“Small amounts of money for incidental expenses, as in ‘Grandma usually gives the children some pin money whenever she visits’. This expression originally signified money given by a husband to his wife for small personal expenditures such as pins, which were very costly items in centuries past” (Dictionary.com, online)
Many women began to enjoy working, so when the men returned from the front line to regain their old lives back, women weren’t happy and wanted to keep on working. Within just one year, when men returned from the front line, 775,000 women either left voluntarily or had been dismissed. (Bruley, 1999, p61)
Since those days there have been many attitudes that have changed and laws passed to allow women into the workplace as equals to men. Generation by generation, attitudes have grown more equal to women in the workplace, and with new laws passed such as equal pay act in 1963, sex discrimination at work in 1975, sexual harassment, a form of sex discrimination and part of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. These are just a few of the laws been past to try to conquer inequality. Any overt discrimination has been wiped out almost, but it doesn’t stop covert discrimination from happening subtly in the workplace. (Equal Opportunities Commission, online 2004)
This history has a lot to do with the differences between men and women in the workplace currently. As attitudes are constantly changing it means there are attitudes that are still to be changed. How can men and women be treated the same in the workplace when they never truly start from the same point?
Men still get paid, on average, 23.9% more an hour than women do. (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2004) The question is how do we tackle this issue? Should we ignore the differences between men and women treating everyone the same as a human not seeing that anyone has a gender, or should we appreciate that men and women are very different from one another and celebrate this?
Differences between men and women
There are obvious differences between men and women, the human body form being the most noticeable, but there are other differences that happen inside the body that makes men and women very different.
Women have two X chromosomes and men have X and Y chromosomes within the body. The Y chromosome develops a different hormone for men called testosterone, without this they would be women. (About Chromosomes and Gender, online)
These chromosome and hormone differences make up the distinction between men and women such as, physical size, body fat distribution, dietary requirements and psychology and behaviour.
states,
“The hormonal differences between men and women may also be responsible for the distinctions in behaviour pattern. Testosterone and related male hormones are often considered as responsible for aggression and drive” (What makes women different from men, online)
From the information presented, it is fair to say that hormonal differences between the sexes will make actions different in the workplace. But the question still remains, do we ignore the differences or should they be recognised and celebrated.
Celebrating the differences
If we celebrate the differences between men and women would this mean that men and women would actually find better jobs? Although a man or woman would be suited to one type of job, would they actually want to do it?
Masculine qualities are associated with words like strong, leader, powerful and successful. Whereas feminine qualities are associated with words like weak, follower, girly and pretty.
If we celebrated this in the work force there would be no women in positions of power. Women would take up roles like low level teachers and nurses and men would run the business world. There would be no women in the army as women wouldn’t be strong and powerful enough to do the job. It would probably mean that, with women being seen as weak, they wouldn’t be allowed into parliament either. This would mean that men would run the country without having a woman’s side represented apart from the vote.
Women have a maternal instinct, something that biologically cannot be helped when a woman bears children. A Philadelphia psychiatrist, Elyse Rubenstein describes the maternal instinct,
"An inborn tendency to want to protect and nurture one's offspring. Almost all mothers (human and animal alike) eventually come to feel this way after they have a child” (Demystifying the maternal instinct, online)
If we celebrated this quality in women that have children, women would fulfil all the nurturing job roles that society has to offer. There would be a glass ceiling in every job for a woman and this would be no good for the type of woman that wants to be challenged in a highly competitive business environment.
The Glass Ceiling can only be described as,
“A barrier so subtle that it is transparent, yet so strong that it prevents women and minorities from moving up the management hierarchy” (V. O’Leary and M. Ryan, 1994, p64)
If the differences between men and women were celebrated there would be a glass ceiling in many companies. There has been a lot fighting against glass ceilings over the years, by celebrating the differences between men and women, it would reintroduce this concept. The introduction of acts like the sex discrimination act 1975 and equal pay act 1963 have battled against glass ceilings in the workplace.
If men and women’s differences were celebrated in the work place women would not get high-powered jobs leading to women having to depend on men for everything. Society would become more like pre war times with men being the breadwinners and the women earning the pin money. If differences were celebrated society would take a huge step back. Everything that women have battled for to make the workplace equal for both sexes and shatter the glass ceiling, would be cut down if women didn’t have a choice to do the jobs they wanted to do just because of their sex.
Another alternative would be to ignore the differences between men and women, giving a more equal workplace.
Ignoring the differences
Celebrating differences between men and women in the workplace would make the workplace an unequal ground and would lead to discrimination.
Ignoring the differences between men and women would then be treating everyone in the work place as individuals and recognising people as good performers for management roles. (L.J. Mullins, 1999, p303) For some individuals this is a hard concept as seeing the difference is a very obvious thing and acting differently is something that is subconscious. Everyone would have to look past gender and see what an individual has to offer.
Recognising someone as an individual is all about assessing behaviour patterns that are consistent. This is called stable personality theory. Personality is something that is very hard to study, as they appear to be flexible. Many people act differently at home as to how they act at work. To be able to study personality in the individual it has to be accepted that distinctive features of personality doesn’t change and that these features can be measured in comparison to others. Personality, it is believed, is determined by the biochemistry in the brain hence making everyone individual. (A. Huczynski and D. Buchanan, 2001, p144)
There is an obvious problem with this issue though. It is certainly ignoring the fact that men and women are different, if women decide to have children.
Women miss out years of their career due to having children and men don’t have this problem. A man’s paternity leave is only paid for two weeks as a woman’s is much longer due to biological reasons, something that cannot be changed. Therefore men can keep adding to their human capital when a woman cannot. P. Johnson from the department of political science in Auburn University explains Human Capital as,
“Practical knowledge, acquired skills and learned abilities of an individual that make him or her potentially productive”(Political Economy Terms, online)
Ignoring the differences between men and women in the work place is also ignoring issues like this, unless there is a way this can be tackled. Why should men have the opportunity to add to their human capital and have a family, when a woman can just have the family?
Is this the reason why 72% of men in selected managerial occupations are corporate managers and only 28% of women are? (Equal opportunities commission, online, Appendix 1.1) This percentage is far too high to be just coincidence, there must be reasons for it. The Equal Opportunities Commission web site have many more statistics that reflect this result as well. (Appendix 1.2)
With statistics like this it’s hard not to assume that men have more power in the workplace than women do.
Conclusion
Celebrating the differences between men and women may suit some people that are happy to be treated unequally from the opposite sex, but this is not acceptable for most people. Celebrating the differences between men and women leads to discrimination in the workplace, when differences are ignored in the workplace it paves the way for a more equal environment. There are some problems with ignoring the differences, like human capital, but overall it is a better direction to move towards equality in the workplace.
There are measures that could be taken to conquer the issue of human capital, the offer of the same maternity leave for men and women would be a good start. It would allow a couple to choose which one would go back to work sooner and would allow men to become house husbands. It would also make it less of a taboo subject encouraging more men that it is all right for them to stay at home and run the house while the woman is the financial supporter.
