A lot of people assume that our culture has finally accomplished complete sex equality in the labor force and beyond. Having said that, in reality this is just not the case, specifically when it comes to women obtaining senior management opportunities.
It’s widely recognized that businesswomen encounter the glass ceiling in their work. Up to 73% of female respondents in a current Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) study noted that they felt at a disadvantage while trying to get senior management positions in comparison with their male counterparts. Only 38% of men questioned thought a glass ceiling still exists for women in the workplace. This negative view of their career prospects appears to be in place from the beginning of a woman’s career rather than having a later onset brought on by work-related burnout or disappointment, with just one half of women hoping to become managers, compared to two thirds of men.
A higher proportion of women see themselves establishing their very own business endeavor rather than men which clearly illustrates a line of thinking that may be subconscious amid female businesspeople: “The system won’t support me when the time comes to juggle work and family.” Women generally feel as if they’ll be singled out for requiring maternity leave or necessitating a more adaptable agenda during their child-bearing years than their male counterparts. For them, the potential risks of establishing their own venture might seem to outweigh the inevitability of the system failing them. At least with their own business they’re in control.
Aside from the personal preconceptions which women are struggling with at present, outside factors also exist. Boardroom equal rights is not always reached and the explanations vary : it mostly depends upon the business. For organizations that have normally had a boardroom entirely made up of ‘good old boys’, it will be a lot tougher for a woman to obtain a position of dominance. Those men that presently control there might opt for men just like themselves to replace them when they give up work, contributing to a cycle of female discrimination regardless of whether anyone realizes it.
One of the more detrimental assumptions about discrimination is to assume that someone is the bad guy in the scenario. The human mind is very complex and the the vast majority of a person’s thinking takes place in the unobserved recesses of the brain. We gravitate towards that which is familiar and our egos like to see themselves in other people. Even though there are some individuals whom apply discrimination knowingly, most do not however.
Guidance and understanding is a process to ensure that the labourforce is aware of the potential issues that could be present with sex discrimination. A different solution may perhaps be gender allocations which drive sizeable companies to possess a fixed number of women in the upper echelon of management.
Wanting to carry out equality training within your business? 360 diversity is an online diversity forum and information resource which supports training within public, private and third sector organisations across the United Kingdom. Visit http://www.360diversity.com/ for more information.