2. OVERVIEW
-To study Gender/sex in the workplace, one needs to be attempting
not only to gender and sex but also to Race, Class, Nationality, and
other Identities (199)
-Explores the Intersecting ways in which people participate in the
“saying and doing” of gender in the workplace (200)
-Explores the ways in which communication in and about work is
gendered and genders. Studying work as a social institution makes
clear that gender/sex, are much more than individual Problems
(200)
3. WORK AS A SOCIAL
INSTITUTION
-Depending on the culture and time, the meaning and significance of work
changes
-Currently in the U.S. people define work as paid work outside the home.
4. WORK AS A SOCIAL
INSTITUTION
-“Working Mothers” are women with young children who also work
outside the home for a wage (201)
-Here you can see different percentages of parents who have children
under the age of 18 and work:
http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/working-parents
5. WORK AS A SOCIAL
INSTITUTION
-The notion that work is something that occurs outside the home Is
a Western Bias (Part of White U.S. Culture), Public distinct from
Private
-The belief that work is good and the demonization of those on
welfare demonstrates the way rhetorical constructions of work
maintain its function as a social institution (201)
-An “ideal worker” ethic exists, and is repeated through public
discourse, that “Equates work commitment with uninterested
employment and very long weekends” (201)
6. WORK AS A SOCIAL
INSTITUTION
-Work Expectations are not Consistent Across Sexes (201)
-Many Characteristics that make work an institution, will also make
it clear how it is a Masculine Institution (202)
-In the United States a man is not a real man unless he is gainfully
employed; the job a man does is “a major basis of Identity and what
it means to be a man” (202)
7. WORK AS A SOCIAL
INSTITUTION
-Sex segregation in Jobs is “An amazingly persistent pattern” insofar “The
gender/sex identity of jobs and occupations is repeatedly reproduced,
often in new forms” (202)
- Male Occupations possess more social value, higher pay, prestige,
authority, and advancement opportunities
8. INTERLOCKLING INSTITUTIONS
-Conflict between work and family is a visible intersection of U.S.
institutions
-Work and family are opposite social institutions (203)
-These two institutions generate tensions in people causing many
to feel they most choose one. These choices are gendered, raced,
and classed. (203)
9. INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS
-Law makers in Nordic Countries
(http://www.unglobalcompact.org/NetworksAroundTheWorld/local_
network_sheet/DK.html) have structured work benefits to challenge
the pattern where women tend to carry disproportionate
responsibility in child rearing (204)
-This is not the case in the United Sates
-Family Leave in the United States creates, rather then helps, the
tensions work balancing work and family because they treat males
and females differently
10. INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS
- The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and the Family Medical
Leave Act of 1993 allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for
pregnancy, personal, or family reasons (204)
-This allows caregivers and pregnant women to return with no
penalty, however:
- Lori West Peterson and Terrance L. Albrecht found that in
discussions of work and women‟s childbearing processes,
maternity leave was interpreted as a benefit (business‟s choice)
and pregnancy was interpreted as a disability (204)
-This leads to the conclusion that through a critical gendered lends
directed at organizational communication focuses attention on
work-family dilemmas not as individual problems but located in
institutions.
12. INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS
-Work and Education also interlock to reproduce
power differentials (205)
-Studies of African American women and work make it
clear that their experiences of subordinations in the
institution of work begin in school (205)
-Counselors and Teachers tend to steer them away
from particular work aspirations (205)
13. SEX DIFFERENCE
In the workplace
-Many of the verbal and nonverbal activities in
the workplace that are characterized as
feminine actually tend to be practiced by men
as much, if not more, than by woman (205)
-The differences emerge not in the actual
practice of communication but in others‟
interpretations (205)
- For example men are emotional at work, even
though it is not labeled as being emotional
because they are men (206)
14. SEX DIFFERENCE
In the workplace
-Studying the activities rather than emotionality it appears that men
engage in practices that are stereotypically attributed to WOMEN
(206)
-These include: wasting time talking to co workers, pretending to
like people they dislike, making decisions based on affect rather
than „objective‟ evidence, and ignoring rules in favor of
particularistic sentiments (206)
--The interesting thing is that when women socialize with women
co-workers it is wasting time, but when men socialize with other
male co-workers it advances their careers (206)
15. SEX DIFFERENCE
In the workplace
These subtle practices highlight low mechanisms of
exclusion and discrimination are not always readily
apparent, even if they are demonstrably present (206)
16. WORK CONSTRUCTS
(and Constrains)
GENDER
-Social inequalities are manifested and maintained
through work (206)
-There is undeniable evidence of inequality based on
sex (and exacerbated by race, nationality, and relation
to the globalizing economy). (207)
-This is seen with Income disparity
-“Women managers continue to lag behind their male
counter parts in both advancement and pay” (207)
-These numbers have gotten worse, comparing the
2000 numbers to the numbers in 1995 (207)
-These problems continue:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/us-
workplace-paygap-idUSTRE68R1O020100928
17. WORK CONSTRUCTS
(and Constrains)
GENDER
-Joan Acker: “Organizational structure is not gender neutral” (207).
Her five reasons for attention to gender and organizations are:
1. The sex segregation of work, including which work is paid and
which is unpaid
2. Income and status inequality between women and men and how
this is created through organizational structure
3. How organizations invent and reproduce cultural images of sex
and gender
4) The way in which gender, particularly masculinity, is the product
of organizational processes
5) The need to make organizations to make organizations more
democratic and more supportive of humane goals. (208)
18. CLASS, RACE, GENDER/SEX,
AND WORK
-CHILD CARE: women have historically been the primary
caregivers to small children, and women of color have often
been hired by White women to be caregivers (209)
-This shows us that job segregation not only occurs across
sex lines but also across race lines within sex (209)
19. CLASS, RACE, GENDER/SEX,
AND WORK
-The intersectional approach enables you to see ways in which
inequalities manifest themselves (210)
-An example: “Black women‟s initial overrepresentation in domestic
service reflects the intersections of race, gender, and class- the
idea that blacks are best suited for servitude, that omen belong in
the private sphere of the home, and that work done in the home
does not deserve significant economic reward” (210)
-“Interlocking systems of gender and racial oppression act to
concentrate women and people of color in those occupations that
are lower paying and lower status” (210)
-http://www.ucc.org/justice/worker-justice/low-wage-jobs.html
(example)
20. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
In the workplace
- In the workplace, the normalization of violence most
clearly takes the form of sexual harassment (210)
21. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
In the workplace
-In 2004 women filed 84.9% of the 13,136 charges of sexual
harassment (many go unreported) (211)
-40% to 70% of women and 10% to 20% of men have experienced
sexual harassment in the workplace (211)
-Most Predominant: Men harassing women
22. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
In the workplace
-Sexual Harassment appears easily identifiable but sexual
harassment in the form of hostile work environment has not
developed a consensus definition at least not between masculine-
identified men and non masculine-identified women.
-Women tend to define more acts as constituting harassment and
are more likely to perceive coercion in a particular situation,
whereas masculine men are more likely to blame the person
harassed instead of empathizing with that person (211)
-A common example of a difference in opinion is with “Girl
Watching.” Females take offense to males “sexually evaluating”
them (211)
23. WORK AS LIBERATION
and LOCATIONS
of EMPOWERMENT IN WORK
-Even as power dynamics in the institutions of work constrain people‟s
options, locations of resistance open-up (214)
-African American Women: seek ways to empower themselves and others
in work settings
-Latin Immigrants: many redefine mother to mean “wage earner” as they
leave their own children in order to earn money caring for others‟ children
-White Women (U.S.): some have codified forms of legal redress to use
against sexual harassers.
-Reality: Although work can constrain, it also “provides women with the
same rewards that it has historically offered men, including a degree of
economic interdependence and enhances self esteem” (214)
-Work can be liberating and working jobs that violate gender expectations
can transform the way which work is gendered (214)
24. Conclusion
-Work is something in which virtually every person engages,
whether it is paid or unpaid and if one does not work, that in itself is
a basis for judgment (214-215)
-Work can be extremely rewarding, but also extremely
dehumanizing, something one done as a means to the end of
earning money to pay for the necessities of life (215)
