Gender discrimination as a primary factor in the gender pay gap

Gender Discrimination

Recently, scholars have focused on the study of gender roles in numerous aspects of contemporary society. Some of this research has concentrated on the way gender roles in leadership and management have changed, some to confirm the social evolution of women in society, and others to try to define the amount of alienation some experience within male dominated hierarchically structures. The "glass ceiling" clearly remains a powerful force within the workplace. Qualified women are blocked from upper-level managerial positions, but their absence at the very top skews the curve when they are clustered in the middle. It seems that it takes about 30% penetration of women managers to begin to more rapidly move the distribution effect, suggesting that now; women remain concentrated in workplace settings with lower wages -- in almost every industry (Cohen and Huffman, 2007, 699).

Stephen Rose and Heidi Hartmann argue that although the wage gap has narrowed between genders, women who work full time earn about 77% of a man's salary. However, statistics are usable only within context, and, as the authors point out, "When accumulated over many years for all men and women workers, the losses to women and their families due to the wage gap are large and can be devastating" (2004, p. 130).

Scholars sometimes say that there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. Each side of an issue can usually support its position through quantitative numbers. but, we must ask ourselves, are we comparing like to like? For instance, while there is a clear and measurable disparity between genders and salary, women make up a portion of the workforce that is primarily low-income. Women have made great strides in politics, executive positions, and leadership. However, this idea of gender inequality and judgment historically based on perceived notions and expectations of behavior and role models can be something that occurs in a non-intentional biased manner. It is not likely that most reasonable professionals, for instance, would see their female managers or co-workers as the "June Cleaver" or "Harriett Nelson" role, yet within organizational culture, studies still find that the process of "doing" gender within an organizational setting is so pervasive and ingrained that subtle signals are continually predominant. However, "within each of the six gender-tier categories, at least 75% of the workers are of one gender. In each tier, women's jobs pay significantly less than those of their male counterparts, even though both sets of occupations tend to require the same level of educational preparation" (Rose and Hartmann, p. 30).

Clearly, the struggle for greater gender equality continues to evolve. Numerous dramatic changes are apparent since the 1950s, and even with the politicization and radical nature of the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, there have been improvement in the diversity, fairness, pay structure, leadership, and power base within many societal organizations. No longer is it irregular to see women as CEO's, in high positions in politics, in wide-ranging and often non-stereotypical careers, and certainly well past the limitations of previous generations. but, has society gone far enough if the very nature of the discussion of gender equality even exists? Add to that the contributing factors of race and class and we find that we really do not have an egalitarian system.