Women in the workforce
Encyclopedia
Until modern industrialized times, legal and cultural practices, combined with the inertia of longstanding religious and educational traditions, had restricted women's entry and participation in the workforce
. Economic dependency upon men, and consequently the poor socio-economic status of women had also restricted their entry into the workforce
. Particularly as occupations have become professionalized
over the 19th and 20th centuries, women's access to higher education
had effectively excluded them from the practice of well-paid and high status occupations. Entry of women into the higher professions like law
and medicine
was delayed in most countries due to women being denied entry to universities and qualification for degrees. For example, Cambridge University only fully validated degrees for women late in 1947, and even then only after much opposition and acrimonious debate. Such factors had largely limited women to low-paid and poor status occupations for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, through the 20th century, public perceptions of paid work shifted as the workforce increasingly moved to office jobs that do not require heavy labor, and women increasingly acquired the higher education that led to better-compensated, longer-term career
s rather than lower-skilled, shorter-term jobs.
Restrictions on women's access to and participation in the workforce include the wage gap and the glass ceiling
, inequities most identified with industrialized nations with nominal equal opportunity
laws; legal and cultural restrictions on access to education and jobs, inequities most identified with developing nations; and unequal access to capital, variable but identified as a difficulty in both industrialized and developing nations.
Although access to paying occupations (the "workforce") has been and remains unequal in many occupations and places around the world, scholars sometimes distinguish between "work" and "paying work".
This analysis considers uncompensated household labor — for instance, childcare, eldercare, and family subsistence farming — as well as compensated work in the workforce.
Such analyses have led to the oft-cited slogan "Women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income, and own 1 percent of the means of production." However, although oft-cited and used as a slogan this statement seems not to be supported by any data.
has been particularly studied in women's studies
(especially women's history
, which has frequently examined the history and biography of women's participation in particular fields) and gender studies
more broadly. Occupational studies, such as the history of medicine
or studies of professionalization
, also examine questions of gender, and the roles of women in the history of particular fields.
In addition, modern civil rights law has frequently examined gender restrictions of access to a field of occupation; gender discrimination within a field; and gender harassment in particular workplaces. This body of law is called employment discrimination law
, and gender and race discrimination are the largest sub-sections within the area. Laws specifically aimed at preventing discrimination against women have been passed in many countries; see, e.g., the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in the United States.
s. Women were 15% of the total work force (1.8 million out of 12.5). They made up one-third of factory “operatives,” but teaching and the occupations of dressmaking, millinery, and tailoring played a larger role. Two-thirds of teacher
s were women. Women could also be found in such unexpected places as iron and steel works (495), mines (46), sawmills (35), oil wells and refineries (40), gas works (4), and charcoal kilns (5) and held such surprising jobs as ship rigger (16), teamster (196), turpentine laborer (185), brass founder/worker (102), shingle and lathe maker (84), stock-herder (45), gun and locksmith (33), hunter and trapper (2).
In the beginning of the 20th century women were regarded as the guardians of morality; they were seen as made finer than men and were expected to act as such their role was not defined as workers or money makers. Women were expected to hold on to their innocence until the right man came along so that they can start a family and inculcate that morality they were in charge of preserving. Yet at the turn of the 20th century, a civil war changed America was now educating their women more and more. By 1900, four out of five colleges accepted women and a whole coed concept was becoming more and more accepted.
In the United States, it was World War I
that made space for women in the workforce amongst other economical and social influences. Due to the rise in demand for production from Europe during the raging war, women found themselves working outside the home.
In the first quarter of the century, women mostly occupied jobs in factory work or as domestic servants, as the war come to an end they were able to move on to such jobs as: salespeople in department stores as well as clerical, secretarial and other, what is called, "lace-collar" jobs. . In July 1920, The New York Times
ran a head line that read: "the American Woman ... has lifted her skirts far beyond any modest limitation" which could apply to more than just fashion; women were now rolling up their sleeves and skirts and making their way into the workforce.
World War II
allowed for millions of jobs for women. Thousands of women actually joined the military:
140,000 in the Women's Army Corps (United States Army) WAC;
100,000 in the Navy (WAVE);
23,000 in the Marines;
14,000 in the Navy Nurse Corps and,
13,000 in the Coast Guard.
Although almost none saw combat, they replaced men in non combative positions and got the same pay as the men would have on the same job. At the same time over 16 million men left their jobs to join the war in Europe and elsewhere, opening even more opportunities and places for women to take over in the job force.
The gradual change that took off after this point can be broken down into four phases, the first three being evolutionary phases, moving slowly and spanning many years. The last phase is revolutionary because it took off quickly and in a short period of time. The last phase is most commonly known as The Quiet Revolution.
The first phase encompasses the time between the late 19th century to the 1930s. This era gave birth to the 'Independent female worker.' From 1890-1930, women in the workforce were typically young and unmarried. They had little or no learning on the job and typically held clerical and teaching positions. Many women also worked in textile manufacturing or as domestics. Women promptly exited the work force when they were married, unless the family needed two incomes. Towards the end of the 1920s, as we enter into the second phase, married women begin to exit the work force less and less. Labor force productivity for married women 35–44 years of age increase by 15.5 percentage points from 10% to 25%. There was a greater demand for clerical positions and as the number of women graduating high school increased they began to hold more 'respectable', steady jobs. This phase has been appropriately labeled as the Transition Era referring to the time period between 1930-1950. During this time the discriminatory institution of marriage bars
, which forced women out of the work force after marriage, were eliminated, allowing more participation in the work force of single and married women. Additionally, women's labor force participation increased because there was an increase in demand for office workers and women participated in the high school movement. However, still women's work was contingent upon their husband's income. Women did not normally work to fulfill a personal need to define ones career and social worth; they worked out of necessity.
In the third phase, labeled the "roots of the revolution" encompassing the time from 1950- mid-to-late 1970s, the movement began to approach the warning signs of a revolution. Women's expectations of future employment changed. Women began to see themselves going on to college and working through their marriages and even attending graduate school. Many however still had brief and intermittent work force participation, without necessarily having expectations for a 'career'. To illustrate, most women were secondary earners, and worked in "pink collar jobs" as secretaries, teachers, nurses, and librarians. Although more women attended college, it was often expected that they attended to find a spouse—the so-called "M.R.S. degree". Nevertheless, Labor force participation by women still grew significantly.
The fourth phase, known as The Quiet Revolution, began in the late 1970s and continues on today. Beginning in the 1970s women began to flood colleges and grad schools. They began to enter profession like medicine
, law, dental and business. More women were going to college and expected to be employed at the age of 35, as opposed to past generations that only worked intermittently due to marriage and childbirth. This increase in expectations of long-term gainful employment is reflected in the change of majors adopted by women from the 1970s on. The percentage of women majoring in education declined beginning in the 1970s; education was once a popular major for women since it allowed them to step into and out of the labor force when they had children and when their children grew up to a reasonable age at which their mothers did not have to serve primarily as caretakers. Instead, majors such as business and management were on the rise in the 1970s, as women ventured into other fields that were once predominated by men. They experienced an expansion of their horizons and an alteration of what it meant to define their own identity. Women worked before they got married, and since women were marrying younger they were able to define themselves prior to a serious relationship.
The reasons for this big jump in the 1970s has been attributed by some scholars to widespread access to the birth control pill. While "the pill" was medically available in the 1960s, numerous laws restricted access to it. See, e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut
, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) (overturning a Connecticut statute barring access to contraceptives) and Eisenstadt v. Baird
, 405 U.S. 438 (1972) (establishing the right of unmarried people to access contraception). By the 1970s, the age of majority
had been lowered from 21 to 18 in the United States, largely as a consequence of the Vietnam War
; this also affected women's right to effect their own medical decisions. Since it had now become socially acceptable to postpone pregnancy even while married women had the luxury of thinking about other things, like education and work. Also, due to electrification women's work around the house became easier leaving them with more time to be able to dedicate to school or work. Due to the multiplier effect, even if some women were not blessed with access to the pill or electrification, many followed by the example of the other women entering the work force for those reasons. The Quiet Revolution is called such because it was not a "big bang" revolution; rather, it happened and is continuing to happen gradually.
"Women in Management" is about women in business in usually male-dominated areas. Their motivation, their ideas and leadership styles and their ability to enter into leadership positions is the subject of most of the different networks.
As of 2009, women represented 20.9% of parliament in Europe (both houses) and 18.4% world average.
As of 2009, 90 women serve in the U.S. Congress: 18 women serve in the Senate, and 73 women serve in the House.
In the private sector, men still represent 9 out of 10 board members in European blue-chip companies, The discrepancy is widest at the very top: only 3% of these companies have a woman presiding over the highest decision-making body.
List of members of the European Network of Women in Decision-making in Politics and the Economy:
The EU Commission has created a platform for all these networks. It also funded the Women to the Top
program in 2003-2005 to bring more women into top management.
Some organizations have been created to promote the presence of women in top responsibilities, in politics and business. One example is EWMD European women's Management Development
(cited above), a European and international network of individual and corporate members, drawn from professional organisations. Members are from all areas of business, education, politics and culture.
Women who are born into the upper class rather than the middle or lower class have a much better chance at holding higher positions of power in the work force if they choose to enter it.
s have followed the formation of agricultural and then industrial societies, newly developed profession
s and fields of occupation have been frequently inflected by gender. Some examples of the ways in which gender affects a field include:
Note that these gender restrictions may not be universal in time and place, and that they operate to restrict both men and women. However, in practice, norms and laws have historically restricted women's access to particular occupations; civil rights laws and cases have thus primarily focused on equal access to and participation by women in the workforce. These barriers may also be manifested in hidden bias and by means of many microinequities.
" through the 19th and 20th centuries, gaining regulatory bodies, and passing laws or regulations requiring particular higher education
al requirements. As women's access to higher education was often limited, this effectively restricted women's participation in these professionalizing occupations. For instance, women were completely forbidden access to Cambridge University until 1868, and were encumbered with a variety of restrictions until 1987 when the university adopted an equal opportunity policy. Numerous other institutions in the United States and Western Europe began opening their doors to women over the same period of time, but access to higher education remains a significant barrier to women's full participation in the workforce in developing countries. Even where access to higher education is formally available, women's access to the full range of occupational choices is significantly limited where access to primary education is limited through social custom.
Statistical discrimination
in the workplace is unintentional discrimination based on the presumed probability that a worker will or will not remain with the company for a long period of time. Specific to women, since employers believe that women are more likely to drop out of the labor force to have kids, or work part time while they are raising kids, this tends to hurt their chances for job advancement. They are passed up for promotions because of the possibility that they may leave, and are in some cases placed in positions with little opportunity for upward mobility to begin with based on these same stereotypes.
Women earn less money that men.
Furthermore, women as a whole tend to be less assertive and confrontational. One of the factors contributing to the higher proportion of raises going to men is the simple fact that men tend to ask for raises more often than women, and are more aggressive when doing so.
Though women comprise approximately half of the student body of American law schools, they represent only 17% of partners at major law firms and less than a quarter of tenured law professors. Similarly, on the national level, we have had only one female U.S. Attorney General, three female Secretaries of State, two women Supreme Court Justices, and one acting Solicitor General.
of the 1960s, women began to enter the workforce in great numbers. Women had also had high labor market participation during World War II as so many male soldiers were away, women had to take up jobs to support their family and keep their local economy on track. Many of these women dropped right back out of the labor force when the men returned home from war to raise children born in the generation of the baby boomer
s. In the late 1960s when women began entering the labor force in record numbers, they were entering in addition to all of the men, as opposed to substituting for men during the war. This dynamic shift from the one-earner household to the two-earner household dramatically changed the socioeconomic class system of this country.
over the last 50 years. Female children of the middle and upper classes had increased access to higher education, and thanks to job equality, were able to attain higher-paying and higher-prestige jobs than ever before. Due to the dramatic increase in availability of birth control
, these high status women were able to delay marriage and child-bearing until they had completed their education and advanced their careers to their desired positions. In 2001, the survey on sexual harassment at workplace conducted by women's nonprofit organisation Sakshi among 2,410 respondents in government and non-government sectors, in five States recorded 53 per cent saying that both sexes don't get equal opportunities, 50 per cent women are treated unfairly by employers and co-workers, 59 per cent have heard sexist remarks or jokes, 32 per cent have been exposed to pornography or literature degrading women.
In comparison with other sectors, IT organisations may be offering equal salaries to women and the density of women in technology companies may be relatively high but this does not necessarily ensure a level playing field. For example Microsoft (US ) was sued because of the conduct of one of its supervisors over e-mail. The supervisor allegedly made sexually offensive comments via e-mail, such as referring to himself as "president of the amateur gynecology club." He also allegedly referred to the plaintiff as the "Spandex Queen. E-harassment is not the sole form of harassment. In 1999, Juno Online faced two separate suits from former employees who alleged that they were told that they would be fired if they broke off their ongoing relationships with senior executives. Pseudo Programs, a Manhattan-based Internet TV network, was sued in January 2000 after male employees referred to female employees as "bimbos" and forced them to look at sexually explicit material on the Internet. In India HR managers admit that women are discriminated against for senior Board positions and pregnant women are rarely given jobs but only in private. Recently a sexual harassment suit against a senior member shocked the Indian IT sector.
Recognising the invisible nature of power structures that marginalise women at the workplace, the Supreme Court in the landmark Vaishaka versus High Court of Rajasthan (1997) identified sexual harassment as violative of the women's right to equality in the workplace and enlarged the ambit of its definition. The judgment equates a hostile work environment on the same plane as a direct request for sexual favours. To quote: "Sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as: physical contact and advances; a demand or request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks; showing pornography; any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature". The judgement mandates appropriate work conditions should be provided for work, leisure, health, and hygiene to further ensure that there is no hostile environment towards women at the workplace and no woman employee should have reasonable grounds to believe that she is disadvantaged in connection with her employment.
This law thus squarely shifts the onus onto the employer to ensure employee safety but most mid-sized Indian service technology companies are yet to enact sexual harassment policies. Admits K Chandan, an advocate from Chandan Associates, "I have a few IT clients. When I point to the need for a sexual harassment policy, most tend to overlook or ignore it. Its not high on the agenda." An HR Manager of India's premier technology companies rues: "I am going to use the recent case to push the policy through. Earlier the draft proposal was rejected by the company." Yet another HR manager from a flagship company of India's leading business house, oblivious to the irony of her statement, admitted that the company had a grievance redressal mechanism but no sexual harassment policy in place. The lax attitudes transgress the Supreme Court judgment wherein the Court not only defined sexual harassment, but also laid down a code of conduct for workplaces to prevent and punish it, "Employers or other responsible authorities in public or private sectors must comply with the following guidelines: Express prohibition of sexual harassment should be notified and circulated; private employers should include prohibition of sexual harassment in the standing orders under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946." As for the complaint procedure, not less than half of its members should be women. The complaint committee should include an NGO or other organisation that is familiar with the issue of sexual harassment. When the offence amounts to misconduct under service rules, appropriate disciplinary action should be initiated. When such conduct amounts to an offence under the Indian Penal Code, the employer shall initiate action by making a complaint with the appropriate authority. However, the survey by Sakshi revealed 58 per cent of women were not aware of the Supreme Court guidelines on the subject. A random survey by AssureConsulting.com among hundred employees working in the IT industry revealed startling results: Less than 10 per cent were familiar with the law or the company's sexual harassment policy. Surprisingly, certain HR managers were also ignorant of the Supreme Court guidelines or the Draft Bill by the National Commission of Women against sexual harassment at the workplace.
Not surprisingly many cases go unreported. However given the complexities involved, company policy is the first step and cannot wish away the problem. Says Savita HR Manager at Icelerate Technologies, "We have a sexual harassment policy that is circulated among employees. Also the company will not tolerate any case that comes to its notice. But the man at home is no different from the person at the office," thus implying the social mindset that discriminates against women is responsible for the problem. Considering sexual censorship and conservative social attitudes emphasising " woman's purity," the victim dare not draw attention for fear of being branded a woman with "loose morals". Women would rather brush away the problem or leave jobs quietly rather than speak up, even in organisations that have a zero tolerance policy. Says Chandan, "I do not have exact statistics but from my experience as an advocate one in 1,500 cases are reported." The problem cannot be resolved till more women speak up but the social set-up browbeats women into silence. The social stigma against the victim and the prolonged litigation process for justice thwarts most women from raising their voice. Purports K Chandan "It may take between three and five years to settle a case, and in a situation where the harassment is covert, evidence is hard to gather and there is no guarantee that the ruling would be in favour of the victim. In one of the rare cases I handled a Country Manager was accused and the plaintiff opted for an out of court settlement."
The dice is, thus, heavily loaded against women. Claims of new age companies of creating liberal and egalitarian workplaces are under serious examination. Companies can come clear by adopting a zero tolerance policy against sexism of any form. Probably the recent publicised case may just about drive companies to do so.
For the first time in the history of this country, there were distinctive socioeconomic stratification among women as there has been among men for centuries. This deepened the inequality between the upper/middle and lower/working classes. Prior to the feminist movement, the socioeconomic status of a family was based almost solely on the husband/father's occupation. Women who were now attaining high status jobs were attractive partners to men with high status jobs, so the high earners married the high earners and the low earners married the low earners. In other words, the rich got richer and the poor stayed the same, and have had increased difficulty competing in the economy.
Philosophy
Social sciences
Social sciences – Anthropology
Social sciences – Archaeology
Social sciences – History
Social sciences – Linguistics
"STEM" fields (science, technology, engineering, and maths); see also women in science
Medical professions
Legal professions
Religious professions
Helping professions (social work, childcare, eldercare, etc.)
Journalism and media professions
Architecture and design
Arts and literature; see also Women's writing in English
and Women artists
Entertainment and modeling
Explorers, navigators, travelers, settlers
Sports and athletics
Business and leadership
European Union initiatives and information
Public policy and governmental occupations
Military professions
Criminal occupations
See Women in crime and :Category:Female pirates
Workforce
The workforce is the labour pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, country, state, etc. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and implies those involved in...
. Economic dependency upon men, and consequently the poor socio-economic status of women had also restricted their entry into the workforce
Workforce
The workforce is the labour pool in employment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, country, state, etc. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and implies those involved in...
. Particularly as occupations have become professionalized
Professionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members...
over the 19th and 20th centuries, women's access to higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
had effectively excluded them from the practice of well-paid and high status occupations. Entry of women into the higher professions like law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
was delayed in most countries due to women being denied entry to universities and qualification for degrees. For example, Cambridge University only fully validated degrees for women late in 1947, and even then only after much opposition and acrimonious debate. Such factors had largely limited women to low-paid and poor status occupations for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, through the 20th century, public perceptions of paid work shifted as the workforce increasingly moved to office jobs that do not require heavy labor, and women increasingly acquired the higher education that led to better-compensated, longer-term career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
s rather than lower-skilled, shorter-term jobs.
Restrictions on women's access to and participation in the workforce include the wage gap and the glass ceiling
Glass ceiling
In economics, the term glass ceiling refers to "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements." Initially, the metaphor applied to barriers in the careers of women but...
, inequities most identified with industrialized nations with nominal equal opportunity
Equal opportunity
Equal opportunity, or equality of opportunity, is a controversial political concept; and an important informal decision-making standard without a precise definition involving fair choices within the public sphere...
laws; legal and cultural restrictions on access to education and jobs, inequities most identified with developing nations; and unequal access to capital, variable but identified as a difficulty in both industrialized and developing nations.
Although access to paying occupations (the "workforce") has been and remains unequal in many occupations and places around the world, scholars sometimes distinguish between "work" and "paying work".
This analysis considers uncompensated household labor — for instance, childcare, eldercare, and family subsistence farming — as well as compensated work in the workforce.
Such analyses have led to the oft-cited slogan "Women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income, and own 1 percent of the means of production." However, although oft-cited and used as a slogan this statement seems not to be supported by any data.
Areas of study
The division of labor by genderGender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
has been particularly studied in women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
(especially women's history
Women's history
Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history, together with the methods needed to study women. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, the examination of individual women of historical significance, and the...
, which has frequently examined the history and biography of women's participation in particular fields) and gender studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
more broadly. Occupational studies, such as the history of medicine
History of medicine
All human societies have medical beliefs that provide explanations for birth, death, and disease. Throughout history, illness has been attributed to witchcraft, demons, astral influence, or the will of the gods...
or studies of professionalization
Professionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members...
, also examine questions of gender, and the roles of women in the history of particular fields.
In addition, modern civil rights law has frequently examined gender restrictions of access to a field of occupation; gender discrimination within a field; and gender harassment in particular workplaces. This body of law is called employment discrimination law
Employment discrimination
Employment discrimination is discrimination in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, and compensation. It includes various types of harassment....
, and gender and race discrimination are the largest sub-sections within the area. Laws specifically aimed at preventing discrimination against women have been passed in many countries; see, e.g., the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in the United States.
History and present-day status of women in the workforce
The 1870 US Census was the first US Census to count “Females engaged in each occupation” and provides an intriguing snapshot of women's history. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, not all American women of the Victorian period were either idle in their middle class homes or working in sweatshopSweatshop
Sweatshop is a negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may be violated. Sweatshops may have...
s. Women were 15% of the total work force (1.8 million out of 12.5). They made up one-third of factory “operatives,” but teaching and the occupations of dressmaking, millinery, and tailoring played a larger role. Two-thirds of teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
s were women. Women could also be found in such unexpected places as iron and steel works (495), mines (46), sawmills (35), oil wells and refineries (40), gas works (4), and charcoal kilns (5) and held such surprising jobs as ship rigger (16), teamster (196), turpentine laborer (185), brass founder/worker (102), shingle and lathe maker (84), stock-herder (45), gun and locksmith (33), hunter and trapper (2).
In the beginning of the 20th century women were regarded as the guardians of morality; they were seen as made finer than men and were expected to act as such their role was not defined as workers or money makers. Women were expected to hold on to their innocence until the right man came along so that they can start a family and inculcate that morality they were in charge of preserving. Yet at the turn of the 20th century, a civil war changed America was now educating their women more and more. By 1900, four out of five colleges accepted women and a whole coed concept was becoming more and more accepted.
In the United States, it was World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
that made space for women in the workforce amongst other economical and social influences. Due to the rise in demand for production from Europe during the raging war, women found themselves working outside the home.
In the first quarter of the century, women mostly occupied jobs in factory work or as domestic servants, as the war come to an end they were able to move on to such jobs as: salespeople in department stores as well as clerical, secretarial and other, what is called, "lace-collar" jobs. . In July 1920, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran a head line that read: "the American Woman ... has lifted her skirts far beyond any modest limitation" which could apply to more than just fashion; women were now rolling up their sleeves and skirts and making their way into the workforce.
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
allowed for millions of jobs for women. Thousands of women actually joined the military:
140,000 in the Women's Army Corps (United States Army) WAC;
100,000 in the Navy (WAVE);
23,000 in the Marines;
14,000 in the Navy Nurse Corps and,
13,000 in the Coast Guard.
Although almost none saw combat, they replaced men in non combative positions and got the same pay as the men would have on the same job. At the same time over 16 million men left their jobs to join the war in Europe and elsewhere, opening even more opportunities and places for women to take over in the job force.
The Quiet Revolution
The increase of women in the labor force gained momentum in the late 19th century. At this point women married early on and were defined by their marriages. If they entered the workforce it was only out of necessity. This in turn explained why most women in the labor force were lower class.The gradual change that took off after this point can be broken down into four phases, the first three being evolutionary phases, moving slowly and spanning many years. The last phase is revolutionary because it took off quickly and in a short period of time. The last phase is most commonly known as The Quiet Revolution.
The first phase encompasses the time between the late 19th century to the 1930s. This era gave birth to the 'Independent female worker.' From 1890-1930, women in the workforce were typically young and unmarried. They had little or no learning on the job and typically held clerical and teaching positions. Many women also worked in textile manufacturing or as domestics. Women promptly exited the work force when they were married, unless the family needed two incomes. Towards the end of the 1920s, as we enter into the second phase, married women begin to exit the work force less and less. Labor force productivity for married women 35–44 years of age increase by 15.5 percentage points from 10% to 25%. There was a greater demand for clerical positions and as the number of women graduating high school increased they began to hold more 'respectable', steady jobs. This phase has been appropriately labeled as the Transition Era referring to the time period between 1930-1950. During this time the discriminatory institution of marriage bars
Marriage bars
Marriage bars were a practice adopted from the late 19th century to the 1960s restricting married women from employment in many professions, especially teaching and clerical jobs...
, which forced women out of the work force after marriage, were eliminated, allowing more participation in the work force of single and married women. Additionally, women's labor force participation increased because there was an increase in demand for office workers and women participated in the high school movement. However, still women's work was contingent upon their husband's income. Women did not normally work to fulfill a personal need to define ones career and social worth; they worked out of necessity.
In the third phase, labeled the "roots of the revolution" encompassing the time from 1950- mid-to-late 1970s, the movement began to approach the warning signs of a revolution. Women's expectations of future employment changed. Women began to see themselves going on to college and working through their marriages and even attending graduate school. Many however still had brief and intermittent work force participation, without necessarily having expectations for a 'career'. To illustrate, most women were secondary earners, and worked in "pink collar jobs" as secretaries, teachers, nurses, and librarians. Although more women attended college, it was often expected that they attended to find a spouse—the so-called "M.R.S. degree". Nevertheless, Labor force participation by women still grew significantly.
The fourth phase, known as The Quiet Revolution, began in the late 1970s and continues on today. Beginning in the 1970s women began to flood colleges and grad schools. They began to enter profession like medicine
Women in medicine
Historically and in many parts of the world, women's participation in the profession of medicine has been significantly restricted, although women's practice of medicine, informally, in the role of caregivers, or in the allied health professions, has been widespread...
, law, dental and business. More women were going to college and expected to be employed at the age of 35, as opposed to past generations that only worked intermittently due to marriage and childbirth. This increase in expectations of long-term gainful employment is reflected in the change of majors adopted by women from the 1970s on. The percentage of women majoring in education declined beginning in the 1970s; education was once a popular major for women since it allowed them to step into and out of the labor force when they had children and when their children grew up to a reasonable age at which their mothers did not have to serve primarily as caretakers. Instead, majors such as business and management were on the rise in the 1970s, as women ventured into other fields that were once predominated by men. They experienced an expansion of their horizons and an alteration of what it meant to define their own identity. Women worked before they got married, and since women were marrying younger they were able to define themselves prior to a serious relationship.
The reasons for this big jump in the 1970s has been attributed by some scholars to widespread access to the birth control pill. While "the pill" was medically available in the 1960s, numerous laws restricted access to it. See, e.g., Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut, , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives...
, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) (overturning a Connecticut statute barring access to contraceptives) and Eisenstadt v. Baird
Eisenstadt v. Baird
Eisenstadt v. Baird, , was an important United States Supreme Court case that established the right of unmarried people to possess contraception on the same basis as married couples and, by implication, the right of unmarried couples to engage in potentially nonprocreative sexual intercourse .The...
, 405 U.S. 438 (1972) (establishing the right of unmarried people to access contraception). By the 1970s, the age of majority
Age of majority
The age of majority is the threshold of adulthood as it is conceptualized in law. It is the chronological moment when minors cease to legally be considered children and assume control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thereby terminating the legal control and legal responsibilities of...
had been lowered from 21 to 18 in the United States, largely as a consequence of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
; this also affected women's right to effect their own medical decisions. Since it had now become socially acceptable to postpone pregnancy even while married women had the luxury of thinking about other things, like education and work. Also, due to electrification women's work around the house became easier leaving them with more time to be able to dedicate to school or work. Due to the multiplier effect, even if some women were not blessed with access to the pill or electrification, many followed by the example of the other women entering the work force for those reasons. The Quiet Revolution is called such because it was not a "big bang" revolution; rather, it happened and is continuing to happen gradually.
Women in decision making
Female decision-makers from around Europe are organized in several national and European wide networks. The networks aim to promote women in decision-making positions in politics and the economy across Europe. These networks were founded in the 1980s and are often very different from the "service clubs" founded in the early days of the century, like Soroptimist and Zontas."Women in Management" is about women in business in usually male-dominated areas. Their motivation, their ideas and leadership styles and their ability to enter into leadership positions is the subject of most of the different networks.
As of 2009, women represented 20.9% of parliament in Europe (both houses) and 18.4% world average.
As of 2009, 90 women serve in the U.S. Congress: 18 women serve in the Senate, and 73 women serve in the House.
In the private sector, men still represent 9 out of 10 board members in European blue-chip companies, The discrepancy is widest at the very top: only 3% of these companies have a woman presiding over the highest decision-making body.
List of members of the European Network of Women in Decision-making in Politics and the Economy:
- Committee of Women Elected Representatives of Local and Regional Authorities (Council of European Municipalities and Regions)
- BPW Europe, Business and Professional Women – Europe
- Association of Organisations of Mediterranean Businesswomen
- EurochambresEurochambresEUROCHAMBRES is the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The association is one of the largest business representative organisation in Brussels, representing over 20 million companies through its network of 2000 Chambers of Commerce and Industry...
Women's Network - European Platform of Women ScientistsEuropean Platform of Women ScientistsThe European Platform of Women Scientists EPWS is an umbrella organisation bringing together networks of women scientists and organisations committed to gender equality in research in all disciplines in Europe 27 and the countries associated to the European Union’s Framework Programmes for Research...
- Network of Parliamentary Committees for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union
- European Network to Promote Women's Entrepreneurship
- European women's lobbyEuropean women's lobbyFounded in 1990, the European Women’s Lobby is an NGO and the largest umbrella organisation of women’s associations in the European Union , working to promote women’s rights and equality between women and men...
- European Women's Lawyers Association
- CEE Network for Gender Issues
- European Women Inventors and Innovators Network
- European Women's Management Development International Network, EWMD
- Femanet - Eurocadres
- European Professional Women's Network, EPWN
- Women's Forum for the Economy and the Society
The EU Commission has created a platform for all these networks. It also funded the Women to the Top
Women to the Top
Women to the Top was a European project for bringing more women into top management. It was funded by the European Commission and ran 2003-2005 in Estonia, Denmark, Greece and Sweden. The total budget was 5.6 million SEK...
program in 2003-2005 to bring more women into top management.
Some organizations have been created to promote the presence of women in top responsibilities, in politics and business. One example is EWMD European women's Management Development
European women's Management Development
European Women's Management Development is a European and international network of individual and corporate members, drawn from professional organisations. Members are from all areas of business, education, politics and culture....
(cited above), a European and international network of individual and corporate members, drawn from professional organisations. Members are from all areas of business, education, politics and culture.
Women who are born into the upper class rather than the middle or lower class have a much better chance at holding higher positions of power in the work force if they choose to enter it.
Barriers to equal participation
As gender roleGender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
s have followed the formation of agricultural and then industrial societies, newly developed profession
Profession
A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....
s and fields of occupation have been frequently inflected by gender. Some examples of the ways in which gender affects a field include:
- Prohibitions or restrictions on members of a particular gender entering a field or studying a field;
- DiscriminationDiscriminationDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
within a field, including wage, management, and prestige hierarchies; - Expectation that mothers, rather than fathers, should be the primary childcare providers.
Note that these gender restrictions may not be universal in time and place, and that they operate to restrict both men and women. However, in practice, norms and laws have historically restricted women's access to particular occupations; civil rights laws and cases have thus primarily focused on equal access to and participation by women in the workforce. These barriers may also be manifested in hidden bias and by means of many microinequities.
Access to education
A number of occupations became "professionalizedProfessionalization
Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation transforms itself into a true "profession of the highest integrity and competence." This process tends to involve establishing acceptable qualifications, a professional body or association to oversee the conduct of members...
" through the 19th and 20th centuries, gaining regulatory bodies, and passing laws or regulations requiring particular higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
al requirements. As women's access to higher education was often limited, this effectively restricted women's participation in these professionalizing occupations. For instance, women were completely forbidden access to Cambridge University until 1868, and were encumbered with a variety of restrictions until 1987 when the university adopted an equal opportunity policy. Numerous other institutions in the United States and Western Europe began opening their doors to women over the same period of time, but access to higher education remains a significant barrier to women's full participation in the workforce in developing countries. Even where access to higher education is formally available, women's access to the full range of occupational choices is significantly limited where access to primary education is limited through social custom.
Access to capital
Women's access to occupations requiring capital outlays is also hindered by their unequal access (statistically) to capital; this affects occupations such as entrepreneur and small business owner, farm ownership, and investor. Numerous microloan programs attempt to redress this imbalance, targeting women for loans or grants to establish start-up businesses or farms, having determined that aid targeted to women can disproportionately benefit a nation's economy. While research has shown that women cultivate more than half the world's food — in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, women are responsible for up to 80% of food production — most such work is family subsistence labor, and often the family property is legally owned by the men in the family.Discrimination within occupations
The idea that men and women are naturally suited for different occupations is known as horizontal segregation.Statistical discrimination
Statistical discrimination (economics)
Statistical discrimination is an economic theory of racial or gender inequality based on stereotypes. According to this theory, inequality may exist and persist between demographic groups even when economic agents are rational and non-prejudiced...
in the workplace is unintentional discrimination based on the presumed probability that a worker will or will not remain with the company for a long period of time. Specific to women, since employers believe that women are more likely to drop out of the labor force to have kids, or work part time while they are raising kids, this tends to hurt their chances for job advancement. They are passed up for promotions because of the possibility that they may leave, and are in some cases placed in positions with little opportunity for upward mobility to begin with based on these same stereotypes.
Women earn less money that men.
Network Discrimination
Part of the problem keeping women out of the highest paying, most prestigious positions is that they have historically not held these positions. As a result, recruiters for these high-status jobs are predominantly white males, and tend to hire similar people in their networks. Their networks are made up of mostly white males from the same socio-economic status, which helps perpetuate their over-representation in the best jobs.Actions and Inactions of Women Themselves
Through a process known as employee clustering, employees tend to be grouped throughout the workplace both spatially and socially with those of a similar status job. Women are no exception and tend to be grouped with other women making comparable amounts of money. They compare wages with the women around them and believe their salaries are fair because they are average. Some women are content with their lack of wage equality with men in the same positions because they are unaware of just how vast the inequality is.Furthermore, women as a whole tend to be less assertive and confrontational. One of the factors contributing to the higher proportion of raises going to men is the simple fact that men tend to ask for raises more often than women, and are more aggressive when doing so.
Occupational Dissimilarity Index
Choice of occupation is considered to be one of the key factors contributing to the male-female wage differential. In other words, careers with a majority of female employees tend to pay less than careers that employ a majority of males. This is different from direct wage discrimination within occupations, as males in the female dominated professions will also make lower than average wages and the women in the male dominated occupations usually make higher than average wages. The occupational dissimilarity index is a measure from 0 to 100; it measures the percent of laborers that would need to be rearranged into a job typically done by the opposite sex in order for the wage differential to disappear. In 1960, the dissimilarity index in America was measured at 62. It has dropped since then, but at 47 in 2000, is still one of the highest of any developed nation.Women's participation in different occupations
below are a list of encyclopedia article links detailing women's historical involvement in various occupations.- Sciences - See generally Women in scienceWomen in scienceWomen have made contributions and sacrifices to science from the earliest times. Like many men in science, women have received little or no distinction for their work during their lifetimes. Science is generally and historically a male-dominated field, and evidence suggests that this is due to...
and List of female scientists- Women in computingWomen in computingGlobal concerns about current and future roles of women in computing occupations gained more importance with the emerging information age. These concerns motivated public policy debates addressing gender equality as computer applications exerted increasing influence in society...
(see also Women in the Information AgeWomen in the information ageWomen in the Information Age is a research project located at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The project is focused on women's involvement in technology and in uncovering reasons behind the lack of women in the field. WITIA is headed by Dr. Jane Fountain. The project was previously...
research project) - Women in engineeringWomen in engineering-USA:The percentage of female graduate students in engineering in 2001 was 20%. Doctoral degrees awarded to women in engineering increased from 11.6% to 17.6% of total degrees awarded between 1995 and 2004...
- Women in geologyWomen in geologyWomen in geology concerns the history and contributions of women to the field of geology. There has been a long history of women in the field, but they have tended to be underrepresented. In the era before the eighteenth century science and geological science had not been as formalized as they...
- List of female mathematicians
- Women in computing
- Medical professions - See generally Women in medicineWomen in medicineHistorically and in many parts of the world, women's participation in the profession of medicine has been significantly restricted, although women's practice of medicine, informally, in the role of caregivers, or in the allied health professions, has been widespread...
- Legal professions - See generally Women in the United States judiciary
Though women comprise approximately half of the student body of American law schools, they represent only 17% of partners at major law firms and less than a quarter of tenured law professors. Similarly, on the national level, we have had only one female U.S. Attorney General, three female Secretaries of State, two women Supreme Court Justices, and one acting Solicitor General.
- Arts, writing, media, sports and entertainment
- Women artistsWomen artistsWomen artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
(visual arts) - Women SurrealistsWomen SurrealistsWomen Surrealists are women artists, photographers, filmmakers and authors of the Surrealist Movement which began in the early 1920s. Many of them were part of, or connected to, the official Surrealist movement. Others were inspired but more distantly connected.-Painters:*Eileen Forrester Agar ...
- Performing arts
- Vulcana Women's CircusVulcana Women's CircusVulcana Women's Circus is an Australian circus, created with the aim of training women and girls in the circus arts. Started in 1995 by Antonella Casella in Brisbane, Australia, the company was named after the famous British strongwoman Vulcana....
(organization for women in the circus)
- Vulcana Women's Circus
- Writing
- Women's writing in EnglishWomen's writing in EnglishWomen's writing as a discrete area of literary studies is based on the notion that the experience of women, historically, has been shaped by their gender, and so women writers by definition are a group worthy of separate study...
- Women in journalism and media professionsWomen in journalism and media professionsAs journalism became a profession, women were restricted by custom and law from access to journalism occupations, and faced significant discrimination within the profession...
- List of female rhetoricians
- List of early-modern women playwrights (UK)
- List of female poets
- Women's writing in English
- Film
- List of female film and television directors
- Women's cinemaWomen's cinemaThe term women's cinema usually refers to films made by women. Above all, it designates the work of women film directors and, to a lesser degree, the work of other women behind the camera such as cinematographers and screenwriters...
(discusses women screenwriters & directors)
- Music
- Female composers in the United States during the 20th century
- Women composers of Catholic musicWomen composers of Catholic musicSince the Middle Ages, women including Hildegard of Bingen and Vittoria Aleotti have been composing music for the church.American, Australian and English Catholic hymn collections dating from the first half of the 20th century included hymns and service music by women religious living in convents...
- List of female composers
- List of female composers by name
- List of female film score composers
- Sports
- Women's professional sportsWomen's professional sportsProfessional athletes are distinguished from amateur athletes by virtue of being paid. Throughout the world, most top female athletes are not paid, and work full-time or part-time jobs in addition to their training, practice and competition schedules. Women's professional sports organizations defy...
- Women's sportsWomen's sportsWomen's sports include amateur and professional competitions in virtually all sports. Female participation in sports rose dramatically in the twentieth century, especially in the last quarter, reflecting changes in modern societies that emphasized gender parity...
and browse the category
- Women's professional sports
- Women artists
- Humanities:
- Women in philosophyWomen in philosophyAlthough women have engaged in philosophy throughout the field's history, philosophy as a profession was long closed to women by law and custom. Even today, philosophy departments are disproportionately male.-USDE reports:U.S...
and List of female philosophers
- Women in philosophy
- Crime: Women in piracyWomen in piracyWhile piracy was predominantly a male activity or occupation, a significant minority of historical pirates have been female. Female pirates, like other women in crime, faced unique issues in practicing this occupation and in punishment for it....
- Government: Women in politicsWomen in politicsWomen in government in the modern era are under-represented in most countries worldwide, in contrast to men. However, women are increasingly being politically elected to be heads of state and government...
- Military:
- Women in the military
- Women in the military by countryWomen in the military by country-Eritrea:Female soldiers in Eritrea played a large role in both the Eritrean civil war and the border dispute with Ethiopia, because they make up more than 25% of the Eritrean military.-Libya:...
, in EuropeWomen in the military in Europe-Denmark:Women were employed in the Danish armed forces as early as 1934 with the Ground Observer Corps, Danish Women’s Army Corps and Naval Corps in 1946 and the Women’s Air Force since 1953. In 1962 the Danish parliament passed laws allowing women to volunteer in the regular Danish armed forces...
, and in the AmericasWomen in the military in the Americas-Canada:During the First World War, over 2,300 women served overseas in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. Canadian women were also organized into possible uniformed home guard units, undertaking military training in paramilitary groups... - History of women in the military; Timeline of women in ancient warfareTimeline of women in ancient warfareWarfare throughout written history mainly has been portrayed in modern times as a matter for men, but women also have played a role. Until very recently, little mention of these exploits was included in the historical records made available in most countries....
; Timeline of Women in Medieval warfareTimeline of women in Medieval warfareWarfare throughout history has mainly been a matter for men, but women have also played a role, often a leading one. The following list of prominent women in war and their exploits from about 500 C.E... - List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture
- :Category:Female military personnel;
- Women's Land ArmyWomen's Land ArmyThe Women's Land Army was a British civilian organisation created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls...
; - :Category:Female wartime spies
Gender Inequality In the Different Social Classes
In the last 50 years we have experienced great changes toward gender equality in America. With the feminist movementFeminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
of the 1960s, women began to enter the workforce in great numbers. Women had also had high labor market participation during World War II as so many male soldiers were away, women had to take up jobs to support their family and keep their local economy on track. Many of these women dropped right back out of the labor force when the men returned home from war to raise children born in the generation of the baby boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
s. In the late 1960s when women began entering the labor force in record numbers, they were entering in addition to all of the men, as opposed to substituting for men during the war. This dynamic shift from the one-earner household to the two-earner household dramatically changed the socioeconomic class system of this country.
Effects of Women in the Workforce on the Middle and Upper Classes
The addition of women into the workforce was one of the key factors that has decreased social mobilitySocial mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement of people in a population from one social class or economic level to another. It typically refers to vertical mobility -- movement of individuals or groups up from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marrying; but can also refer to...
over the last 50 years. Female children of the middle and upper classes had increased access to higher education, and thanks to job equality, were able to attain higher-paying and higher-prestige jobs than ever before. Due to the dramatic increase in availability of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
, these high status women were able to delay marriage and child-bearing until they had completed their education and advanced their careers to their desired positions. In 2001, the survey on sexual harassment at workplace conducted by women's nonprofit organisation Sakshi among 2,410 respondents in government and non-government sectors, in five States recorded 53 per cent saying that both sexes don't get equal opportunities, 50 per cent women are treated unfairly by employers and co-workers, 59 per cent have heard sexist remarks or jokes, 32 per cent have been exposed to pornography or literature degrading women.
In comparison with other sectors, IT organisations may be offering equal salaries to women and the density of women in technology companies may be relatively high but this does not necessarily ensure a level playing field. For example Microsoft (US ) was sued because of the conduct of one of its supervisors over e-mail. The supervisor allegedly made sexually offensive comments via e-mail, such as referring to himself as "president of the amateur gynecology club." He also allegedly referred to the plaintiff as the "Spandex Queen. E-harassment is not the sole form of harassment. In 1999, Juno Online faced two separate suits from former employees who alleged that they were told that they would be fired if they broke off their ongoing relationships with senior executives. Pseudo Programs, a Manhattan-based Internet TV network, was sued in January 2000 after male employees referred to female employees as "bimbos" and forced them to look at sexually explicit material on the Internet. In India HR managers admit that women are discriminated against for senior Board positions and pregnant women are rarely given jobs but only in private. Recently a sexual harassment suit against a senior member shocked the Indian IT sector.
Recognising the invisible nature of power structures that marginalise women at the workplace, the Supreme Court in the landmark Vaishaka versus High Court of Rajasthan (1997) identified sexual harassment as violative of the women's right to equality in the workplace and enlarged the ambit of its definition. The judgment equates a hostile work environment on the same plane as a direct request for sexual favours. To quote: "Sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as: physical contact and advances; a demand or request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks; showing pornography; any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature". The judgement mandates appropriate work conditions should be provided for work, leisure, health, and hygiene to further ensure that there is no hostile environment towards women at the workplace and no woman employee should have reasonable grounds to believe that she is disadvantaged in connection with her employment.
This law thus squarely shifts the onus onto the employer to ensure employee safety but most mid-sized Indian service technology companies are yet to enact sexual harassment policies. Admits K Chandan, an advocate from Chandan Associates, "I have a few IT clients. When I point to the need for a sexual harassment policy, most tend to overlook or ignore it. Its not high on the agenda." An HR Manager of India's premier technology companies rues: "I am going to use the recent case to push the policy through. Earlier the draft proposal was rejected by the company." Yet another HR manager from a flagship company of India's leading business house, oblivious to the irony of her statement, admitted that the company had a grievance redressal mechanism but no sexual harassment policy in place. The lax attitudes transgress the Supreme Court judgment wherein the Court not only defined sexual harassment, but also laid down a code of conduct for workplaces to prevent and punish it, "Employers or other responsible authorities in public or private sectors must comply with the following guidelines: Express prohibition of sexual harassment should be notified and circulated; private employers should include prohibition of sexual harassment in the standing orders under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946." As for the complaint procedure, not less than half of its members should be women. The complaint committee should include an NGO or other organisation that is familiar with the issue of sexual harassment. When the offence amounts to misconduct under service rules, appropriate disciplinary action should be initiated. When such conduct amounts to an offence under the Indian Penal Code, the employer shall initiate action by making a complaint with the appropriate authority. However, the survey by Sakshi revealed 58 per cent of women were not aware of the Supreme Court guidelines on the subject. A random survey by AssureConsulting.com among hundred employees working in the IT industry revealed startling results: Less than 10 per cent were familiar with the law or the company's sexual harassment policy. Surprisingly, certain HR managers were also ignorant of the Supreme Court guidelines or the Draft Bill by the National Commission of Women against sexual harassment at the workplace.
Not surprisingly many cases go unreported. However given the complexities involved, company policy is the first step and cannot wish away the problem. Says Savita HR Manager at Icelerate Technologies, "We have a sexual harassment policy that is circulated among employees. Also the company will not tolerate any case that comes to its notice. But the man at home is no different from the person at the office," thus implying the social mindset that discriminates against women is responsible for the problem. Considering sexual censorship and conservative social attitudes emphasising " woman's purity," the victim dare not draw attention for fear of being branded a woman with "loose morals". Women would rather brush away the problem or leave jobs quietly rather than speak up, even in organisations that have a zero tolerance policy. Says Chandan, "I do not have exact statistics but from my experience as an advocate one in 1,500 cases are reported." The problem cannot be resolved till more women speak up but the social set-up browbeats women into silence. The social stigma against the victim and the prolonged litigation process for justice thwarts most women from raising their voice. Purports K Chandan "It may take between three and five years to settle a case, and in a situation where the harassment is covert, evidence is hard to gather and there is no guarantee that the ruling would be in favour of the victim. In one of the rare cases I handled a Country Manager was accused and the plaintiff opted for an out of court settlement."
The dice is, thus, heavily loaded against women. Claims of new age companies of creating liberal and egalitarian workplaces are under serious examination. Companies can come clear by adopting a zero tolerance policy against sexism of any form. Probably the recent publicised case may just about drive companies to do so.
Effects of Women in the Workforce on the Working and Lower Classes
While middle and upper class women benefited from entering the workforce and the feminism movement, working and lower class women suffered. Women in lower wage jobs are more likely to be subject to wage discrimination. They are more likely to bring home far less than their male counterparts with equal job status, and get far less help with housework from their husbands than the high-earning women. Women with low educational attainment entering the workforce in mass quantity lowered earnings for some men, as the women brought about a lot more job competition. The lowered relative earnings of the men and increase in birth control made marriage prospects harder for lower income women.For the first time in the history of this country, there were distinctive socioeconomic stratification among women as there has been among men for centuries. This deepened the inequality between the upper/middle and lower/working classes. Prior to the feminist movement, the socioeconomic status of a family was based almost solely on the husband/father's occupation. Women who were now attaining high status jobs were attractive partners to men with high status jobs, so the high earners married the high earners and the low earners married the low earners. In other words, the rich got richer and the poor stayed the same, and have had increased difficulty competing in the economy.
Professional areas
Teaching, librarianship, and university professions- Maenette K. P. Benham and Joanne Cooper, Let My Spirit Soar!: Narratives of Diverse Women in School Leadership (1-Off)
- Roger Blanpain and Ann Numhauser-Henning, Women in Academia and Equality Law: Aiming High, Falling Short? Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom (Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations)
- S. A. L. Cavanagh, The Gender of Professionalism and Occupational Closure: the management of tenure-related disputes by the 'Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario' 1918-1949, Gender and Education, 15.1, March 2003, pp. 39–57. See Routledge.
- Regina Cortina and Sonsoles San Roman, Women and Teaching: Global Perspectives on the Feminization of a Profession
- Nancy Hoffman, Woman's "True" Profession, 2nd ed. (1982, 2nd ed.) ("classic history of women and the teaching profession in the United States")
- Julia Kwong, Ma Wanhua, and Wanhua Ma, Chinese Women and the Teaching Profession
- See also :Category:Female academics
Philosophy
- See also Women in philosophyWomen in philosophyAlthough women have engaged in philosophy throughout the field's history, philosophy as a profession was long closed to women by law and custom. Even today, philosophy departments are disproportionately male.-USDE reports:U.S...
and :Category:Women philosophers
Social sciences
- Kathleen Bowman and Larry Soule, New Women in Social Sciences (1980)
- Lynn McDonald, The Women Founders of the Social Sciences (1994)
- See also: :Category:Women social scientists
Social sciences – Anthropology
- Barbara A. Babcock and Nancy J. Parezo, Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880-1980 (1988)
- Ruth Behar and Deborah A. Gordon, Women Writing Culture (1996)
- Maria G. Cattell and Marjorie M. Schweitzer, Women in Anthropology: Autobiographical Narratives and Social History (2006)
- Ute D. Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, and Ruth Weinberg, Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies (1989); Women Anthropologists: A Biographical Dictionary (1988)
- Nancy Parezo, Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American (1993)
Social sciences – Archaeology
- Cheryl Claassen, Women in Archaeology (1994)
- Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Marie Louise Stig Sorensen, Excavating Women: A History of Women in European Archaeology (1998; 2007)
- Getzel M. Cohen and Martha Sharp Joukowsky, editors, Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists (2004)
- Nancy Marie White, Lynne P. Sullivan, and Rochelle A. Marrinan, Grit-Tempered: Early Women Archaeologists in Southeastern United States (2001)
Social sciences – History
- Eileen Boris and Nupur Chaudhuri, Voices of Women Historians: The Personal, the Political, the Professional (1999)
- Jennifer Scanlon and Shaaron Cosner, American Women Historians, 1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary (1996)
- Nadia Smith, A "Manly Study"?: Irish Women Historians, 1868-1949 (2007)
- Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower (forthcoming 2008)
- Southern Association for Women Historians
Social sciences – Linguistics
- Davison, The Cornell Lectures: Women in the Linguistics Profession
"STEM" fields (science, technology, engineering, and maths); see also women in science
Women in science
Women have made contributions and sacrifices to science from the earliest times. Like many men in science, women have received little or no distinction for their work during their lifetimes. Science is generally and historically a male-dominated field, and evidence suggests that this is due to...
- Violet B. Haas and Carolyn C. Perrucci, Women in Scientific and Engineering Professions (Women and Culture Series)
- Patricia Clark Kenschaft, Change Is Possible: Stories of Women and Minorities in Mathematics
- J A Mattfeld, Women & the Scientific Professions
- Jacquelyn A. Mattfeld and Carol E. Van Aken, Women and the Scientific Professions: The MIT Symposium on American Women in Science and Engineering (1964 symposium; 1976 publication)
- Karen Mahony & Brett Van Toen, Mathematical Formalism as a Means of Occupational Closure in Computing—Why "Hard" Computing Tends to Exclude Women, Gender and Education, 2.3, 1990, pp. 319–31. See ERIC record.
- Peggy A. Pritchard, Success Strategies for Women in Science: A Portable Mentor (Continuing Professional Development Series)
- Margaret W. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Women Scientists in America)
- Otha Richard Sullivan and Jim HaskinsJames HaskinsJames Haskins was a prolific and award-winning author with more than one hundred books for both adults and children. Many of his books highlight the achievements of African Americans and cover the history and culture of Africa and the African American experience...
, Black Stars: African American Women Scientists and Inventors - See also :Category:Women engineers; :Category:Women scientists
- See also List of pre-21st-century female scientists
Medical professions
- See Women in the medical professions and :Category:Midwives
Legal professions
- Joan Brockman and Dorothy E. Chunn, "A new order of things": women's entry into the legal profession in British Columbia", The Advocate
- The Commission on Women in the Profession, Visible Invisibility: Women of Color in Law Firms
- The Commission on Women in the Profession, Sex-Based Harassment, 2nd Edition: Workplace Policies for the Legal Profession
- Hedda Garza, Barred from the Bar: A History of Women in the Legal Profession (Women Then—Women Now)
- Jean Mckenzie Leiper, Bar Codes: Women in the Legal Profession
- Sheila McIntyre and Elizabeth Sheehy, Calling for Change: Women, Law, and the Legal Profession
- Mary Jane Mossman, The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law And the Legal Professions
- Rebecca Mae Salokar and Mary L. Volcansek, Women in Law: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook
- Ulrike Schultz and Gisela Shaw, Women in the World's Legal Professions (Onati International Series in Law and Society)
- Lisa Sherman, Jill Schecter, and Deborah Turchiano, Sisters-In-Law: an Uncensored Guide for Women Practicing Law in the real world
- See Women in the U.S. JudiciaryWomen in the U.S. JudiciaryThe number of women in the United States judiciary has increased as more women have entered law school.-Breaking into the field of law:The entry of women into the legal profession was continuously thwarted by the general impression that women were unfit to practice law...
and categories :Category:Women judges and :Category:Female lawyers
Religious professions
- Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry
- Lenore Friedman, Meetings with Remarkable Women: Buddhist Teachers in America
- See also :Category:Female religious leaders and :Category:Nuns and List of female mystics
Helping professions (social work, childcare, eldercare, etc.)
- Ski Hunter, Sandra Stone Sundel, and Martin Sundel, Women at Midlife: Life Experiences and Implications for the Helping Professions
- Linda Reeser, Linda Cherrey, and Irwin Epstein, Professionalization and Activism in Social Work (1990) (covers gender as part of history of professionalization), Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231067887
- Sarah Stage and Virginia B. Vincenti, editors, Rethinking Home Economics: Women and the History of a Profession
- See also :Category:Governesses
Journalism and media professions
- See Women in journalism and media professionsWomen in journalism and media professionsAs journalism became a profession, women were restricted by custom and law from access to journalism occupations, and faced significant discrimination within the profession...
Architecture and design
- Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession by Kathryn H. Anthony
- The First American Women Architects by Sarah Allaback (forthcoming 2008)
- See also :Category:Women architects
Arts and literature; see also Women's writing in English
Women's writing in English
Women's writing as a discrete area of literary studies is based on the notion that the experience of women, historically, has been shaped by their gender, and so women writers by definition are a group worthy of separate study...
and Women artists
Women artists
Women artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
- Margaret Barlow, Women ArtistsWomen artistsWomen artists have been involved in making art in most times and places. Often certain certain media are associated with women, particularly textile arts; however, these gender roles in art change in different cultures and communities...
- Whitney Chadwick, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement
- Liz Rideal, Whitney Chadwick, and Frances Borzello, Mirror Mirror: Self-Portraits by Women Artists
- Jo Franceschina, Women and the Profession of Theater, 1810-1860
- National Geographic SocietyNational Geographic SocietyThe National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
, Women Photographers at National Geographic - Laura R. Prieto, At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America
- See also :Category:Women artists, :Category:Female dancers, :Category:Female choreographers, :Category:Women comedians, :Category:Women comics artists, :Category:Women composers, :Category:Female film directors, :Category:Female singers
Entertainment and modeling
- Ann Cvetkovich, "Fierce Pussies and Lesbian Avengers: Dyke Activism Meets Celebrity Culture" (images of female models merging infiltrating other cultures)
- Michael Gross, Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women (2003) (history of female modeling);
- Ian Halperin, Shut Up and Smile: Supermodels, the Dark Side (1999)
- Nancy Hellmich, "Do thin models warp girls' body image?", USA Today, Sept. 26, 2006
- Jennifer Melocco, "Ban on Stick-Thin Models Illegal", Daily Telegraph, Feb. 16, 2007
- Barbara Summers, Black and Beautiful: How Women of Color Changed the Fashion Industry (racism within modeling)
- Barbara Summers, Skin Deep: Inside the World of Black Fashion Models (1999)
- Naomi WolfNaomi WolfNaomi Wolf is an American author and political consultant. With the publication of The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokesperson of what was later described as the third wave of the feminist movement.-Biography:...
, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against WomenThe Beauty MythThe Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women is a nonfiction book by Naomi Wolf, published in 1991 by William Morrow and Company...
(1991)
- See also :Category:Female models, :Category:Female pornographic film actors, :Category:Beauty pageant contestants
Explorers, navigators, travelers, settlers
- Joanna Stratton, Pioneer Women
- David Cordingly, Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
- See also :Category:Female explorers, :Category:Female astronauts, :Category:Female aviators
Sports and athletics
- Karra Porter, Mad Seasons: The Story of the First Women's Professional Basketball League, 1978-1981
- See also: :Category:Sportswomen, :Category:Female athletes, :Category:Female dancers, :Category:Female bullfighters,
Business and leadership
- Roger E. Axtell, Tami Briggs, Margaret Corcoran, and Mary Beth Lamb, Do's and Taboos Around the World for Women in Business
- Douglas Branson, No Seat at the Table: How Corporate Governance and Law Keep Women Out of the Boardroom
- Lin Coughlin, Ellen Wingard, and Keith Hollihan, Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership
- Harvard Business School Press, editors, Harvard Business Review on Women in Business
- S. N. Kim, "Racialized gendering of the accountancy profession: toward an understanding of Chinese women's experiences in accountancy in New Zealand" in Critical Perspectives on Accounting
- Deborah Rhode, The Difference ""Difference"" Makes: Women and Leadership (2002)
- Judy B. Rosener, America's Competitive Secret: Women Managers
- Robert E. Seiler, Women in the Accounting Profession (1986)
- See also :Category:Women in business
European Union initiatives and information
- Report"Women and men in decision-making 2007 – analysis of the situation and trends"
- Database on women in decision-making
- Commission's Roadmap for Equality between women and men (2006-2010)
Public policy and governmental occupations
- See also List of the first female holders of political office in Europe and List of the first female holders of political offices
- See also Women in politicsWomen in politicsWomen in government in the modern era are under-represented in most countries worldwide, in contrast to men. However, women are increasingly being politically elected to be heads of state and government...
and categories :Category:Female diplomats, :Category:Female civil servants, :Category:Women sheriffs, :Category:Female police officers, :Category:Women in politics
Military professions
- See: History of women in the military; Women's Land ArmyWomen's Land ArmyThe Women's Land Army was a British civilian organisation created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls...
; :Category:Female military personnel; :Category:Female wartime spies
Criminal occupations
See Women in crime and :Category:Female pirates
See also
- Feminisation of the workplaceFeminisation of the workplaceIn response to the pressure from feminism and cultural trends highlighting characteristics in workers which have culturally been associated with women, feminisation of the workplace is a label given to the trend towards greater employment of women, and of men willing and able to operate with these...
- Feminization of laborFeminization of LaborThe feminization of labor is a term used to describe emerging gendered labor relations born out of the rise of global capitalism. For instance, manufacturing jobs are now considered women's work.-Globalization and female labor:...
- Rosie the RiveterRosie the RiveterRosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military...
- Women's historyWomen's historyWomen's history is the study of the role that women have played in history, together with the methods needed to study women. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, the examination of individual women of historical significance, and the...
- Women's studiesWomen's studiesWomen's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
- Gender studiesGender studiesGender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
- Workplace discrimination, Occupational sexismOccupational sexismOccupational sexism refers to any discriminatory practices, statements, actions, etc. based on a person's sex that are present or occur in a place of employment...
, and Glass ceilingGlass ceilingIn economics, the term glass ceiling refers to "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements." Initially, the metaphor applied to barriers in the careers of women but... - Labor historyLabor historyLabor history may refer to:* Labor history , a subfield of the discipline of history**Labor history of the United States, describes the history of organized labor, as well as the more general history of working people, in the United States...
- Educational InequalityEducational inequalityEducational inequality occurs where the quality of education available to pupils is closely related to their social class or status. A common view among scholars addressing this topic is that rather than succeeding in reducing societal inequality, schools and other educational establishments to...
- Timeline of women's rights (other than voting)
External links
- "The New Majority? The Past, Present and Future of Women in the Workplace", Symposium at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced StudyRadcliffe Institute for Advanced StudyThe Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...
, Sept. 9, 2011.