Gender Stratification in the Workplace The Experience of Gender in Gender-Biased Professions

Ruth Simpson interviewed 40 males working in the female-dominated professions of primary school teachers, flight attendants, nursing, and librarians to better understand their experiences. Of those interviewed, only two found their career choice unsatisfactory and had plans to leave (356). The rest were glad they chose or stumbled upon their current career.

Simpson contrasted the experiences of male flight attendants, nurses, librarians, and primary school teachers with the theory that minority workers are generally penalized by increased performance expectations, isolation, and limited opportunities for promotion (352). Researchers have shown that women in a male-dominated workplace suffer from what has been called 'token' status. A token female employee's high visibility often increases the pressure to perform at levels above their male peers, their isolation as male employees exaggerate the differences between men and women, and stereotyping which tends to limit opportunities for advancement.

By contrast, men seem to benefit on several levels by choosing a career in a female-dominated workplace (Simpson 356-364). Simpson found four main effects that were experienced by her interviewees and these were: (1) career effect, (2) assumed authority effect, (3), special consideration effect, and (4) zone of comfort effect. The career effect experience was being welcomed into the profession and fast-tracked into management. Men were also given more authority than their female peers, experienced relaxed workplace rules, and tended to feel more comfortable working around women than men.

A Structural Functional Analysis

According to structural functionalism people are not unique individuals per se, but individuals who are defined in significant ways by the roles they have been assigned in society. These roles in turn determine the nature of their social interactions, both good and...

When Simpson asked the male interviewees whether they experienced any difficulties given the gender bias associated with their chosen professions, several responded in the affirmative (359-362). In contrast to women though, these difficulties were primarily relegated to interactions with friends and family members. The strategies used to minimize friction with family and friends included relabeling their job to minimize feminine associations, emphasizing more 'masculine' aspects of the job, and creating distance, both imaginary and real, between their job duties and those performed by their female coworkers. For example, male nurses often moved laterally into specialized medical positions, thereby providing some distance with the more feminine general nursing population. Simpson viewed these strategies as mechanisms for preserving their masculine identity.
Such strategies would be consistent with structural functionalism, because these men, despite their willingness to work in a female-dominated profession, must still negotiate their roles as men within the social groups and institutions they belong to. The primary social stress for these men comes not from the work environment, but from the need to maintain a masculine role in their personal and professional lives. By comparison, women working in a male-dominated profession experience the most stress from the male-dominated work environment. As Simpson points out, women working in male-dominated professions are often held to a higher standard, isolated, marginalized, and exposed to sexual harassment (352).

A Social Conflict Analysis

Conflict theory proposes that all people are in constant conflict with each other, between groups, and with institutions over limited resources. There is a large body of research showing that women experience significant conflict when they enter a male-dominated profession (Simpson 352). For example, there could be gender-based hiring preferences which protect male employees, preferential promotion of males,…