There are several topics that have been interesting to me while taking this class. One topic from Lesson 9 that I have a personal connection to is that of masculinity in the workplace. In Lesson 8, we talked about masculinity in the workplace in Mexico. Their score ranked them at 69 (PSU WC, 2019, L.9). Here in the United States, we ranked at 53 (PSU WC, 2019, L.9). This is actually surprising to me as I thought the number might be higher in the U.S. Having a higher number on masculinity means that the roles for men and women are more defined (PSU WC, 2019, L.9). This could mean that women can be seen as having jobs in administration or office type jobs (PSU WC, 2019, L.9).
Looking at the high number in Mexico, it is unreal how men in leadership roles outnumber females. I think that this is a shame as women are just as capable at leading an organization as men are. This shows that there is definitely more work to be done as far as gender equality in leadership roles. I believe that women should be viewed as a leader. There are many who believe women shouldn’t be in certain leadership professions such as a Sargent in a police force. They believe that they are not capable of leading or directing. Even though the number is less in the United States, there is obviously still more work to do globally to close this gap.
This topic hits home to where I work. Here, there are only two female leaders in management. Men greatly outnumber female workers by a large percent. A lot of the men here believe that a women isn’t capable of leading or directing simply because the work here is viewed as “a man’s job”. When comparing the numbers of masculinity where I work, the number is a lot higher. Out of 45 employees, there are only two females who have leadership roles. As far as the school administration goes, there are more men in administrative roles than women. When I look at the principals and other administrative roles, there are only three women compared to 8 men. Even though the percentage has gotten better over the years there is still a lot of work to be done. The Superintendent is retiring in July, and it is my hope that they will pick a female to replace him.
We still have a lot of work to do not only here in the US but worldwide to get women into leader roles and out of “women jobs” such as secretary, etc. According to Sonia Corona, a 24 year old female was almost unable to run for a political office due to the other nominee being a male (Mexican Women in Politics: No Glittering Careers and No Real Power). It is 2019 and it is crazy to think that gender parity is still an issue. According to Corona, only about 32% of Mexico’s lawmakers are women (Mexican Women in Politics: No Glittering Careers and No Real Power). What is even worse, women have smaller roles in legislative matters where only about 29% were handled by women (Mexican Women in Politics: No Glittering Careers and No Real Power). I believe that if we are to see a real change in the shift of men to women leaders, the change has to start in governing bodies. This could have a positive impact on making more leadership positions for women because they are more than capable of leading. Until we really focus and understand the issues women face, changes cannot be made.
References:
Corona, S. (2018). “Mexican Women In Politics: No Glittering Careers And No Real Power”. Retrieved March 25, 2019, from https://www.google.com/amp/s/elpais.com/2018/03/07/inenglish/1520434930_190837.amp.html.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). OLEAD 410: Lesson 9: Central America and Mexico. Retrieved March 23, 2019, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1964331/modules/items/25821718.
Brittany Samara Warner says
Hi,
Great post, I would have to agree with you that society needs to redefine the roles of men and women. As you mentioned Mexico tends to prefer male leadership as opposed to women. In most cases this is primarily due to their family upbringing and cultural back ground. Mexican culture takes pride in having their women staying home and maintain the household for their children. But, since the dynamics of the world is changing having women leadership is becoming more prevalent throughout societies across many nations. I believe that due to these changing factors, many cultures are becoming more resistant to this change out of fear of losing their native roots that their culture takes pride in preserving.
I believe that the only solution to this issue is to help educate the older generation further on the importance of including women within our society, because it will give men a female perspective on issues that men may not understand that are concerning and that are affecting their communities. This will as a result, further the dialogue on various topics that affect their native people.
Jennifer Deangelo says
You mentioned that political gender equality could serve as a starting point for gender equality in general in countries such as Mexico, which led me to wonder how a nation can begin to make the move to be more inclusive of women in government and if the issue is an unwillingness on the part of women to run for office or an unwillingness on the part of voters to vote for a women. To do this, I researched the current state of gender inequality in the United States and what led to the increase of women serving in political offices here as that might give some indication of what could help decrease the gender gap in other countries.
Interestingly, research has found that although female state legislators are less ambitious than their male counterparts, they are equally likely to run for office in the U.S. House of Representatives. This difference in ambition was found to be due to a disparity in gender roles in child care responsibilities, but, because females placed more importance on the tangible benefits of serving in the House of Representatives, they were, in practice, equally likely to attempt to win a higher office despite a lower level of expressed ambition (Fulton, Maestas, Maisel, & Stone,2006, p. 235). This seems to indicate that the gender inequality seen at the national level of politics is not due to a fewer percentage of women running for higher level office. Perhaps, then, the gender gap is caused by a voter mindset that favors male candidates.
Having found that the gender gap in national politics is not caused by a lack of women candidates seeking higher office of a wide disparity between the likelihood of a male or female candidate winning a national level campaign, I turned to the next logical (to me) possible cause, which is that fewer women are involved in politics at the local and state level, thereby leading to a lower number of female candidates running at the national level. The real question is why are there fewer women running at the state and local level. The reason, as it turns out, is not that women feel more responsibility for child rearing (although they do) and is also not that women feel less qualified to govern (although, again, they do). Those two things only affect ambition, or level of desire to run, not their actual decision to run (Fox & Lawless, 2010, p. 310) The real issue is that fewer women are recruited to run by current party members (Fox & Lawless, 2010, p. 312).
While Mexico has implemented gender quotas for elections, this has only led to a 7% increase in women serving in political office. The reason for this was the primary process wherein parties stated that they held primaries when they had not, and declared that the women were defeated, when no primary had actually occurred (Baldez, 2007, p. 71). This indicates that the lack of women in office in Mexico is also caused by a lack of recruitment of female candidates, similar to the United States. In light of the above research, one possible way to increase the number of women serving in political office in Mexico may be for individuals who feel it is important to include women at a greater level to form groups who recruit women to run for political at the local level and provide them with high levels of support and mentoring to help them succeed in their campaigns and then succeed while serving in office, thus possibly creating a growing sense of female political competence in Mexico in general. This will have to start with changing the mindset of the men who control the political parties in Mexico, which will most likely be a lengthy and arduous process.
References:
Baldez, L. (2007). Primaries vs. quotas: Gender and candidate nominations in mexico, 2003. Latin American Politics and Society, 49(3), 69-III. Retrieved from: doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2007.tb00383.x
Fox, R. L., & Lawless, J. L. (2010). If only they’d ask: Gender, recruitment, and political ambition. The Journal of Politics, 72(2), 310-326. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=43babd13-c368-4f6b-991a-ccaa7c25cd89%40sessionmgr120
Fulton, S. A., Maestas, C. D., Maisel, L. S., & Stone, W. J. (2006). The sense of a woman: Gender, ambition, and the decision to run for congress. Political Research Quarterly, 59(2), 235-248. Retrieved from: https://journals-sagepub-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/106591290605900206
heg5110 says
The males dominate leadership positions in both Mexico and the United States. Mexico has a higher number of masculinity in the work force, and the United States is not very far behind. Women who want to hold a leadership position have their work cut out for them because most leadership positions are held by males, and many people have the mindset that a male figure should be in charge of a company or organization. At your current place of employment has anyone ever spoken up about the ratio of males to females in leadership roles? I often wonder if organizations take a step back and realize how many males are in the leadership positions versus females.