Women In The Workplace Written By Nancy Andrews

Women in the Workplace:

Feminism is an ideology which emerged in the 1960's through the suffragist movement in which women used their collective advocacy to attain the right to vote. Since then, the timeline of feminism has only grown in power and strength. With the waves of war, specifically being World War I and II, women had to take upon the responsibility of joining the workforce when men went off to fight in the war. In the post-war era, the ideal of what a woman was changed solely from a domestic house-wife women to a women equally capable of success in the workplace.

With women entering the workplace post-war, their positions were in factories, bakeries, or other manual laborious positions which used to be filled by men before they went off to war. Since women were now a central part of the workforce post-war era, their positions slowly grew into different industries other than factories.

In the twenty-first century, women are now more than evermore present in the business industry. "Packard advocates for a revolutionary new perspective for businesswomen, which she calls "gamesmanship" -- a strategic way of thinking that cultivates creativity, focus, optimism, teamwork, and competitiveness" (Packard, 2015). Gamesmanship is a way that Packard has created in order for women to attain the same social position men currently have within the patriarchal business society. Sarah Ellis found in her research that, "although each woman [speaks to their own] unique experiences, we heard common threads that included challenges integrating career with family and other life priorities, and common strategies for career advancement" (Ellis, 2013). To be more specific about an incident within Ellis' research, "there was such outrage when the CEO of Yahoo was female and she said she wasn't going to take maternity leave" (Ellis 2013). Therefore, despite women evolving from the post-war era, there is still work to be done by other women such as Susan Packard and Sarah Ellis who use their creativity and education to discover ways in which surviving as a woman in the workplace can be easier for other women.

Women must empower other women; it is as simple as that. The fact that the current patriarchal framework of society is one in which men lead the pack, women within the workplace are placed within a position of a fighting ring in which they must battle each other to the death for only one to survive. Within different industries such as business, Hollywood, even the private and public sectors, women can be pit against other women in order for only one to win in the end. This culture of backstabbing would bring are traditional suffragist heroins to their knees as it beings women in the fight for feminism so backwards. Therefore, in order to solve this issue and move forward through this wave of feminism, women must follow the proven lead of scholars such as Packard and Ellis and discover new paths within industries which can be easier for their sisters to travel through. It is evermore important that in this post-war era, women are uplifting other women in the workplace rather than dragging them down or stabbing them in the back.

When women are able to have each others backs within the workforce, we can use our collective voices to create power, just as the suffragists did, in order to right the wrong of the gender pay gap within industries all around the world. The pay gap between women and men is real, and unfortunately has been a reality for quite some time now. According to Alexis Krivkovich, "more companies are committing to gender equality. But progress will remain slow unless we confront blind spots on diversity—particularly regarding women of color, and employee perceptions of the status quo" (Krivkocich, 2017). Francine Blau argues that the gender pay gap has it's roots in the post-war era. "Women continue to earn considerably less than men on average, and the convergence that began in the late 1970s slowed noticeably in the 1990s" (Blau, 2007). Women therefore must join together in the workforce and share their voices to discus issues such as the gender pay gap, and eventually through this unification of advocacy, women will be able to address the limitations women of colour have within the workplace as well. Feminism is a social movement that must take an ever present stride especially when it is crucially needed in the workplace.

So how to we solve this problem of injustice towards women in the workplace? Singh argues that, "stated the measure of progress of a community is the degree of progress achieved by its women" (Singh, 2016). the two themes which Singh focuses upon most in their work is financial independence and education. In the post-war era, as discussed above, more women were able to gain financial independence and access to an education. As Singh suggests, these two methods are the key to solving the injustice towards women in the workplace around the world. By women empowering other women, and using their financial independence, creativity, and education to path the way for other women, we can right the wrongs of this injustice towards women in the workplace.

• Alexis Krivkovich, Kelsey Robinson, Irina Starikova, Rachel Valentino, and Lareina Yee. “Women in the Workplace 2017.” McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2017.

• Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. 2007. The gender pay gap: Have women gone as far as they can? Academy of Management Perspectives 21 (1): 7-23.

• Cunningham, George B., Mindy E. Bergman, and Kathi N. Miner. 2014. Interpersonal mistreatment of women in the workplace. Sex Roles 71 (1): 1-6.

• Ellis, Sarah, Michelle Monsegur, Divya Varma, and Ishani Mehta. 2013. Women in the workplace: A conversation. Women's Policy Journal of Harvard 10 : 37.

• Packard, Susan. 2015. New rules of the game: 10 strategies for women in the workplace. First ed. New York: Prentice Hall Press.

• Singh, Trishala. 2016. Prevention of sexual harassment of women in the workplace: Seeking gender equality at work in india. Journal of International Women's Studies 18 (1): 104.