By: Christopher Bernard

CHAPTER 9: WORK

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)

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.

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

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)

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)

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

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)

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

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.

INTERLOCKING INSTITUTIONS

To give you a clearer Idea of the problem we have in the

United states:

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

In the workplace

- In the workplace, the normalization of violence most

clearly takes the form of sexual harassment (210)

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

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)

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)

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)

Sources

DeFransico, V.P. and Palczewski, C.H. (2007). Communicating Gender Diversity: A critical Approach. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

http://qikely.blogspot.com/2011/05/work.html

http://blog.lenovo.com/design/sapper-stradivarius-and-skylight

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sabrinaparsons/2011/10/22/working-mother-magazine-salutes-2011-working-mothers-of-the-year/

http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/working-parents

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/07/05/real-origins-gender-pay-gap-how-we-can-turn-it-around/

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/NetworksAroundTheWorld/local_network_sheet/DK.html

http://leadershipstrategyinsider.com/2012/03/13/leadership-strategy-gender-differences-should-be-value-adding/

http://www.inhabitots.com/infographic-mapping-paid-maternity-leave-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/28/us-workplace-paygap-idUSTRE68R1O020100928

http://www.ucc.org/justice/worker-justice/low-wage-jobs.html

http://ndubsky.com/tag/family-court/