Lecture 9

2. Lecture 9 Gender and the Economy

3. More women working for wages today • Paid work is an important institution because it carries power and influences much of our lives

6. Occupational Segregation • “Female” and “Male” professions: In 2003 women were • 96% of secretaries • 91% of nurses • 95% of child care workers • 99% of dental hygienists • and 97% of kindergarten and preschool teachers • But also, 30% physicians, 14% architects, 27% lawyers • Why do we see women entering men’s professions, but not the other way around?

11. Glass Ceiling • “Class Ceiling”: artificial barriers based on attitudes or organizational bias that keep women from being promoted • “Sticky Floor”: low wage positions with limited mobility • “Class Elevator”: men are often promoted quickly in traditionally “female” occupational sectors

12. Does Silicon Valley have a Glass Ceiling? • Of CA’s 400 largest companies only 11.6% of executive officers are women • Santa Clara county companies are last in the state for gender equality • What are the explanations? • Career confusion • Structural barriers • Networks favor men • Tech culture

13. Structural Barriers • Structural and social barriers largely explain sex segregation in the workplace, not human capital • Is education the great equalizer? • HS: men = $32K women = $22K • BA: men = $51K women = $36K • PhD: men = $77K women $56K

14. The Gender Double-Bind • When the definition of an economy includes only activities that involve monetary transactions, much of women's productive and reproductive work is excluded • Double-bind: Women are disadvantaged in the labor market due to their domestic responsibilities, and their disadvantaged position in employment leads to a continuation of these domestic responsibilities

15. Should we try to make paid work more equal for men and women?

16. Personal Choices? • Feminist Linda Hirshman’s Three Rules: • Prepare yourself to qualify for good work • use your college education with an eye to career goals • Treat work seriously • Find the money, because money = power • Don't put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry • Marry down • Only have one child, if any

17. Public Policy Solutions? • Look to Sweden? • Lowest levels of gender inequality • Pro-family policies: • 1 year maternity leave at 75% of salary • Right to return at 80% schedule until child is 8 • Fathers get 10 days off and one month at 80% pay • Universal preschool

18. Exercise: What should Carol and Jason do? • Break into three groups • Based on your scenario, what should Carol and Jason do for the next five years? Explain and justify the answers that you come up with. • You have 15 minutes to discuss your scenario and come up with a presentation for the class.

19. Globalization & Specialized Markets for Women’s Labor • Migration into domestic labor markets • Global Heart Transplant: mothers migrate around the world to care for the children other’s • Emergence of “cheap” labor pools • Women are paid for “who they are, not what they do” • Women use gendered forms of resistance to challenge working conditions

20. Sexuality and the Workplace • Sexual orientation not included in the 1964 Civil Right Act • 2000 Bill Clinton signed an executive order that banned discrimination for all civilian employees in the executive branch • 17 states and 180 cities have laws • Many workplaces where open homosexuality is not accepted • Military: 1993 “Don’t ask, don’t tell policy” • Engaging in sex with a person of the same sex is grounds for discharge, however being gay is not

21. Does gender make a difference in how we understand the performance of individuals on the job?

22. Gender as a Status Position • Social Status: position within a social structure • Example: Mother and Father • Master Status Position: status positions that affect all other social positions in society • Gender, race, sexuality • People occupy a status but they enact roles…

23. Gender and Social Roles • Social Roles: behavior expected from a status position • Gender is present in all social roles, NOT a social role in itself • As a master status position, gender affects how we are expected to perform roles and how our actions are judged

24. The status positions and roles that are most values, rewarded, and possess the highest prestige in our society are defined as masculine, yet gender neutral at the same time • Role Strain • What is the role of a CEO? • Female CEO vs. Male CEO • Role Conflict • What is the role of a mother? Father? • Mother and CEO vs. Father and CEO

25. Political Equality in India • India has significant gender inequality with only 9% of MPs being women • A 1991 law requires one-third of village council elections to female candidates • Study found that the villages headed by women invested in more services that benefited the entire community - schools, roads, and water pumps— than did those with gender-neutral elections, nearly all of which were won by men. • But opinion polls showed the women's governance got lower approval ratings than their male counterparts.

26. Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t • Study surveyed 1,231 senior executives from the United States and Europe • It found that women who act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes — defined as focusing “on work relationships” and expressing “concern for other people’s perspectives” — are considered less competent. • But if they act in ways that are seen as more “male” — like “act assertively, focus on work task, display ambition” — they are seen as “too tough” and “unfeminine.”

27. Same Behavior, Different Gender • Study participants were shown videos of job applicants and asked to rate the applicant and chose their salary • Videos were identical, except for two variables • Gender varied • One video applicant gets angry and the other sad • The participants were most impressed with the angry man, followed by the sad woman, then the sad man, and finally, at the bottom of the list, the angry woman • Angry man got $38k, while angry woman got $23k

28. Too Sexy? • One study showed respondents a video of a woman wearing a sexy low-cut blouse with a tight skirt or a skirt and blouse that were conservatively cut. • The woman recited the same lines in both, and the viewer was either told she was a secretary or an executive. • Being more provocatively dressed had no effect on the perceived competence of the secretary, but it lowered the perceived competence of the executive dramatically.

29. What a difference a gender makes? • According to Peter Lawrence, “It is gentle people of all sorts who are discriminated against in our struggle to survive.” • Do you agree or disagree? Explain • Why do you think the prestigious jobs in our society today reward to the most “pushy and aggressive” people? • What might this have to do with gender inequality in our society?

30. Does the # of women matter? • "I think we want to step back and ask, why is it that almost all Nobel Prize winners are men today? … The answer to that question may be the same reason why all the great scientists in Florence were Christian."

31. “Men and Women of the Corporation” -Moss Kanter • Tokenism: the practice of hiring or appointing a token number of people from underrepresented groups in order to deflect criticism or comply with affirmative action rules • “Tokenism develops in organizations where there is a large preponderance of one type over another up to a ratio of 85:15”

32. Am I doing a good job? • Tokenism does not change stereotypes of social systems but works to preserve them • The token does not have to work hard to be noticed, but does have to work hard to have achievements noticed • Women had to put in extra effort to make their technical skills known • Fear of retaliation • Set up a dynamic that can make tokens afraid of being too outstanding in performance on group events and tasks

33. Symbolic Consequences: Performance • Response to performance pressures - must make a choice • Take advantage of publicity and risk being labeled a “trouble-maker” • Limit visibility and become overlooked • Performance could affect the prospects of other women in the company • Every act tended to be evaluated beyond its meaning for the organization and taken as a sign of “how women perform”

34. The Woman’s Slot • Once women began to occupy certain jobs, those jobs became known as “women’s slots” • Affirmative action and equal employment opportunity jobs were also seen as women’s jobs • Women were stereotyped into roles within the corporation

35. The Mother Role • The assumption that women are sympathetic, good listeners and easy to talk to • Unlikely that nurturance, support and expressivity will be valued

36. The Seductress • Should a woman cast as a sex object share her attention widely, she risks the debasement of the whore • Other men may resent the high status male for winning the prize and resent the woman for gaining an “in” with the high status male • Rewarded for her femaleness and her perceived sexuality blotted out all other characteristics

37. The Pet Role • Adopted by the male group as the cute amusing thing, mascot, cheerleader • Expected to admire male displays but not enter them • Shows of competence were treated as special because they were not expected

38. The Iron Maiden • Women who resist overtures that would trap them in a role • Stereotyped as tougher than they are and trapped in a more militant stance than they might otherwise take

39. Why a ‘few good women’ won’t work • Tokenism is a system rather than an individual construct • System phenomena require system-level intervention • In the absence of external pressures for change, tokenism is a self-perpetuating system