Lecture 7

Gender @ Work

• Are women discriminated? How?– Vertical; ‘glass ceiling’– Horizontal; different categories of jobs– Part-time– Wage gap– Working mums’; the children question

• Why? Is it a men’s game or a power-play?• Is the situation changing?

– ICT?• Micro-trends etc• Gender fatigue

<How are women being discriminated in the workplace?>

are there jobs suitable and un-suitable for women? or “men-only” jobs?

GROUP EXERCISE

How to maintain the glass ceiling?

Sexual and Domestic Division of Labour

The ‘Devaluation’ Thesis

“…the most influential people are mothers. When it comes to wanting to change their way of life, mothers are at the front of the line.They are hard workers often giving everything they have to give their children a hope of a better future than what they have had. Many mothers work numerous jobs and wake up at the first sign of daylight to walk miles each day to fetch water for their families. Women are often devalueddevalued in many of the countries where we work and yet they are many times the backbone of their communities”

http://sponsorimpact.wordpress.com

The ‘Crowding Out’ Thesis

‘Homo-sociability’

“Patriarchy is inherent in the system of temporary work…” J.Younis

“Women’s biology, their temperaments and their unreliability in the face of domestic commitments all rendered them less desirable for certain jos – regardless of evidence which might have indicated to them otherwise. All of these assumptions about masculinity and feminity play their part…and help achieve…the ‘gendering of organisations’.”

Watson, p.205

Sexual harassment more likely if…

• Working environment is less professional

• You are unmarried

• You are less educated

• You are Malay(!)

• You dress more ‘sexily’

what about work and the family? how does childcare affect women

at work?

WHITEBOARD EXERCISE

- problems- solutions

The ‘Working Mother’

There are two kinds of women: the ones ‘committed’ to work (and so do full-time) and those ‘uncommitted’ to work (and so prioritize domestic responsibilities. Childcare is NOT a barrier; many women simply have different orientations to work from those of men.

Catherine Hakim (in Giddens, 2001)

<Why sexual discrimination?>

Do men know their roles in life?

The ‘Working Late’ Phenomenon

Cheap Labour?

<Are things changing?>

Carly Fiorina

Tan Sri Dato' Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz