Gender Inequality At All Levels Of The Corporate Ladder
One of the most ongoing and prevalent injustices in society is the differences women experience compared to their male counterparts. Prior to the 19th-century women were always treated with lesser value when compared to men. They were treated as an object rather than a human. Fathers would, in a sense, sell their daughters into marriage and their husbands would treat them as their property rather than an equal. Women were expected and told to stay home to tend to the children or do other homely duties. It wasn't until the beginning of the 19th century when women won the right to vote in the United States. During the earlier parts of the century, although having the right to vote, women were still seen as inferior or lesser than men. Though women could vote, they needed to have a father or husband to maintain their citizenship in the United States. Today, women have achieved tremendous success in closing the gap of inequality. There is, however, still inequality at all levels of the corporate ladder. Whether its difference in pay or benefits, the likelihood of being picked for a promotion, or the way they are treated in the workplace, women are fundamentally treated differently than their male counterparts.
Many movements have been pursued across the history of the U. S. starting with what has been called the First Wave of Feminism. In a more simplistic description, it all began with the Seneca Falls Convention. The reason for this convention was due to another convention, the World Anti-Slavery Convention, that would not allow women candidates to be seated simply because they were women. It has a certain sense of irony when an anti-slavery convention refuses women a seat at the table. This First Wave focused mainly on women’s political, suffering, and property laws. Nowadays, what is known as the Fourth Wave of Feminism is mainly about eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace, misogamy, and assault, as well as being treated equally with pay and benefits. This movement is mostly created using social media like Facebook and Twitter. Due to the increased exposure, the women’s rights movement has exploded into what it is today. However, women in the corporate world still experience a very apparent difference in pay.
One large example of this can be seen in the United States "In 2012, survey results reflected that women earned 89% of every dollar earned by a male in the Profession". This statistic is relatively unfair for a country that states everyone is created equally. Some correlation can be seen when looking at the highest levels. One big example is when the administration of President Donald Trump took over. “Filling only 17% of cabinet-level positions with women, President Trump trails the last five presidents in promoting gender equality in the cabinet”. In the past, previous presidents have used the office to further diversity seen at government level jobs. Mostly by using executive order’s, President Johnson, President Nixon, and President Obama made attempts to hire and train more female workers and work at creating more diversity in the workplace. With the newest president, the focus, despite his self-proclaimed “respect for women” is not fully on equality. This can be seen by the lack of women he has appointed, healthcare reforms, and his many budget cuts to various government agencies. This has resulted in the actions of predecessors to show a halt or decrease in what they had accomplished. With the current president treating women the way that he does, these numbers have the potential to slowly decline. In the corporate world, women have seen a small decrease in presence at the highest levels in the last two years. With many Fortune 500 CEO positions being filled by male’s, roughly 5% of these positions are filled by women. Down 1% from 2014. Out of 29 companies that joined the list of Fortune 500 companies in 2016, only one was run by a female.
Some believe that the pay gap is a result of women simply not having positions in the upper levels of the corporate ladder, while some believe that it’s due to discrimination. Despite women reportedly earning less, being treated as incompetent, and being treated with less support by upper management than a man doing the same job. Women are, today, sometimes viewed as smarter than the population of men. Even though women are expected to study nursing or other female-driven fields, women are often outcompeting men at almost every academic level. They are earning more degrees in many different fields. Yet for women to acquire harder degrees like doctorates, women are less likely to get a job compared to men. One major flaw seen at the corporate level of the United States is that women are those that are mainly forced to take sick days or other family days to raise the child(ren). This results in lost business hours, which in turn often leads to women being overlooked for a promotion. In the article “Why are there so Few Women CEO’s And Senior Leaders in Corporate America?” “Henrekson and Stenkula investigated the effect of psychologically induced path dependency and found child-induced breaks created the greatest career progression penalties supporting Welchs’ (2006) conclusion”. One example would be a single mother working a 9-5 corporate job.
To start out, when women give birth to a child, they are given the opportunity of maternity leave. This results in taking off 6 weeks to a whole year of work. Based off the Family Medical Leave Act, when a child is born, new parents whether male or female, are allowed 12 weeks of unpaid time off. This alone would be catastrophic to anyone’s career in corporate America. You would be out of contact with clients, associates, vendors, and management which are often necessary components of a corporate job. After maternity leave ends and the women returns to the office, despite having the 12 weeks off, there are typically going to be additional days that the mother will need to take off to tend to her sick child. On those days, she is leaving the office resulting in loss of productivity for the business as well as a lower gross income for the week for her own self. Most business will pick the best, most dedicated person for a promotion into management or to bring up into the higher levels of a company. Due to the competitive aspect of business setting jobs, the single mother would be more of a liability than an asset. This, in turn, would cause her to be passed over for the promotion and given to someone who could work longer, harder, and more flexible hours.
The unfortunate reality that many women find themselves in today is exactly this situation. The teen pregnancy rating is going up and many of the father’s leave early in the child’s life resulting in a single mother scenario. This can be hard on many of those women who aspire to climb the corporate ladder. Today, there is still a lot of emphasis on women finding her soulmate and starting a family. It can be seen in many movies, especially most Disney Princess movies. They all start out with a damsel in distress awaiting her heroic prince to save her. After being saved, they live happily ever after. Not to say that these movies are wrong, but this has a negative effect on the aspirations and goals of those growing up. Society emphasizes that women need a big strong man that can support, take care of, and protect them. Thus, resulting in women wanting to settle down earlier with someone they fall in love with.
The current generations are rushing into creating a family well before they have fully committed and settled down. Most women change their aspirations simply because they put a bigger necessity on family life opposed to a career. In the article “The Challenges Women Face in Corporate America Are Curbing Their Ambitions. ” A very interesting statistic states “According to the study, which drew on data from 132 US companies employing more 4. 6 million people, only 40% of women actually want senior leadership positions, compared with 56% of men”. For women, 40% of women aspiring to be in a senior leadership position seems low. Assuming women put more emphasis on family than a business opportunity, the wide gap that is shown here between women and men would begin to make sense. Someone who is focused on the family wouldn't aspire to have long work days. However, just because someone is focused on family does not mean that the person isn’t looking to advance in a company or a career. Due to the demands of corporate America being too difficult on those who are single moms, many have taken the matter into their own hands. In the article, “Brevard, NC, Women Say Goodbye to Corporate America. ” The author describes a woman who has had enough with corporate America. “She subsequently quit in March to start her own Web and social media marketing firm, because she realized that climbing the corporate ladder for 40 hours each week, through snow days, sick days, holidays and teacher work days, wasn't right for her. ” This is a powerful stance against the inequality women face in America. Due to women traditionally taking better care of the kids at home, many women who are raising kids, do not have the time or cannot possibly put the hours in at work they would need to climb the ranks in the workplace. Not to say that men lack nurturing skills, many religions as well as society deem it as the woman’s job. Also, within the first few months, a mom typically has a major role in the well-being of the child.
Many high-end jobs are earned by putting in 40-hour work weeks and not missing days. This supports the question of whether women spend more time in the office than their male counterparts. When looking at general statistics, one will see inequal pay between women and men. However, if one was to look at the average time men put in versus women, men typically work more days and hours in corporate setting jobs. This stance is solely based on benefits aspiring mothers receive, whether its maternity leave or having to take days off due to their child being sick. This role is typically placed on the mother. All of which would be frowned upon in a corporate setting where it is fast paced. Age does seem to play a key role amongst the gap in pay between men and women. Prior to the age of 35, women are close to equal employment for supervisor/managerial positions. They also reportedly earn equal or close to the same amount as their male counterparts. However, when you look at women over the age of 55, the employment rate drops considerably. Granted with the average retiring age being 63 this can be expected to a degree.
All in all, Women are treated with a certain prejudice when looking at the difference’s women receive in pay and benefits in corporate America. Since the 19th century women have come a long way and have made many big strides to close these gaps. Today’s society is more equal that it has been in the past. Along with the current “#MeToo” movement, Women are increasingly gaining traction in the American Society. They are being viewed in a different way and many of the discrimination that women face in the workplace such as the difference in pay and benefits, managerial treatment, promotion eligibility, as well as sexual misconduct is seeing a decrease and pointing more towards equality.
Despite all the movements and corporate policies that attempt to enforce equality, the rate in which women are achieving this equality is slower than expected or wished. Women’s role in the family seems to eclipse and distort data and show a greater level of inequality. Not to say that there is no such thing as inequality, simply the data looks worse than it is. Women everywhere are looking at other ways to generate income to better suit their needs, wants, and responsibilities by creating their own businesses. Women are strong and independent and with so many of these different movements, the future should hold many better opportunities for the women in the United States to become truly equal at the corporate level.
