The Gender in the Work and Organization Systems - Essay Example

The Gender in the Work and Organization Systems xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Gender in the Workplace xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Institution xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecturer xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date The Gender in the Work and Organization Systems Many think that gender is a women issue as sex discrimination and work policies favors men more than women in most cases. However, gender is the social relations between men and women and how they affect the two, and the role each sex is expected to play (Biber et al 2000) Gender is divided into tow interrelated parts, Gender identity and gender relations. Gender identity is the sense that one develops of the fact that he is either a male or a female. Gender in regards to social relationships, women have been the most unfortunate subordinates because the social structures imply that the social economic and physical power of men is above women (Reeves and Baden 2000). The notion gender is used to define the relationship between men and women and is a clear connection between nature and culture. In this case the notion gender should recognize both men and women as being human beings having the same rights or equal opportunities, from the same species, the existing differences between men and women and problems between men themselves and women themselves. There has being strives to achieve equity and equality in all level of interaction in recognizing the essential contribution of both sexes to the improvement of organization and work force. Gender affects work places and organizations in every working level; in its Culture, procedures, processes and structure; and also in its infrastructure, collective practices and behaviors. However, research on gender influence in organizations and work places has revealed discouraging reports on high levels of discrimination towards women. Regardless of the progress in social and economic status, there still exists unequal inequality and unequal opportunity and treatment between men and women in the work places, discrimination, gender pay gap, inadequate maternity protection, work family conflicts and heavy work load for women workers (ILO 2010). For example, women have to work in their work place and continue with work as duties at home. This leaves women with a heavy work load of which they have to discharge all their duties. Gender practiced in work places is detrimental to the motivation of workers especially to women. It is a mater of fact that there are women who perform far much better than men. But due to gender practice, organizations are denied the expertise that would have been provided by women. An organization creates power (Steven); which is true. Unfortunately, men dominate these ranks and therefore have more power in the work place than women irrespective of whether women are more than women (Sundin 2000). Gender therefore is practiced in work places and organizations within a power context and this affects so much the aspects for women (Martin 2001). Many organizations lack female success pattern. Women are said to do well in education and various fields that are essential in the new economy (Henwood and Mclean, 2005). According to Oakley, there are different theories that block women form attaining leadership positions in organizations (Oakley 2000). The first one, there are corporate practices that favor the recruitment, promotion and retention of males over females. In this case, many organizations and work places have argued that women lack experience needed to hold senior ranks in the work place. This demoralizes women even though there are women with leadership expertise more than men. The second one is the cultural and behavioral causes that are possessed by stereotyping, power, tokenism, leadership styles and relations between men and women (Prokos & Padavic 2005). Generally, technology appears to be gender neutral. However, there are a set of machines that seem to be associated with male or female characteristics. Wilson (2002) explains that there are certain technologies that are associated with men; like printing press, piloting engineering and computer programming. Women are discriminated form the main involvement of designing and developing programs and incorporated in administrative assistances, system administrators and data entry (Ahuja 2002). Men dominate industries which are perceived to be heavy industries such as mining and metal work and women are represented in light industries like textile manufacturing industries. However women are nowadays managing to move to male dominated jobs like information and communication but they end up working in highly stressful assignments and low paid jobs (Elias 2003). For example a community water project in Nepal men were found to be the dominance. It was found that men were used in the important phases in the project, making major decisions and maintenance work (Shibesh &Ben 2001). Success in an organization depends on the usage of the available resources. Human resource is the most important. Since it involves the employees, motivation is regarded as the determining factor of success. Gender stereotypes believe that men and women have differing preferences, goals and are motivated in differing ways. According these stereotypes, stereotypical masculine needs like autonomy, achievement and economic success are associated with men. Therefore more earnings, freedom, possibilities to use skills can be possible motivators for men. Gender differences in achieving motivation still exists (Meecee et al, 2006). Gender is the determining factor of whether the reward implied will be appreciated or not. According to Pearson and Chatterjee (2002), there exist many other areas where both men and women do not differ on motivation rewards. Gender in work place and organizations is more or less an aspect of bullying (Simpson & Cohen 2004). In most case bullying in work is generated by powers produced by leadership. The way leadership is exercised in an organization can result to be harmful to men or women if the powers are misused. Exclusion of women in leadership positions means that they are prone to bullying form men counterparts since leadership in the organization is masculine (Collinson & Hearn 2000). In organization leadership, masculinity is referred to characters that include independence, objectivity, logic, aggression decision making and analysis which focus on the expected outcome (Trinidad & Normore 2005). Research shows that the power and status given to men in many organizations contribute to women being perceived as less valuable (Cheri & Leanne 2003) Organization leadership is gendered regarding who occupies that managerial position and the practices guiding the process of management (Collinson & Hearn 2000). Gender in management is involved in bullying activities and legitimization of powers of some individuals who control other people through wok intensification and performance review (Thornton 2004). The bulling leadership in work places seems to contribute to frustrating efforts of women trying to overcome career handles by adopting the masculine leadership behaviors rather than using more consensual and less hard leadership styles. (McCarthy 2001). However, this frustration of women from men is conscious or unconscious where men want to maintain working cultures that do not include women (Simpson & Cohen 2004). This affects most of the organizations and workplaces which are male dominated like military and engineering. To curd this gender equity should be incorporated in organization. I.e. women and men should have equal representation in all managerial levels. Workplace cultures are designed by men and therefore they are masculine. They tend to favor men more that women such as the use of insensitive language and partying into late hours. For women, due family and society pressure, they find it hard to fit in such settings (Asha Kaul, 2009). To include women in such scenario, organization should come up with policies which promote gender equity. In many organizations, men seem to earn more than any other gender regardless of whether they are in similar positions with men. According to Smith (2002), men manager earn more than female managers. This difference is also reflected in other high levels of management (Padavic & Reskin 2002). In some organizations there are policies that give allowances to workers to deal with domestic issues. However, this only implies to those in higher managerial levels. Workers in lower level are left strained and mostly mothers (Wahl 2001). Being an employee of any organization as a woman entails working towards the goals realization of that organization. However, they have other responsibilities like reproduction which result to discrimination towards them (Evaline, 2005). Some potential women managers find themselves marginalized and stigmatized after they get children by their managers who end up defining them as people who are not committed to career and in the long run they lose that opportunity of ever rising to managerial levels (Stone 2006). Work is not gender neutral. Many working places resist the inclusion of women and therefore demand that women fit in their organizational rules and expectations which are developed to suit men. Social conditions and customs affect the work preferences of gender. This affects the labor division. Men therefore are more satisfied working in a fulltime job while women are satisfied working part time because their behaviors are dictated by customs. Women are more satisfied working in part time job because they gain self esteem by working and being at home taking care of their family. Conclusion Women and women have unequal access to job opportunities. This is mostly affected by customs which associate them with reproduction and household chores. They have a very narrow choice of the work they do and earn 60 – 70 % of what men earn. Only a few women hold high positions in work places. In most organizations, women hold between 1 and 2 % of the top executive positions. Moreover, women make up less that 5% of the worlds head of state, head of corporations. This calls for gender equity and equality and activation of gender mainstreams. Work being informal or formal, paid or unpaid determines women and men’s relative power, prestige and wealth. This results to gender inequality in the distribution of benefits, responsibilities and opportunities amongst men and women. In the overall, Women tend to work more hours at home rather that outside where she can earn compared to men and also she takes care of her household. When she has a chance, to work, she is discriminated from attaining higher positions. As a result, women are more likely to suffer discrimination and bullying than men. This results to organizational failure since the human capacity in women is not fully utilized. Gender equality should be advocate in work places so as to tap all the skills present in both men and women. They are both capable of high achievements and can achieve differently to the achievements of goals in an organization References; Ahuja, M. 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