Theoretical Conundrum: Gender Roles In The Workplace

A Theoretical Conundrum
Franklin Roosevelt once said, “We are trying to construct a more inclusive society, we are going to make a country in which no one is left out” (Roosevelt n.d.). In today’s world, nowhere is this ideology more evident than in the workplace. Diversity, long a catchword of Human Resource departments, has brought people of different backgrounds and genders together into the workplace and today’s managers must equip themselves with the tools necessary to successfully supervise diverse groups of employees. If, for instance, a Caucasian male manages a project with Caucasian female employees, he would benefit from understanding applicable political and social theories. A political theory that would aid a manager can be found
Weber isn’t a proponent of red-tape or increasingly mechanized business models, but he does see it as the eventual outcome in a capitalist society. According to Weber, rational authority is codified and based upon rules of law or identifiable codes, rather than traditional authority found in kingdoms or inherited offices of power. He writes, “The authority to give the commands required for the discharge of these duties is distributed in a stable way and is strictly delimited by rules concerning the coercive means, physical, sacerdotal, or otherwise, which may be placed at the disposal of officials” (Weber 1922). For the supervisor, attempting to manage a project, his authority is based on position, which one assumes is deserved. Weber would also argue that this authority is given to him, not just by those above him in a bureaucratic setting, but by those below who recognize his authority. He believed this authority, the legal-rational authority, was impersonal and justified by the rules of bureaucracy. Virginia Woolf, on the other hand, would argue that this authority, while perhaps deserved, has the ability to directly undermine the success of the women in his group. She writes, “and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out…and thinking
Of the special divisions, he writes, “The division of labor, which has a providential purpose in the thought of the Puritans, leads to qualitative and quantitative improvements in production, and thus serves the common good. But, in addition, specialization is encouraged by the calling, to which it provides an ethical justification; for, outside of a calling the accomplishments of a man are only casual and irregular and he spends more time in idleness than in work” (Weber 1930). In essence, Weber is arguing that the Protestant work ethic paved the way for modern capitalism and part of his Legal-Rational model calls for divided labor. As such, a manager could adopt this thought by utilizing the specialties of each individual employee to better serve the project as a whole. For example, if one project member has particular software skills, she may be tasked with creating the necessary computer files. In this manner, the manager divides the labor, and also provides, what Virginia Woolf may call “a room of her own” for the employees. While not literally a separate office, by assigning specific tasks to different team members, a supervisor provides his employees with their own room and their own chance at validation. As Woolf says, in the context of literature, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (Woolf