This chapter discusses intersectionality and how various identities like gender, race, class, and nationality intersect and contribute to discrimination in the workplace. It examines how work is a gendered institution that maintains systems of sexism and racism. Some key topics covered include off-ramping and on-ramping for women, the small number of stay-at-home dads, pregnancy discrimination, emotions in the male-dominated workplace, global inequality issues, care work intersectionality, and sexual harassment. The chapter argues that understanding these intersections is important for analyzing power dynamics and gender relations in organizations.
2. Intersectionality
Intersectionality helps explain
the unique ways in which
discrimination happens in the
workplace.
Gender/Sex, Race, Class, Nation
ality, and other identities are all
discriminatory factors within
social institutions. (Pg. 199)
―…Work as an institution
maintains the interlocking
systems of sexism and
racism, little organizational
communication research
examines race, sex, and class as
interdependent processes.‖
- (Pg. 199)
3. Gendered Lens: How work relates to other aspects of social lives, and how
they intersect. People have limited control over communication within the
workplace, and it is a complex issue. A ―wide angle lens‖ is helpful when
analyzing gender and job relations.
Off Ramping: Women leaving work to have children and form a family.
This is seen as negative because women are viewed as abandoning their
professions.
Problems with off ramping:
Work Structure: Family unfriendly organizational practices.
Family Structure: Women with significant others who are not
willing or able to off ramp.
Difficulty On Ramping: It is very difficult for people to on ramp
once they have left the work environment.
(Pg. 200)
4. Men at Work Work vs. Stay at Home
Or Not… Dads
Out of the 26.5 million men in
heterosexual marriages only a
small percentage are ―stay at
home dad‘s‖. (Census, 2006)
In Western cultures work is a
26.5 Million
way of life. Even if someone
does not like their job, it is a 98,000
commonality that work should
be precious anyway.
How does this effect
intersectionality and social class?
5. Work and Social Class
In America people should want
to work, because work is
positive.
Work even if he/she hates their
job.
This belief also effects the way
people are viewed on welfare.
America has made work a way
to maintain acceptance within
culture through social
institutions.
(Pg. 201)
Americans who need
government assistance are
looked at as weak and
unmotivated.
6. ―Is work good? It depends on whether you are a middle-class woman
with small children or a poor woman. Is work valued? It depends on
Whether or not you are independently wealthy. These contradictions,
as well as changes in the economy, may breed changes in work as
institutions.‖ (Pg. 203)
This quote helps explain how ‗work as an institution‘ uses social class
and gender to construct what is acceptable in the U.S. and what is deemed
inappropriate and inferior. It is a conflicting concept that creates a vicious
cycle of discrimination.
7. Work vs. Family
Conflicting
Concepts
In America there is a great deal
of tension between work and
family structures.
Since time stress is a problem in
the U.S. people are choosing to
work more to reap the benefits.
Gender, race and class are the
intersections relating to work vs.
family.
(Pg. 203-204)
8. Pregnancy
Descrimination
The Pregnancy Discrimination
act (1978) and Family Medical
Leave Act (1993) both protect
people from having to choose
between work and family.
The problem is that pregnancy is
then looked at as a disability
within the masculinized work
place.
There is gendered framework
that surrounds the work/family
problem which inhibits
gender/sex equality.
9. Maternal ambivalence is a term that has been used to describe the emotional
strain caused by stay-at-home parenting. Modern day stay-at-home dad‘s have said
―how lonely they felt and how their brains were turning to mush.‖
Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale University explains ―It‘s proof that these emotions have
nothing to do with gender—and everything to do with the job.‖
http://www.parents.com/parenting/dads/issues-trends/stay-at-home-dads/
Even though there is no financial wage involved with child rearing, Dr. Pruett‘s
research helps reinforce the idea that raising children is a full-time job.
10. Since men biologically do not carry during pregnancy; does this create
a gender specific barrier that deems women as more problematic in the
male dominated work place?
This could effect hiring practices in the labor market, because women
might be viewed as less predictable throughout their careers. This is why
work and family are seen as interlocking issues, when in reality they have no
correlation. Work is a public institution while family is a private matter.
11. Emotions in the
Work Place
(Two-Culture)
The stereotype is that women are
more emotional than men.
This correlates with the idea that
work is male dominant, because
emotions are ―innapropriate‖ in
the work environment. (Pg. 205)
The two-culture theory explains
the communication barrier
between men and women:
―…Emotions considered
organizationally appropriate when
expressed by a man are perceived as
inappropriate when expressed by a
woman.‖ (Pg. 206)
Since work is deemed as
masculine, male emotions are
sometimes not considered
emotional but norms. (Pg. 206)
12. Men engage in work relations that are usually attributed to
women. The problem is that work is male dominant so men‘s
actions are looked at as positive rather than negative.
―When women coworkers socialize, they waste time; when men
coworkers socialize, they advance their careers.‖ (Pg. 206)
―Peacocking‖ is a practice between men that is a self-promoting
act to express power and intelligence. (Pg. 206)
Homoerotic relationships between men generate the male
dominated work place. This desire for men to gain other male‘s
attention reinforces oppression.
13. Global Inequality
Issues
Globally there is an earnings gap
between men and women that
reinforces gender inequality
problems.
Women are further limited
because of the difference in
financial earnings. Since women
are stereotyped as doing
household type work that is
unpaid, it is considered more
restricting.
Organizational structures even
pay women 25% less than men
which inhibits gender neutrality.
(pg. 207-208)
14. 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 more democratic and
more supportive of humane goals.‖
Together they form issues of power, control, and dominance
and how work is gendered. (Pg. 208)
15. Care Work
Intersectionality
In the past African, Filipina, and
Latina women have been
stereotyped as workers of
servitude.
Since domestic services are
valued less and paid less, there is
no room for large economic
rewards.
―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.‖ (Pg. 210)
This generates a white-male
focused social institution, which
constructs gender oppression.
16. Sexual Harassment
and the
Work Place
Quid Pro Quo: Favor for a favor.
Most identifiable form of
harassment
It is the most predominant form
of sexual harassment by men
toward women.
Men are likely to blame the
women who are harassed as the
problem. Women are looked at
as leading men on in the work
environment.
The big problem is how a
masculinized work place creates
sexual play for men.
17. A hostile work environment can add up to more than sexual harassment
between genders. ―Girl watching‖ is a form of male dominance that allows
men to evaluate women in a sexual manner. Men feel as though it is their
gendered right to gaze at women to objectify their looks. To go a step further
males use girl watching as a way to interact with each other, which creates a
growing barrier between genders.
―In a culture of hegemonic masculinity, men become men by performing their
virility in front of other men.‖ (Pg. 212)
This quote helps explain how men feel they should be overflowing with sexuality,
which correlates with power, dominance and girl watching.
18. A recent example of sexual violence is the Penn State Jerry Sandusky scandal.
The multiple accounts of sexual abuse happened over a 14 year period. This is
an example of how a social institution can normalize taboos such as child
molestation over years of silence. The men that helped cover up Sandusky‘s terrible
actions were part of an upper-class group that cared more about the colleges
reputation than the human beings that were hurt.
Cited:
-New York Times by Joe Drape
June 22, 2012
19. Gender diversity and the work environment in the United States has been
an issue for decades. In America work can be seen as part of
someone‘s identity, which should be gender neutral. Since work has been
viewed as being masculinized for so long, developing gender liberation will be
difficult. Understanding the intersectionality of family, work, and leisure,
and how it fits into creating identity might help the reform process. It is
everyone‘s personal gendered lens that will help shape the future in a positive
light. Although the process is slow, it is the idea of incremental progression
that will humanize society for future generations.