There have been significant improvements regarding women’s participation in the workplace and the contributions they make over the decades. This has even shown prevalence in upper management, leadership, and STEM fields that have previously been male dominated. The phenomena of diminished women opportunities has been labelled as the glass ceiling. This metaphor refers to the invisible challenges that prevent women from partaking in and achieving career development and goals. This has been conjectured from three different types of barriers: social, structural, and governmental. Cases of shattering this ceiling are continuously being applauded; however, they still fall short from the preposition of “glass elevators” used to describe male journeys throughout their careers.
Globally, statistics have been on the women’s side and rising. In 2020, Australian women made up 47.1% of the workforce, divided into 25.8% of full-time workers and 21.3% of part-time workers. There has also been an increase in bachelor held degrees by women (44.5%) compared to men (32.2%), between the ages of 25 to 29 (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2020). Moreover, according to the (2020), women in the United States now hold 22.6% of board seats in R3000 enterprises which are the largest 3000 publicly traded U.S. firms that include the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, a significant increase from the 16.0% of positions held in 2017. Even though this improvement ought to be recognized and applauded, there still exists a significant need for change. This change must be primarily focused on the descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes that are yet identifiable in the workplace and the ways of minimizing its effects on women’s career progress. Research and results will be extracted from the work done by Heilman M. under “Gender Stereotypes and Workplace Bias”.
Descriptive Gender Stereotyping
The ways in which men and women act and operate is what defines descriptive binary gender stereotyping. Preconceived conceptions of men and women have been found to be divided into two major characterizations that affect the way they work. Female gendered stereotypes are linked to communality, which is known as the summation of sensitive, submissive, and oppressional traits in the workplace. These traits include being “kind, friendly, non-competitive, obedient, etc.” Therefore, with such characteristics in mind, women are perceived as individuals who lack traits fitting for most jobs, especially traditional managerial and leadership-oriented ones. In comparison, men are usually seen as bearers of agency characteristics, ones that are related to strong leadership and achievement orientations. These traits usually include being “dominant, independent, forceful, assertive, etc.” These methods of categorization have been remarkably consistent in both time and space. Meaning that gendered stereotypes, especially stereotypes about women, have been observed across workforces in different nations to a similar degree for extended periods of time. This reaffirms the argument that with all the improvement so far observed, stereotyping is still there and is resulting in resonating implications.
The importance of dealing with the mentioned stereotypes stems from their consequentialist nature. It is usually the case that women stereotypes, even if not directly acted upon, automatically formulate an image of the woman in the eyes of the perceiver, who is usually a future employer or work partner. Hence, women are by default placed in a less advantageous position than men for potential employability or promotion regardless of their work simply because of their gender. Furthermore, women stereotypes are capable of filtering out, adjusting, and highlighting specific aspects of a woman in her career that strike hard when it comes to the process of evaluation and decision making. When it comes to taking in available information about a working woman, those which are deemed to be unaligned with the structured expectations are excluded in a biased manner. The process occurs by the judgment of mentioned information (when noticed) as irrelevant and useless for the stereotyped criteria. It has also been shown that even when employers attempt to take in this information it is misinterpreted in ways fitting for the stereotypical ideas. For example, while a delay in decision making is perceived as analytical and cautious for a man, it is seen as hesitant for a woman in the same position. It is also important to note that the struggles that working women are facing, even if successfully overcome, are still within a gendered model workplace. This means that the entire process of shifting one’s attributes to those desirable by employers provokes a vicious cycle of agentic dominance. This struggle to make it in male-dominated workspaces stems from an invalid model of leadership that must be replaced with affirmation that communality can still be fully embraced while being an admirable leader.
Not only is gender defiant information usually excluded and misinterpreted, but also it tends to be easily forgotten and hardly ever recalled when describing a working woman. All that is mentioned has created this belief among both men and women that there exists a lack of fit resulting from the inability to perform and operate for women. This has considerable effects on hiring, training, working, and promoting. The lack of fit belief fostered an environment where certain occupations are considered “for men” jobs in which women are frowned upon and faced with hurdles. For example, according to Beirut Digital District, females only accounted for 22% of Artificial Intelligence professionals globally. To further elaborate on women’s gender biases, it is also observed that women with specific characteristics are deemed to be stereotyped in a more aggressive manner due to the fact that they tend to align with existing expectations. For example, women who are also mothers or those who are considered physically attractive affirm the role of stereotyping at the workplace, due to the belief that they firmly fit the “feminine sculpture” that male employers have already preconceived as the default that has negative competence expectations, job commitment expectations, and high dependability, which alter career upward mobility.
Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes
What was discussed earlier relates to the way women act in the workplace. Prescriptive stereotyping, on the other hand, dictates the way that women ought to be. This means that women are not just generally considered to have communal traits, but they also should constantly display these traits in the workplace. Naturally, any deviation from these dictated do’s and don’ts is frowned upon and perceived as a form of rioting. This has resulted in women that have taken stands against this form of prejudice being labelled aggressive, bitchy, and less likely to be well evaluated. This gender-biased labelling and its repercussions are what the “glass ceiling” refers to. It is the inability of working women to choose both their careers and how their gender performance is perceived.
When looking at what it takes to be a successful leader or manager in terms of work ethics and traits, it is assumed that one must be competitive, independent, and assertive. So, in order for a woman to successfully qualify, reach, and practice upper managerial roles, defiance of stereotypes is a must. This defiance has resulted in counterintuitive effects where deleterious reactions have been recorded. For example, this occurs when perceived gendered “lack of fit” violation is observed through positions related to fields such as law, police work, and engineering where male attributes are wrongly considered essential, and the introduction of women careers is frowned upon as an attempt to “feminize” the job and broaden its definition. Another important trait for any successful career is clear and direct communication. Effective communication has been linked to agentic “masculine” attributes as well, and thus competence in this field by women is also considered disadvantageous and less impactful. In addition, there seems to exist an etiquette dictating certain acts and scenarios as normative. For example, a working woman in the workplace willing to take notes, prepare coffee, or provide emotional support for colleagues is common and typical. Even so that a woman lacking the willingness to take part in these initiatives is socially penalized. On the other hand, such “assertive” acts of goodwill are applauded and encouraged as “going the extra mile” for men. Another aspect where differences like these are being sensed in the workplace by women are related to the way misbehavior is dealt with, a study examining 10 years’ worth of data has concluded that women are 20% more likely to be fired for an offense and 30% less likely to find a new job. It is apparent that while male workplace misbehavior might be brushed off or regarded as a somewhat acceptable act with minor punishment, female workplace misbehavior is punished more strictly with bigger ramifications. This traces back to prescriptive stereotyping. Specifically, belief models related to the way women ought to be respectful and abiding workers.
Prescriptive stereotyping is much more rigid and consistent than descriptive stereotyping. It stems from individuals’ moral and value beliefs. Most attempts to subdue and convert this are met with triggers and utmost rejection. Looking deeper into this can provide an answer to why gendered discrimination is still an issue we are dealing with to this day. When women’s achievements are being recognized yet being conceived as “unique” and defiant we must reaffirm the call for more serious efforts to be taken.
Lebanese Women: The untapped potential
A workshop given by Abir Chebaro, the former advisor of PM Saad El-Hariri and vice president of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, tapped into the issues that Lebanese women are facing when it comes to career development, providing a coherent country profile. It has been observed through data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) that if the work gender gap in Lebanon was decreased by a mere 25%, the GDP for Lebanon would grow by $2198 per person, a total increase of $9 billion. The current labor force in Lebanon’s profile shows obvious disparities in the workplace with a clear 70% male dominance over 30% of female workers. Social and cultural norms, which reflect in the stereotypes at the workplace, has caused a “work cluster” for women known as pink-collar jobs which are considered to be the occupations that require fewer skills and provide much lower incomes. This has only increased in magnitude due to beliefs related to a woman’s duty to her own family rather than an equal division of responsibilities, in addition to societal pressure to go into fields of humanities rather than STEM and ICT. Unpaid care work and motherhood in the “institution of marriage” have also been of great impact: according to the ILO, women’s contribution in minutes spent daily in care work sums up to $5400/woman/year. Moving on, even though the Lebanese regulatory framework does not contain in essence any gender discrimination, it still does not provide any gender equality provision statements. The electoral law and the process of appointing personnel in leadership positions is a prime example of discrepancies in gender equality and the presence of a discriminatory sectarian quota preventing upward mobility of women. The stereotype of women being dependent on men’s income rather than their own as well as males being the main predecessor of a family line has resulted in the exemption of the informal sector working women in Lebanon from benefits such as health care and social protection. Currently, Lebanese women can only benefit their husbands from their social security if they’re above 60 or handicapped, and pregnant women cannot benefit from their health insurance to deliver a child before ten months of being registered while wives of male employees only require three months to benefit. The International Finance Corporation revealed that 50% of companies in Lebanon have no women holding board positions, while there is less than 1% of companies that are led or mostly led by women entrepreneurs. Companies with female board members exhibited 10.4 % higher growth in return on equity, 1.1 % higher growth in return on assets, and 2.3% higher growth in return on sales. Finally, the WEF gender gap index has estimated that women only constitute 8.4 % of senior officials, legislators, and managers in the country, giving us a concerningly low index marker rank of 145 out of 153 countries. According to Abir Chebaro, there is still a way to move forward through continuous work on raising awareness of the importance of women participation in the workforce, removing the stereotyping barriers they face, improving the regulatory framework and transforming our harmful Lebanese traditional norms towards them.
Our societal gender constitution and the stereotypes that follow have been continuously reproduced in the workplace. This phenomenon is in no way new or emerging, yet the timeless scenarios we are witnessing require the scope to remain focused even with slight alterations. It is true that the feminist sound has been raised and very well heard but the battle against gender constitutions is far from over. This should also not stray us away from other issues in the workplace – sexual harassment, the wage gap, and “motherhood labor” that go beyond this article.
