Gender inequality in today’s society

Gender inequality in today’s society

Introduction

According to the recent research, women remain to hold fewer positions in the workplace compared to men globally. However, constitutions in many countries are being designed in a way to boost women positions tremendously. This Step has been adopted to obstruct prevailing dominance of men in major positions of leadership. There are reasons behind misrepresentation of women in executive, dictatorial and governance positions. In this case, a common word used to explain barrier to poor women representation in the workplace is glass ceiling. Glass ceiling is used to refer to the invisible obstacles behind gender inequality. One of the major reasons as to why women do not find their way to senior positions is that they do not examine themselves as leaders. As a result, they lack effort to fight for the major positions. Becoming a holder of such major positions takes into account learning the skills, knowledge and roles required in that particular post. In addition, it means learning leadership styles of the people in office.

Barriers for women in leadership positions

In this research, Herminie, Robbin and Deborah condemn organizations by suggesting that they contribute a lot to women failure in reaching major positions in the organizations. “Organizations communicate vacancies on executive positions publicly and openly but the greatest mistake is their failure to tell the policies and practices for mismatches of these positions and women” (Ibarra et al. 2013). Other related researches show that a subtle gender bias that exists in organizations and society are fundamentals that disrupt a cycle at the heart of becoming a leader. This research also recognizes some steps and efforts made by companies towards women encouragement in leadership positions. Women should be motivated through instilling the right skills and using a context that support them.

Although traditional high-potential leadership and mentoring programs are very essential, they are not sufficient to drive women to the executive positions in an organization (Ibarra et al. 2013). This article clearly outlines steps that are recommended for one to become a leader. According to the authors, people become leaders by internalizing their identity and developing a sense of purpose in leadership. Person’s fitness for a job is assessed through taking purposeful action or by encouraging or discouraging subsequent assertions (Ibarra et al. 2013). In addition, person’s high-profile and challenging assignments becomes more likely as leadership capabilities grow and opportunities to demonstrate them expand. This gives a person affirmation for motivation towards new leadership exercises. Absence of such affirmation deprives ones self-confidence and opportunities to seek developmental opportunities and experimenting.

The research conducted by Ibarra, Robin and Deborah about misrepresentation of women in the leadership positions suggests that for women to be effective leaders, they ought to have a sense of purpose that match with their values and that advance the collective good. By doing this, leaders get chance to think beyond the status quo by trying all the ways possible to avoid insecurities and personal fears. The leaders that try to think beyond status quo are trustworthy because they are always ready to take risks in their perceived goals. This is one of the major ways through which women can find their way to executive positions in the organizations.

However, integrating women’s core identity becomes very challenging for women in an organization where, when and how culture of exercising authority is very conflicted. This article suggests that there are practices that equate men with qualities for leadership but not common in women. According to Ibarra et al. (2013) Powerful men are mostly known for creating awareness to other men when leadership programs arise. However this is not commonly responsive to women. It usually takes much time for women to look for leadership potentials as compared to men.

Reasons for few women in corporate leadership

Bottom of Form

According to the new research conducted by Tutchell& Edmonds, (2015), and the data from Bureau Labor of Statistics, there are only 9% of the total women who have made their way into the executive leadership oppositions as compared to men. Surprisingly, a research on the number of women employed or holding leadership positions in corporate governance has been declining tremendously from the year 2011 to 2014 (Tutchell & Edmonds, 2015). It is quite surprising for David Ross to report in his study that the chances of women holding major positions like CEO in a company are few minimal. In his research, Ross says that after analyzing 20year of data on major USA firms, it is rightfully to conclude that the odds of employing another women in an executive body of that organization very low. Apparently, women are over-distributed or in other, words; spread out more evenly than the actual and available chances dictate.

This article offers a wide range of theories that help to explain the phenomenon behind having few women in leadership positions. These include behavior by women and behavior by men. According to the research conducted by Tutchell & Edmonds, J (2015), theory by women asserts that most of them do not take the initiative to actively look for jobs in areas of corporate responsibilities. In addition, they are less mobile in creating awareness to each other and to the environment about any chances available in the job market (Tutchell & Edmonds, 2015). The fact is that very few junior women chose women as their mentors and on the other hand, very few women mentors are interested in taking young women as their mentees. Instead, the two always move on opposite directions as tow magnets confronted on like polarities.

A new research by Nelson & Bridges, (1999) also shows that it becomes very difficult to place two women in the executive positions in the same organization because they will keep on quarrelling and looking down upon each and this clearly explains why it is possible to find more men working at the same institution, all at executive level as compared to women. Placing women in a leadership position where she holds a mandate to execute major responsibilities and giving out powers acts like an ecological niche (Nelson & Bridges, 1999). To bring another woman around and assign the same powers causes competition hence threat at the management level. Basically, society’s norms also hold other major reasons as to why junior women are not likely to select women mentors. Nelson and Bridges asserts that women working in executive positions tend to behave the way an organization expects then to behave in the workforce but forget some of the crucial ways that the society expects from all the women.

Theory by men on the other hand, affects gender inequality at employment level in a very in a significant manner. For instance, in an organization where the top five management positions are occupied by men, raising a fresh person especially a lady to the executive position becomes very difficult because she is always understood as a cause of mess to the current prospering organization (Edwards, 2005). However, some organization tries to have at least one female worker ant the top management level. According to Edwards (2005), they feel that gender equality is highly achieved in the organization and probability of injecting other women into the major leadership position is equal to zero. This rigidity has of recent contributed to high disparities of gender in the workplace.

Studies and related researches have shown that a majority minority play is also contributing greatly to disparities in gender equality. There is always the tension that develops when the minority women in the management reach a certain level. Men may feel highly threatened by the threshold of women to some level in the management hence that is the reason as to why they intend to keep their number in the management positions so minimal to that of men (Edwards, 2005). In order to participate in fighting for gender balance, they end up employing only one woman in the executive positions. The organizations with at least one lady in the management level is actually more better off in fighting inequality at all cost as compared to other organizations where it is even rare to find women at any management level, may it be top, middle or low level management (Edwards, 2005).

Research shows that men will still remain a major reason and cause of gender inequality in the top management level. In addition, they will still remain to be the major obstacles or rigid pillar for women to find their way to the top management team. There is always a belief that in organizations where CEO is a woman, gender equality in the case of getting women employees is achieved. However, this is a big lie.  Still here, men appear to be the major counteracts of women penetration to the top management team. By looking at various job categories, how woman are being selected to the job positions actually depicts why men is a major dominance to gender imbalance.

Reason for women holding few positions of power

This article represents literature collected recently about USA gender distribution in the leadership positions. Recent research shows that there are 19% of the US congress members, less than 5% of the fortune 500 CEOs and only two out of the current crop of USA presidential candidates are women (Eagly, 2016). This shows that women are highly underrepresented in high powered positions.

Negotiating a labyrinth

Basically, men are thought to be ‘agentic’ in leadership. Therefore, they are mostly understood as being assertive and ease to take charge. However, this result to serious women problem called double standard. In this case they are expected to display an agentic character in order to perform on the leadership positions (Edwards, 2005). Secondly, they suffer another problem of double blind whereby women in leadership positions are thought to so be so tough. They are ever criticized just in case of small backslide in their operations. USA is now supporting more women to act like bosses.

Women empowerment

According to the research conducted by Eagly (2016), one of the effective ways of bettering ratioof men to women in the leadership positions is by quota system. For instance research shows that in India none third of village president positions are absolutely reserved for women. In places where quotas had been in operation for more than 10 years, a number of women were recorded to participate in elections compared to men.

Conclusion

It is clearly evident from the articles that leadership inequality based on gender continues to thrive in all parts of the world. Only small percentage of women finds their way to executive management team in an organization with men being absolute dominants of such positions. Significantly, there are unforeseen obstacles such as failure to self-examining, which obstruct women from being leaders.  Secondly, men themselves act as the greatest contributors of gender inequality in leadership positions. In conclusion, in order to fight disparities in gender distribution, women should gain courage and put into practice quota system. These will serve as the major ways to realize their priorities in ruling.