Do we have a gender bias?

In the last few decades,the workforce demographics have changed drastically.While the participation of women has gone up,they are still lagging behind their male counterparts not only in numbers,but also in job content and rewards.

Gender bias is reflected in placement of women in non strategic position which are essntialy low status and low income occupations.Men still feel that women need to be given jobs which suit her personality rather than knowledge,expertise.In such occupations like typist,telephone operators ,receptionist they have to work long hours with minimum perks and benefits.Confinement to peripheral jobs failed to bring out hidden talent in women.

Certain preconceived notions rooted strongly in the minds of managerial class made them perceive talent of women as inferior to that of men.The assumption that a women’s nature doesn’t permit any risk influenced underutilization of women talent.Men cannot visualize women issuing instructions .He doesn’t associate her with firm determination or ability to manage crisis.

Films and TV soaps are the mirror of society.Even today majority of the films portray woman as housewife to please predominantly male audience.Mass media in developed world still portrays sensual image of women and violent image of a men.

If we break management role into several subroles,function of management will be perceived as more masculine than feminine.This perception spills over into the workplace also and it becomes the barrier to career advancement of women.Organization can not assume that just by hiring and promoting women ,they can address the issue of gender diversity.Its necessary to correct gender stereotypic bias .Unless this bias is eradicated ,women managers will always be undermined irrespective of their abilities and efforts.

Strengths associated with women are harmony,balance,teamwork,collaboration.They emphasize on building relationships.Their workstyle is more democratic.They are good at multitasking as they have handled variety of tasks since time immemorable.They are good at handling stressful situations.They resort to positive ways of tackling stress.Whereas reaction of men is ‘fight or flight’ in stressful situation.Inherent traits of men compel them to suppress feelings and internalize stress.

In today’s competitive era, companies are resorting to delayering of the organization structure.Today’s requirement is that of lean and mean organizations.Traditional masculine approach of top down task oriented management is not going to work in today’s flatter organizations.Relationship based democratic style of management used by women is more suitable for today’s organization.Companies must encourage gender diversity so that they have access to strengths which are inherent to women.They must develop strategies to retain existing women.
Accepting gender diversity will help companies in realizing unrealized assets.Women constitute half of the population.If talent of half of the population is not realized,no company or nation can think of progressing at a faster pace.