The topic I wanted to cover is the female presence in the workforce. The stereotypes that women get when in a professional setting never seizes to amaze me. As children we are all told that “you can do anything you want in your life” and as we grow older we start to see the hoops each individual person has to go through to reach their maximum potential. I can see the common denominators across the countries that I have lived in and they are usually the same when it comes to women, it is just expressed at a different level. Growing up in Honduras, the country is still in the process of catching up to dividing the macho mentality from the professional world. When I was 6 or 7 my grandfather (father side) told my mother that he didn’t believe women should go to school and that money shouldn’t be spent in an education because ultimately women need to be at home. This conversation lead to my mother making the ultimate decision to get a degree, she had two daughters and couldn’t run the risk of our education being stopped because of an old ideology. My mother got her law degree at the age of 35, holding the universities record GPA and finishing a 5 year degree in 3 years. She managed to do this being a recently single mother, having two children and pregnant of the third, working a full-time job, and somehow getting the mom thing down pat. She is my example of resilience, even though her entire world was collapsing, my mother prospered because she knew we depended on her. Her maternal instincts were the reason she pushed forward and in that process taught us that we are capable of anything as long as we believe in what we are doing and why we are doing it for.
When we went to request a construction permit for our citrus farm, the manager of the location told us that he could not process the permit until my father and my grandfather (even though we own the land) came because he just couldn’t believe that two women worked at a farm. The mentality of women being weak or not as qualified is something that even I have experienced and I don’t have many years building my professional career. These stereotypes such as benevolent sexism which our book defines as “the belief that gender differences are complementary and that women should be protected and taken care of,”(Moran et al. p.147) you begin to see the patterns. Benevolent sexism sounds almost… sweet, it is defined from a perspective that women are delicate creatures and they shouldn’t work because we have to be taken care of. When I see the patterns whether here in the United States or in Honduras I have to remember to switch my mentality when it comes to it. The cultures are extremely different and what is seen as negative for a woman here, isn’t always over there. Putting into perspective is the constant struggle between working or being a full-time mother/wife. In Honduras, in a collective mentality, most Hondurans believe that being a mother/wife is more honorable than working the corporate ladder. Here in the United States, women are chastised for putting their children/family first instead of going up the corporate ladder, women have a higher chance of being passed for a higher position/raise when companies know that they have children, family members or friends make negative comments, etc. The pressure of working in developed countries is one of the biggest culture shocks I experienced when I moved here. It’s an exhausting life, waking up early to get your family ready, going to work, coming home to children and having to do other chores, and do it on repeat mode for months. No one gets to enjoy a weekend because they’re either still working or they have to catch up on work they couldn’t do over the week.
Something that is very different is what constitutes “good work” here in the United States. Americans (some not all) wear their workaholism like a badge. I have had directors who stay past 10 pm at the office when they have a family at home (even though they honestly don’t need to be there that late). The work/life balance is very hard to achieve because most employers expect you to leave your sweat and blood at your desk every day of the week. For all that hard work and sacrifices, even though work has been put to change the laws, women are still experiencing a considerable pay gap, a gap that only gets larger as you start studying women in minority groups. I would say that women have to work harder than men do to receive recognition for their merits. Although our book stated that women only comprise of 10% of senior managers, I think most women tend to drift more towards humanitarian positions versus the corporate world. I always struggled with the idea of being “the same” as men. Women are not the same, the qualities that a woman has that men don’t has been the reason why we have women throughout history that broke the mold.
Their success came from the understanding that they didn’t need to be like a man or act like a man, they were able to succeed without them and without comparing themselves to them. To dip your toes into the pool of women leaders: Marie Curie became the first woman Professor of General Physics, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa, Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and the first female judge in Iran, and Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani advocate for girls education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. All of these women have made a change to better the lives of millions, not just their own. These women have taught the world that women are resilient, women can handle a lot of pressure, and are committed to their cause. The very same maternal instincts and qualities that separate women and are seen as negative, are the same instincts that have pushed these ideologies and is the reason why women still fight today.
amo33 says
I couldn’t agree more with the fascination that stems from the fact that women in the workforce is still such a controversial topic. For how much we throw around the phrase, “come on people, it’s 2019,” you would think it would finally start to stick. Although America is better in terms of women in the workplace, we definitely still face issues throughout the country hearing about this. If it is still happening here, imagine how prominent it is in other countries that still hold men on such a higher pedestal in all aspects of life, the workplace only being a minor one.
Easier said than done, but gender should not be a factor as to whether or not a person can be a great leader or not, a person’s leadership abilities should depend on their individual strengths and personality traits (Replicon, 2019). In today’s world, women just aren’t as encouraged to take on leadership roles as men are or if they are taking on leadership roles, it is for jobs that are prominently in what is viewed as a women’s field. The problem is that we have gone through generations and generations of women being viewed as the nurturers and as the ones who are responsible for all of the household duties and taking care of the family and children, which in all honesty is one of the largest jobs someone can hold.
I enjoyed reading the portion of your post in regards to what is “good work” in the United States. I wrote an essay last semester on the hardships that come with a healthy work/life balance. Those who lean more towards the work side of things are stuck there, feeling as if they are not at work for 50+ hours a week, they are inadequate or not as hard working. On the other side of things, those who are spending too much time with their families and leaving at exactly 5 on the dot are not as hard working. The problem is most employers act as though they want you to have that balance, but the struggle is that they give you a workload that makes it nearly impossible to have that type of balance. Women are great leaders because they are able to balance professional and personal leadership skills (Replicon, 2019). Women are easier to approach, more empathetic and make great listeners. Rather than looking at those qualities as not “suitable” for a business professional, we must change the mindset to show how much more beneficial having those traits can be for someone in an upper-level corporate position. After all, the future is female, right?
References:
“17 Reasons Women Make Great Leaders.” Replicon, Replicon, 24 Jan. 2019,
http://www.replicon.com/17-reasons-women-make-great-leaders/.
avt5343 says
I found your blog post to be very interesting and I’m still once again in shock that women equality in the workplace is still a topic that we have to talk about in 2019. This should be a non-issue, yet here we are still having to show the world that women should be treated equally as men.
When you were talking about your mother getting her degree while being a single mother and raising children, I’m immediately brought back to all of the stories I hear about single mothers raising children, going to school, and sometimes working multiple jobs just to be able to support themselves and their children. This is something we hear quite often and it’s looked at as a triumph, which speaks to the strength and resilience (like you mentioned) of a woman. Why is it that they aren’t seen that way in the workforce as a standard?
Your point in what “good work” means here in the United States is spot on. So many companies strive for work/life balance, yet we have this culture of “working hard,” which translates to being at the office for countless hours which sometimes is just to “look good” or create this illusion of working hard.
What I found interested is when you said “Although our book stated that women only comprise of 10% of senior managers, I think most women tend to drift more towards humanitarian positions versus the corporate world. I always struggled with the idea of being “the same” as men. Women are not the same, the qualities that a woman has that men don’t has been the reason why we have women throughout history that broke the mold.” I’d have to argue a bit with this statement. I think the reason why women drift towards different roles is being society is consciously and subconsciously telling women they aren’t good enough for the same roles men are doing so that’s the cause of this drift. With that said, we need to continue this fight to show the world that women can do and may even be more successful than many men is some of these roles that aren’t traditionally filled by women.
References:
Moreira-Bendana, A. (2019, February 4). Women as Leaders [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://sites.psu.edu/global/2019/02/04/women-as-leaders/.