Women are facing many problems in the workplace today. They are suffering lower wages even though they equally qualified as men doing the same jobs. They make up the majority of the labor force in many industries yet they comprise an unflatteringly low representation at the higher levels of decision-making and management in these industries. In the following discussion, I describe some of the major microscopic issues that emerge within these contexts. All traced to sexism within the culture, women are receiving ineffective mentoring, are poorly negotiating salaries, and are often unable to commit full-time to work due to caring for a child.
Mentored professionals tend to receive more promotions, earn a higher income, and tend to be more satisfied with their pay and benefits than those with weak mentoring relationships. A good mentor can be instrumental in getting a woman these benefits, which are surprisingly lagging behind those of men. A wide body of research confirms the problem of weak mentoring among women. Men report feeling uneasy about mentoring women because they feel that it could be viewed as improper by society. Yet, in most corporations, men comprise over 95% of the highest executive and decision-making positions. Consequently, powerful men could provide invaluable career support to women hoping to get promotion and advancement in their careers. Findings suggest that women in middle management positions tend to undervalue their career support and refrain from taking protégé because they fear their protégé’s failure and that they are not qualified enough. This trend does not, however, show up among women in the higher executive positions in the corporate ladder. Further, reports demonstrate that men mentors tend to provide more career support while women mentors tend to provide more socio-emotional support. Finally, research indicates that women get the most effective mentorship out of women mentors than men mentors.
Much research supports the conclusion that women are not effectively negotiating for salaries and benefits. Only 7% of female master’s degree graduates as compared to 57% of male master’s graduates negotiate for a higher salary than was originally offered by the employer. Worse, the outcome of not bargaining for the highest possible starting salary translates into a lifetime of net income loss compounded over a lifetime. Research points to certain mental tendencies among women to explain the poor negotiation skills, which would otherwise contribute greatly to a woman’s ability to act as effective leaders. Women tend to undervalue themselves, have a low sense of personal entitlement, expect less for themselves, and don’t believe they deserve any more than they are offered. Women do not want to jeopardize their job or the relationships they make with their employers through conversation. This has the negative effect of decreasing the worth of the employee in the superior’s eyes. Furthermore, when women do conduct research into the organization to examine their worth, they tend to focus on other women who are similarly undervalued.
A substantial body of research makes it clear that with time, the wage gap has been decreasing. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics found that wage gaps between men and women could be reasonably attributed to personal career choices. For example, women are more likely than men to engage in professional or related occupations but tend to select lower paying careers in that sector than do men. Women go into healthcare and education more than the higher paying and more male-dominated computer and engineering jobs. However, a more problematic aspect about the pay gap is that mothers tend to be more distracted from their work to take care of their children than are fathers. This is exemplified by data showing that women have a greater tendency to take part-time jobs and to experience career interruptions than do men.
References:
http://www.leadershipeducators.org/resources/documents/jole/2004_winter/jole_3_3_tack_mcnutt.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/3379581/A_Critical_Analysis_of_Gender-Based_Workplace_Challenges_Facing_Women_Gender_and_Compensation
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/06/art2full.pdf
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2012.pdf
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/08/on-equal-pay-day-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
I’m very interested in your discussion on mentoring of women. Particularly the argument you posed: “…reports demonstrate that men mentors tend to provide more career support while women mentors tend to provide more socio-emotional support.” I found this interesting in that it truly reflected the stereotype women have superior relational skills or soft skills while men have superior hard skills.
This also makes me wonder which type of mentoring would be more beneficial to women. Mentoring focused on career support or mentoring focused on socio-emotional support.
You contribute the lack of women negotiating to a “certain mental tendencies among women.” However I wonder how the 7% of women who do negotiate are viewed by their employers, and if that contributes to this statistic. Also I wonder what is the success of negotiations lead my women as opposed to men. I wonder this because we have learned that women in leadership positions are sometimes viewed as pushy. I wonder is this same stigma attached to women who negotiate salaries. I think this is an important questions to research in order to find an effective solution to this problem.