Gendered Workplaces

GENDERED WORKPLACES

Explanations, consequences, and alternatives

Defined

Gender workplace segregation

occupational sex segregation

Also known as gendered workplace

segregation phenomenon where men and women are segregated at

work

o sometimes because we are in different industries (men in construction, women in nursing or teaching)

o sometimes because we are physically separated – different offices or departments (women wait-staff, men in kitchen)

o sometimes because even in same industry (law) women and men perform different jobs in that industry (female paralegal v. male lawyer/judge)

Men’s and women’s work wasn’t always separate in the way it is now. Before the industrial revolution (late 19C), while men and women did different work, but there wasn’t the profound difference that we see now in terms of both where the work happened and how it is valued. For the most part, both men and women worked from home, and families’ work (men, women, and children) was interdependent and valued fairly equally.

With the Industrial revolution men begin to work outside the home for wages and women’s work inside the home comes to be defined as not real work.

Some women did work outside the home (factories/mill girls) but for lower wages based on the assumption that the man was the head of household and while women could supplement a family’s income, women had fathers or husbands to depend on.

OCCUPATIONAL SEX SEGREGATION

4 Ways To Measure Segregation1) Popularity2) Density or Proportion3) Clustering4) Index of Dissimilarity


2) Popularityof all jobs, which have the most women? Which have the most men?Look at the BLS handout and identify which jobs are the 10 most popular jobs for women. Which are the 10 most popular jobs for men?

OCCUPATIONAL SEX SEGREGATION 4 Ways To Measure Segregation

2) Density or Proportion of males/females in a given occupation. looks at density in a field. What percent/proportion of the workers in a given occupation are women or men. This determines whether an occupation is male or fema % or more are one gender.From the BLS handout, can you identify a male dominated field? A female dominated field?


pink collar jobs – service jobs; so named because they are often associate with women – (who wear girly pink blouses )

white collar jobs – office, professional jobs; so named because they are associated with men who wear white dress shirts (and often suits) with collars

blue collar jobs – working class, manual labor; so named because they are associated with men who wear uniforms or other durable dark/denim wear


3) ClusteringExtent to which male/females are clustered in sex dominated occupations. Looks at which are the most common occupations for women in relation to saturation/density. E.g. 33% of women workers are clustered in just 10 occupations. 25% of men are employed in 10 most common male jobs.

Can you identify examples of clustering?


4) Index of Dissimilaritylooks at percentage of women and men who would need to change occupations for women and men to have equal distribution in all occupation; 0 = total integration, 100 = total segregation. this looks at all workers and all occupations together – not just particular occupations or one gender at a time.


4) Index of DissimilarityIn 1970 the IoD was .57 or 57%In 1990 the IoD was .53 or 53%In 2009 the IoD was .47 or 47% meaning that 47% of women and men would have to change occupations in order to have equal distribution.

Race integration is 2x as much as sex integration


Sticky FloorTypically, women’s occupations often have fewer opportunities for advancement (sticky floor). And where there are opportunities for advancement, women lack the opportunities to gain the skills or experience needed to advance


Glass CeilingUnseen or invisible barriers that prevent women from reaching the highest levels in a workplace.

Imagine that, because the ceiling is glass, you can’t see it, but you can see everything happening above you; Yet you just can’t break through the ceiling.


Glass Escalatorsubtle mechanisms in place to enhance men’s positions in women’s professionswhile women commonly attempt to move into male professions, men are less likely to move into women’s professions. And when they do, they are paid more and have easier pathways to advancement.


Glass EscalatorMen experience:warm welcome from male supervisors and from women colleagues (because men in field raise pay and prestige)gendered racism – racist stereotypes grounded in gendered ideas (dangerous black male) affects glass escalator for men of colorSometimes unwelcome pressure to advance too quickly or at all


EXPLANATIONS


GENDERED WORKPLACE – EXPLANATIONS

legal prohibitions to occupations or to training for occupationsThis is much less common since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it still occurs formally or informally not anymore. e.g. women have been barred from combat in the military

Illegal discrimination – women illegally barred from jobs or not hired or promoted because of gender


cultural/social customs: until early 1960s help-wanted/classifieds/job postings were separated by gender (women’s jobs and men’s jobs and sometimes same job would be listed in both places, but with higher pay on men’s side).

Workplaces such as tobacco plants separated workers were by race and gender. The article “Boundary Lines” describes restaurant work segregated by race and to some extent gender.


sex role spillover (sex typing): workers tend to be hired (and promoted) for jobs where we perceive compatibility between gender roles and job requirement. we see jobs as masculine, feminine, or neutral and hire accordingly.

how we see these jobs is cultural and changes over time e.g. factory work in the US is men’s work and in the developing world, this is work for young women.

women and men have difficulty breaking into non-traditional jobs


stereotype or prejudice: women are 27% of all lawyers and today more women than men graduate law school, yet in a survey of 200 male and female lawyers, not a single respondent (male or female) said they would choose an equally qualified female attorney over a male attorney when considering who would command more respect in court; this effects not just an individual client, but who firms hire, who they assign on which cases, and who they promote


evaluations: Women and men evaluated differently.workers (both male and female) receive better evaluations in occupations where they dominate. Where workers make up less than 15% of the profession, they are more likely to receive worse evaluations than the other gender.

Behavior that is rewarded in men is penalized in women. In other words, women who act like men are penalized; men rarely act like women because there’s no reward in it


socialization: shapes job choice i.e. women and men gravitate toward traditional female and male jobs. Girls are more likely to grow up wanting to be a nurse or a teacher than a police officer or a construction worker. Boys are more likely to grow up wanting to be a firefighter than a nurse.

These choices are influenced by sex-typing and by presence/absence of role models


job transformation: jobs gradually or not so gradually switch over from one gender to another, often because of a shortage of male workers or because men leave a job as prestige or pay lowers; e.g. in the 1800s, men dominated as clerical workers and teachers


human capital: women gravitate toward jobs that allow them to manage family responsibilities: jobs with flexible schedules, little investment in training, and skills that don’t depreciate (don’t need to be updated/refreshed) if they drop out of the workforce.

doesn’t account for why women don’t end up in blue collar jobs that fit this criteria. most low-skill female jobs don’t actually make it easier to combine families & work.this assumes that women have families and are primary family caregivers and that they plan jobs/careers around family


structural theory: the characteristics of the jobs shape the behavior of the employees; women dominated jobs that are monotonous with poor benefits, low wages, and little autonomy lead to high turnover because women are not invested or challenged. The same can be said for male dominated jobs. So, bad jobs make people lack ambition, suck the life/drive out of us, and discourage us from moving into other kinds of jobs or higher levels.doesn’t account for why we choose those jobs in the first place – only how we end up trapped (on the sticky floor).


informal networking: often is same sex which means that referrals and recommendations are likely to be for/from people of same sex (and race). this is also how people find out about job openings and promotions. and women are disadvantaged because our networks are low paid/low prestige women’s jobs or because women lack the upper echelons of power (the old boy’s network)


Apprenticeships or Internships: often these have age limits that work against women who enter work force later, or require investments of time that may be difficult for women with family responsibilities. They bar women from opportunities to develop skills or log in the experience time needed for promotions or better job shifts

many union jobs, which tend to be high-paying with benefits require apprenticeships.

Increasingly, white collar opportunities, require (unpaid or low-paid) internships which are especially hard for working class women.

CONSEQUENCES


GENDERED WORKPLACE – CONSEQUENCES

PAY (and BENEFITS): gender wage gap: on average, women earn 82% of what men earn.mother wage gap; The pay gap between mothers and non-mothers (under 35) is greater than between women and men.lower social security and other retirement benefits. in addition to losing out because women spend less time in work, women also suffer because women are paid less thus will have less to draw on in retirement. also women are less likely than men to work in occupations where they have private pensions


PROMOTION: women with families may have hindered availability and mobility which may in turn, hinder ability to take advantage of – or be considered for promotions


PRESTIGE:women remain in low positions with less prestige (and remain unable to help each other advance through informal networks)


Part Time InequityBecause of family responsibility, women are more likely to work part-time where they are less likely than full-time workers to receive benefits or pay equity (26% of women workers work part-time. part-time workers get 40% less per hour than full time workers

full timer: $10/hour or $400 for a 40 hour week part timer: not $10/hour or $200 week for a 20 hour

week instead: $6/hour or $120 week


Division Of Home Laborbecause of men can expect to be paid more, families choose for husbands to be primary earners which can lead to overworked husbands and economically dependent wives


maintains stereotypes about women’s and men’s abilitiessexual harassment is more common in occupations where women are minorities


Boundary Heighteningwhen women make up 15% or less, workers exert overt or not so overt measures to keep or drive them out. e.g. more masculine activities – events at bars, strip clubs, sporting events; not inviting women; or scheduling events at times when women need to care for children.


Sexual Harassmentoccurs when submission to or rejection of sexual advances is a term of employment, is used as a basis for employment decisions like hiring, pay, or advancement. Two kinds: quid pro quo, and hostile environment


Sexual Harassment – Quid Pro QuoRefers to some exchange of one thing for anotherWhen some advantageous treatment (hiring, promotion, etc.) promised or withheld or some negative treatment (firing, bad shifts, etc.) is threatened in return for the acceptance or rejection of sexual advances


Sexual Harassment – Hostile EnvironmentWhen an employer fosters (or an employee experiences) an environment that is threatening, offensive, intimidating, or oppressive.

ALTERNATIVES


GENDERED WORKPLACE ALTERNATIVES

expand anti discrimination laws not jut women but also parents.

desegregate work – recruit women to men’s jobs and vice versa

equity for part time work in terms of both pay and benefits

raise minimum wage. make jobs worth the cost of childcare.

provide childcare and early childhood education


Address care – especially the fact that women are primary caregivers in families paid family leave (FMLA 1993 = unpaid 12 weeks) imagine more flexibility in work schedules beyond

Monday – Friday, 9-5 (but still 40 hours) Sweden allows a 30 hour work week until children are 6

and government picks up salary slack. parent benefits akin to veteran’s benefits (special

preferences for government jobs, education benefits, medical benefits for parents)


address the culture of overwork – extend overtime pay to exempt (managerial workers)flex time – for all workers not just parents. flex time for all workers removes the setup of regular – normal work week and deviant – abnormal – irregular work week for others. and stigma attached which has repercussions for advancement and evaluation (J.L.’s favorite option)approach work as if all workers (male and female) have a dual life – work and families; or as if we have personal lives outside of work (however we use our time - with family or without family (charity, activist work, leisure, personal development, …)

Intersectionality

Gendered Work and Race

Body labor

body-related services and the management of feelings that

accompanies it

Work in the nail salon is an example of body-work. This might also include work in hair salons or spas.

Emotional labor

the emotional requirements of a job. This includes managing feelings (ones own and those of employers/clients)

Transnational Motherhood

Describes immigrant women (usually Latina immigrant women) who do domestic work in the US –often caring for other people’s children—while their own children remain in their countries of origin.

Education

Gendered Workplaces