Sex Discrimination

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The importance of work to ones identity
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Some facts

• Women earn less than men in every occupation
• US senate- women make 88 of what their male
  counterparts make
• Top corporate positions women make 69.6 of
  mens earnings in similar positions

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Women and Men- Violating Roles

• From other sections of the course, we know that
  there are many other factors affecting the
  choices we make regarding the roles we are going
  to engage in
• Roles, themselves, carry specific stereotypes
  that also affect the choices we make

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Occupational Stereotypes

• As occupations have come to represent certain
  groups of people, based on the number and type of
  individual who are visible they have specific
  stereotypes associated with them.
• Gottfredson (1981) theory of occupational choice-
  2 orthogonal dimensions dominate individuals
  classification of occupations
• 1. Prestige and 2. Sex-type
• In terms of career choice, individuals do not
  pursue careers that are in opposition to their
  ses and sex.

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Cejka Eagly (1999)

• The extent to which success in occupations is
  dominated by gender role adherence
• This maintains system justification (Jost
  Banaji, 1994)
• Gender stereotypes linked to occupations
• Female-dominated /Male-dominated

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• Many occupations are highly sex segregated
• Nurses, Surgeons, Judges, Social Workers
• The sex ratios of the occupations should
  correspond to the gender stereotypic images of
  the occupations - SOCIAL ROLE THEORY

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The authors assessed

• Participants perceptions of distributions
• Census data
• Peoples attractions to occupations
• Participants attractions to occupations
• Both men and women should be attracted to
  gender-stereotypic occupations
• Success in occupations

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• Assessed personality, physical, and cognitive
  dimensions of masculinity and femininity
• RESULTS
• Personality and physical feminine dimensions
  related positively to female dominance of
  occupations
• Personality and physical masculine dimensions
  related negatively to the female dominance

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Traits important for success

• Hierarchy of traits
• Masculine cognitive
• Feminine cognitive
• Feminine personality
• Masculine personality
• Feminine physical
• PER OCCUPATION?

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Male-dominated occupations

• Masculine cognitive
• Feminine cognitive
• Masculine personality
• Masculine physical
• Feminine personality
• Feminine physical

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Female-dominated

• Feminine personality
• Masculine cognitive
• Feminine cognitive
• Masculine personality
• Feminine physical
• Masculine physical

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Occupations Prestige and Earnings

• Occupations gained prestige to the extent to
  which they were thought to require masculine
  personality and cognitive characteristics
• Occupations lost prestige to the extent to which
  they were thought to require masculine or
  feminine physical qualities
• Only masculine qualities were related to earnings

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Violations of Occupational Stereotypes

• There are social costs to the deviation from
  gender stereotypes
• Yoder and Schneider (1996) argue that this is
  predominantly the case for women more so than men
• A fictitious female succeeds in a
  female-incongruent field- participants treated
  her as a social deviate by distancing themselves
  and by denigrating her role behaviours and
  personal traits, including her femininity
  (p.171).

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Women in male-dominated

• "I believe the glass ceiling is real, that it
  destroys morale, and that though we have made
  some progress, we are a long way from shattering
  it."
• -Evan Kemp, Chairman, Equal Employment
  Opportunity Commission USA

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Lyness and Thompson (1997)

• Main Hypotheses
• 1. Female executives positions will have less
  authority than those of male executives.
• -supported
• 2. Female executives compensation will be lower
  than that of male executives.
• -no support- however
• 3. Female executives positions will have less of
  the developmental characteristics associated with
  higher level jobs or exposure to unfamiliar areas
  than will the positions of male executives.
• -limited support
• 4. Female executives career histories will
  reflect more interruptions than will those of
  male executives.
• -support

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• 5. Female executives career histories will
  reflect less mobility than will those of male
  executives.
• -support
• 6. Female executives will experience greater
  challenges stemming from obstacles or lack of
  organizational support than will male executives.
  
• 6a. Women at higher executive levels will
  experience greater challenges stemming from
  obstacles or lack of organizational support than
  will women at lower executive levels.
• -support -mixed support
• 7. Female executives will perceive themselves to
  fit less well with the organizational culture
  than will male executives.
• 7a. Women at higher executive levels will
  perceive themselves to fit less well with the
  organizational culture than will women at lower
  executive levels.
• -no support -support

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• 8. Female executives will report less
  satisfaction with compensation than will male
  executives.
• -nil support
• 8a. Female executives will report less
  satisfaction with career opportunities than will
  male executives.
• --support
• 9. Female executives will report more work-family
  conflict due to work interference with family
  than will male executives.
• -no support

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Main Conclusions

• Lack of substantial findings in terms of salary
• Some findings are a cause of concern
• competent women overcome the stereotype
• Womens jobs have less authority than mens
• Female execs received fewer stock options-
  womens work may be valued less
• Female execs report more obstacles due to lack
  of personal support compared to lower level women

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Women in female-dominated

• The women doing womens work
• Cluster into 2 groups
• Female-dominated- nursing, social work etc
• Pink-collar- secretarial, bookkeeping, sales
• female-dominated professions.
• semi-professions

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Men in female-dominated

• People tend to attribute homosexuality to males
  when they do not conform
• GLASS ESCALATOR a systematic set of hidden
  advantages for men in such occupations
• Encouraged to take on the more administrative,
  more prestigious positions within the occupations

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Women in Blue-Collar Jobs

• Women in blue-collar areas learn their skills in
  arenas where they are mainly the token female.
• Unlikely to have female peers or female boss.
• Chances for advancement low- chances for layoff
  high (OFarrell, 1995).

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Sex Discrimination

• Overt or covert sex discrimination or
  differential treatment of women and men based on
  their sex is cited as the reason for different
  experiences for men and women in organizations
  AND for the glass ceiling effect.
• The underlying reason for sex discrimination is
  said to be SEX STEREOTYPES or widely shared
  beliefs about the attributes of men and women
  (Ruble, Cohen, Ruble, 1984).
• One consequence of sex stereotypes is that women
  are not hired for traditionally male positions.

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Sex Discrimination contd

• PAY EQUITY
• 2 concepts have been introduced in the workforce
  Equal pay for Equal work and Comparable Worth.
• DISCRIMINATION IN HIRING AND EVALUATION
• Women are more likely to be viewed as stepping
  out of their place
• Prime example is the composition of UNIONS-
  minorities and women are not represented in
  executive positions
• SEX DISC takes on different forms for men and
  women

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Tokenism

• Token positions positions in which individuals
  are treated as symbols or as representatives of
  their sex
• The work of Kanter (1977)
• The roles of token women
• A. Mother
• B. Sex Object
• C. Pet
• D. Iron Maiden

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Work and Role Negotiation

• Movement of women into the paid work role
  increased stress.
• Even in dual career families, mothers assume the
  major responsibilities in the home (South
  Spitze, 1994).
• Women report more absences from work due to
  family responsibilities than men do (Stats Can)

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SEXUAL HARRASSMENT

• Can exist in 2 forms
• 1. QUID PRO QUO- an individual is pressured to
  conform to unwelcome sexual advances as a
  condition of employment
• 2. Hostile environment making unwelcome sexual
  advances or engaging in other conduct of a sexual
  nature that unreasonably interferes with an
  individuals work performance/environment etc

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Men as victims

• Identical measures of sexual harassment for men
  and women?
• What women experience as sexually harassing maybe
  viewed as social-sexual behavior by men (Gutek,
  Cohen, Konrad, 1990)
• Sexually harassing legal vs. psychological

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• McKinney (1992)
• Ratings of situations
• Sex differences
• Men and women are viewed differently as
  perpetrators of sexual harassment.
• Research article

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Waldo, Berdahl, Fitzgerald (1998)

• Use of scales based on womens experience is
  misleading for 2 reasons
• Behavioral experiences- power differential
• Based on what women find harassing gender
  harassment for men