Revising Work Culture: Gender In The Workplace

Amanda McGinley
Gender in the Workplace
Nancy Goodman
February 15, 2013
Revising Workplace Culture
Changes in the workplace have come a long way; however, there is still a long way to go. There are several ways to make the changes that are so desperately needed. In the first article, Making Change: A Framework for promoting Gender Equity in Organizations, the authors introduces four frames to achieve workplace equity. The first is to fix the woman; this means that women assimilate to the work culture. The second frame is celebrating the differences that each gender brings to the table. The third frame is to create equal opportunity. The fourth frame is changing the work culture; the existing culture comes from socially constructed gender
roles.
In A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling the authors talk about four approaches to bringing equality to the workplace. They focus on how small wins will eventually become big wins.
The third article, Tempered Radicalism: Changing the Workplace from within was the most liberal. Tempered radicalism is taking the middle road, you work for change but you are careful not to push too hard. One main theme throughout the articles was that workplace bias stems from how society has constructed workplace culture, and that it does not really benefit either sex. Men are just as encumbered by the system in place, in order to create equality in the workplace the culture has to change.
Tempered radicalism focuses on making changes gradually,
“Women and men from different backgrounds, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, professions and political persuasion have resonated to the concept of tempered radicalism as they try, in their own ways, to maintain legitimacy within traditional contexts, while they assert themselves and their hopes for social change.” (Meyerson and Scully, 265)
This method is a very liberal approach to gaining equality. Tempered radicals walk a fine line of fitting into a traditional setting and being who they really are. They use several approaches to do this, small wins, keep the movement going even though the wins are small, joining local causes, and gaining alliances for support (Meyerson and Scully 269-271). Meyerson and Scully talked about a lesbian who utilized talking about her personal life when the opportunity arose during everyday conversations at work as a political act; by doing this she personalized the issues gays and lesbians are working for (270-271). The tempered radicals are working within the existing system to achieve equality. Small wins are extremely important when it comes to long battles. In Meyerson and Fletcher’s article A Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling they focus on how small wins will become big wins. Although it took a revolution for women to get where they are in the workplace they believe that the glass ceiling will be shattered with an approach of small wins (230). In the past workplace discrimination was obvious; today it is behind closed doors. “Today discrimination against women lingers in a plethora of work practices and cultural norms that only appear unbiased.” (Meyerson and Fletcher 231). The problem is a male based culture, men were the main income earners therefore they put their career as the first priority. There are four approaches in the article; women need to assimilate, that the workplace should accommodate for special needs, the third is to emphasize the differences, and the fourth approach is to get rid of gender inequality. The fourth approach starts with a person recognizing the inequality problem and they begin to get other people looking and talking about how the workplace culture is causing the inequality. The next step is for the management to set up an experiment to replace the existing practices with ones that work for everyone (235). “Because the small-wins strategy creates changes through diagnosis, dialogue, and experimentation, it benefits not just women but also men and the organization as a whole.” (Meyerson and Fletcher 236). Small wins work within the system to extract the blockades facing women. When small wins occur, people begin to question the workplace rules and culture and that leads to more change. The small wins begin to change the company not the women working there (241). This fourth approach works to change the culture is similar to the fourth frame in Making Change: A Framework for Promoting Gender Equality in Organizations. The four frames that Kolb, Fletcher, Meyerson, Merrill-Sands and Ely write about are similar to the four approaches from the previous article.
The first frame is that women need to be fixed; they need to change in order to succeed in the workplace. It is flawed because women were not educated to the all-boys club rules. They minimize differences so women are considered equal, however the rules do not change. Frame two wants to celebrate difference; it focuses on what each gender brings to the table. This method helps people become more sensitive to differences and the workplace to be more flexible. The flaw is that qualities women embody are not valued in the business world. “…women are disadvantage because work styles, skills, and attributes associated with “the feminine” are not recognized or valued in the workplace.” (11) Frame three focuses on creating equal opportunities for women. It is the structural barriers women face that impede them, the glass ceiling is one example of the problems women face. Companies can change their career tracks or offer sensitivity classes, however there could be an unwritten backlash for women who use these. The final frame calls for workplace revision, it looks at how society has constructed gender roles to hold both men and women back in the workplace. In Breaking the Silence: On Men, Masculinities and Managements Collinson and Hearn state that women in senior management report that they are more stressed than their male counterparts with their work and personal lives (75). Women not only work full time in the office, they also have to go home for a second shift of taking care of her family. If workplaces offer more flexible hours for both men and women everyone would be able to balance their professional and personal
lives. There is still a long way to go before there is true equality in the workplace. Having women assimilate to the “all-boys rules” will not work for all women; it does not allow women to be themselves. While celebrating the differences women bring into the workplace raises awareness, those differences are often not valued in on the job. The best way to achieve equality is to revise company policies and practices; that will benefit women, men and the company to redefine how people succeed in the workplace.

Sources
Ely, Robin J; Foldy, Erica Gabrielle; Scully, Maureen A; the Center for Gender in Organizations Simmons School of Management Reader in Gender, Work, and Organization Blackwell Publishing 2008