gender". Journal of African American Studies, 12(2008): 348-365. Herring, Cedric. "Is job discrimination dead?". Contexts, 2(2002): 13-18. Warburton, Nigel. A Little History of Philosophy. Yale university Press. London, 2011. Read More