News Flash: Still Present Discrepancies at Work

Despite the best efforts of the various feminist movements, it is glaringly obvious that women still maintain a subservient role in the work force. In the present day, as minority groups are being granted greater equality, one half of the total global population is still being rendered inferior to their male counterparts. Studies show that in the United States, women have made little progress in narrowing the gender gap in the work force, over the past decade. A recent New York Times article titled, “Still a Slow Climb for Women in Management,” examines and tries to make sense of a report released by the Government Accountability Office. The report, based on data collected from the American Community Survey of the Census Bureau, clearly demonstrates that women have yet to achieve equality in the work place, especially in managerial positions. Although women faced obstacles in achieving equality before the market crashed, the current economic crisis has only made women’s inferiority worse for those trying to improve their ranks on the employment ladder. As the article, “Still a Slow Climb for Women in Management,” in the New York Times reports, there are still significant gender discrepancies in the work force, which marginalize women on the basis of their types of jobs and positions, pay, and a balance of work and home life.

One of the most blatant clues to the prevalence of gender discrimination is the difference in the types of jobs that men and women occupy and the positions they hold within those fields. There are certain career fields that employ more women than others. Careers in teaching, nursing, and secretarial work tend to be dominated by women. These types of careers also pay less than the careers dominated by men, such as finance, law, and medicine. The report examined thirteen job industries to measure the percentage of women holding management positions. In seven of the thirteen industries, women held a smaller percentage of the management positions, in comparison to their overall participation percentage in that field of work. In the three industries that women did have a higher share of management roles, which include: construction, public administration, and transportation, women tended to be under represented in that field overall (Rampell). It seems as if the types of work that employ women have less room for upward mobility, or fewer higher position or management jobs, in general. It could also be argued that the majority of the sectors that did have higher percentages of women in management positions are the sectors that require more physical labor or are labeled by society as jobs that only men can perform (i.e. construction workers, electricians, or plumbers). Thus, in order to avoid the question of sexism, employers hire women to become managers or just sit behind a desk, instead of being out in the field with their male counterparts. As for the higher percent of female managers represented in the public administration sector, it could be argued that as a government entity, this sector has to uphold a higher standard of equal opportunity employment to convince the public that the government is doing its part to promote gender equality. Ellen Neuborne writes about discrimination in the types of work women are asked to carry out in he article, “Imagine my Surprise.” At her first newspaper job, Neuborne was asked to cover a story about a local fundraiser for a natural disaster. She had followed the story from the beginning, and when she was about to travel to the location of the disaster, she was taken off the case and was replaced by a male colleague. She was told that the long drive would be too strenuous for her. Neuborne comments on her boss’ blatant act of sexism, “He seemed, in voice and manner, to be concerned about me. It worked. A man got the big story. And I got to stay home. It was a classic example of a woman being kept out of a plum project ‘for her own good’” (Listen Up, 184). Neuborne’s experience and the New York Times’ article demonstrate that women constantly face employment discrimination.

The types of jobs that women occupy and the positions they hold greatly influence the rate of their earnings. The disparity in earnings shows that equal work does not necessarily mean equal pay. However, it should be noted that progress has been made to narrow this gap. The report showed that in 2009, full-time employed women earned 80.2 cents for every dollar men made, as opposed to 62.3 cents to every dollar in 1979 (Rampell). While an 18 cents increase may seem significant, the thirty-year time frame of this transition is less than impressive. In the past thirty years, so much has happened in regards to the procurement of rights and equality for other disenfranchised groups that a gain of less than twenty percent in female earnings hardly seems progressive. It should also be taken into consideration that the twenty percent increase has not been distributed evenly across all groups of women. In terms of types of employment, for instance, the report found that across all of the thirteen industries the gender gap in managers’ pay shrunk only slightly. In 2007, on average, full-time female managers earned 81cents per dollar of their male counterpart’s earnings, as opposed to 79 cents in 2000. Looking at specific fields, the gap was the narrowest in public administration (women earned 87 cents for every dollar earned by men), and the widest gap was in construction and financial services (79 cents to every dollar) (Rampell). As aforementioned, the smaller discrepancy in public administration makes sense given governmental accountability and public transparency in this sector. Furthermore, it is not surprising that the construction and finance sectors have the widest gap because of society’s connotations and stereotypes about women working in those sectors. Overall, the fact remains that women have yet to be fully acknowledged for their contributions to the work force, as evident by the current wage gaps.

The article really highlighted the difficulty for women to try to balance work with their home life, based on statistics from the report. The article seems to imply that women cannot have both worlds, and are forced to eventually choose between one and the other. The study showed that managers who had children experienced a wider pay gap. Since 2000, managers who are mothers earned 79 cents to every dollar earned by managers who are fathers. The article suggests that this discrepancy influences the statics that female managers are less likely to have children than male managers. In 2007, the report found that 63 percent of female managers did not have children in comparison to the 57 percent of male managers who did not have children. Additionally, female mangers were less likely to be married (59 percent) compared to 74 percent of married male managers. The report also found that on average, women in management positions were less educated, younger, and more likely to only work part-time than their male colleagues (Rampell). These statics allude to the fact that women in the workforce feel the pressure to choose between work and family more so than men do. When examining some of the aforementioned statistics, it is easy to draw the conclusion that women who do choose to start families are gradually pushed back into the home and find it very difficult to return back to work. Betty Friedan wrote in The Feminine Mystique about the feelings unfulfilled housewives had in the years following World War II, and how those women who had goals of becoming more than just housewives and having careers were looked down upon. Friedan states, “For the oldest of these women, these daughters of the American middle class, no other dream was possible. The ones in their forties and fifties who once had other dreams gave them up and threw themselves joyously into life as housewives,” and she goes on to ask, “are the women who finished college, the women who once had dreams beyond housewifery, the ones who suffer the most?” (Feminism in our Time, 62). Friedan’s writing can be used to help make sense of the confliction modern day working women feel over their careers. It seems as if a combination of factors play into the report’s statistics. Are women initially discriminated against because of their potential to get pregnant and leave the work force “prematurely?” Do women once again face discrimination when trying to reenter the work force because of their age? It is also important to consider factors other than forms of discrimination to explain women’s positions and subordination in the various fields of work. Do working mothers just not have the time to work full-time? There also seems to be a sense of fear among working women with powerful positions that all of their hard work that got them to where they are will be for nothing once they get married, start a family, and risk not being able to return to work or reclaim the level of power they once had. It is unfortunate that even in the modern era, women are still facing similar issues as described by Betty Friedan in the 1960s in trying to strike a balance between work and family.

The New York Times article, “Still a Slow Climb for Women in Management,” proves that gender discrimination is still very prominent in the work force. The types of jobs and positions women can occupy remain limited and segregated. Working women are also the victims of wage discrepancies. Furthermore, employed women are often forced to choose between their careers and home life. The results of this Census report go to show that a feminist movement is still necessary to procure the future rights of women in the work force.