Historically women in the workplace tend to come up short in many ways. Sociologists usually say that it is due to the gender roles between men and women. When it comes to the workplace sociologist tend to see women in occupations that are considered “pink collar” jobs, pink-collar jobs are those low paying and low status type of occupations. Another argument is that women in the workplace have a huge disadvantage due to the wage gap. A woman with the same job at the same level will get paid 77 cents to the dollar that a man is getting paid, making it even harder for women to catch up. Gender roles also cause women to be looked down upon from the beginning when it comes to their future in the workplace. Growing up women are never encouraged to become president, CEO’s or any other high status occupations. Women are only ever encouraged to do easy jobs that do not usually take a lot of experience or education.
These problems in the workplace caused by societal gender roles discourage women looking to further their experiences in the workplace. Although they are not the only problems. If this discrepancy continues, researchers believe it will only get worse. For example, another huge problem when it comes to gender roles in the workplace. Feminist strongly believe that if things to do not change in the workplace between men and women their will be a higher risk of possible sexual assault in the workplace. They believe that if women feel that they will never get to the top (due to the gender roles in the workplace), men will take advantage of their want for success. Overall, their needs to be a resolution for all this, and that is something that feminist as all whole are working hard to do.
Although it may seem all negative when it comes to the gender differences in the workplace, there are actually some occupations were you see more equality than others. For example, in the United States military there is complete pay equality. Everyone with the same rank no matter if your a man or a woman will get paid the same and the only pay difference is the difference between ranks. You also see this pay equality in most other government jobs one example is the American Red Cross. Though the pay is the same in these occupations there is still many gender role differences. For example, in the military you see a lot of gender differences when it comes time for picking your rate (picking your job), women are not allowed to do certain rates because they are women. There is also a highly debated difference in the physical fitness assessment requirements, women are expected to complete less of the push-ups, sit-ups, and they receive more time to complete the mile and a half run. Biologist argue that it is fair because biologically women and men are built differently, but a lot of people argue that there should be no difference.
When looking at all these ideologies together, it is obvious that there is a problem in our societies workplace. Some may think that their is no way to fix such a matter, due to the fact that it is hard to change the way people think, but the only way to fix something like this is by starting somewhere. It is believed that government occupations are off to a good start by changing the norm by equally paying all of their same-leveled employees no matter if they are a man or a woman. Gender roles in the workplace are an important thing to understand so that you can do your best as women when looking for future employment. Do not let these societal gender stereotypes keep you from achieving greatness in the workplace.