Gender Roles and Workplace Conflict in the 21st Century

Introduction

Living at the start of the new millennium is a true privilege, especially for previously oppressed social and ethnic groups such as women and African Americans. A new social paradigm of equality and tolerance has begun to ensure that anyone can do anything useful with their lives if they choose to. This makes the 21st century an exciting time, but also a challenging one. Although this new paradigm does exist, centuries of conditioning make it difficult for these professed ideals to become reality in practice.

In focusing on gender roles and conflicts in the workplace, this paper investigates the extent to which an environment that is professed to be diverse actually caters for the variety of needs experienced by women. It also examines how gender roles are perceived and to what extent they still produce a degree of prejudice in the workplace.

It does appear that sexism is still prevalent in the professional world today. Women, for example, seem to be underrepresented in managerial positions. Men also appear to assume that working for a man would accomplish more than working for a woman. Furthermore, the roles that women traditionally play — the emotional, understanding quality — are perceived positively when demonstrated by women, while traditionally male roles, such as discipline, tend to be received more positively when demonstrated by a man. A number of insightful studies are examined below to determine the extent to which these assumptions are accurate.

Conditioned Perceptions of Gender Roles

Statistics cited by Atwater show a dramatic increase of almost 20% in female representation in management from the 1980s to the year 2000. There are, however, factors restricting women's progress to managerial levels. Although women comprise almost half of first-line supervising jobs, higher-level management positions are still mostly held by men, while women remain concentrated in lower-level staff roles (Atwater, 2004).

A significant shortcoming in studying this phenomenon, as identified by Atwater, is that management has been assumed to be a predominantly masculine role, with women as "intruders." Atwater instead presents management as a role divided into a number of subroles, which can be perceived as either masculine or feminine. These perceptions are rooted in the centuries of conditioning that preceded the modern ideal of tolerance. Perceptions are coupled with what Atwater (2004) describes as expectations of gender-consistent behavior. Men in North America, for example, are expected to be assertive, confident, and ambitious, while women in the same society are expected to be helpful, kind, and supportive. These social role expectations, reinforced through centuries of practice, have translated into the workplace in general and into managerial positions in particular. The traditional qualities of the male role in society have come to be seen as the requisite qualities for efficient management.

Atwater (2004) identifies a number of subroles inherent in the management position. Interestingly, despite the popular traditionalist approach, many of these can be seen as feminine, while other subroles are predominantly masculine — meaning the occupation as a whole is not exclusively male-oriented.

Managers are expected to be skilled at problem solving while simultaneously being helpful and considerate toward their staff. The glass ceiling problem arises in the actual perceptions of traditional top management roles. These positions, in addition to being traditionally held by men, also require qualities perceived as male. Planning, strategic decision-making, and resource allocation, for example, are seen as roles handled better by men and as involving fewer of the emotional and supportive qualities traditionally associated with women. Lower-level managers, by contrast, are more directly involved with employees and therefore require a greater degree of the interpersonal skills needed to monitor employee performance.

A related issue is the potentially negative perception of women who demonstrate competence in performing more masculine roles. This "role congruity theory" (Atwater, 2004) may manifest, for example, when a female manager disciplines a worker or enforces rules. Such behavior may lead to perceptions of incompetent management, whereas the same behavior in a man produces a more positive perception of competence. Conversely, negative perceptions can be attached to a male manager who displays traditionally female behavior. The result is that females performing female roles in management are seen as competent, and the same is true when males perform male management roles.

The reality, however, is that — although stereotypical perceptions tend to persist — management roles cannot be perceived as exclusively masculine or feminine. Roles such as mentoring, recognizing, and rewarding, for example, can be perceived as more feminine than masculine, whereas disciplining, problem solving, and delegating are perceived as predominantly masculine roles (Atwater, 2004).

Another noteworthy finding in Atwater's research is that these perceptions do not vary significantly between the genders. Both women and men, for example, see the role of communicator as predominantly that of women, while discipline and task-oriented functions are seen by both genders as belonging to men. This indicates a shared set of preconceived perceptions of gender roles at the managerial level.

On the other hand, men are more likely to stereotype gender roles than women. Men perceive more subroles within the managerial position as particularly male-oriented, whereas women are less likely to assign those same roles exclusively to men. For women, more of these roles are androgynous rather than oriented to either gender. Women thus tend to believe that management is not an exclusively or even predominantly masculine domain.

Atwater also suggests that women are beginning to stereotype managerial roles in a manner similar to men — but in the opposite direction, seeing a greater proportion of roles as exclusively female. The stereotypical views held by both men and women reveal much about how each gender perceives itself and the other, not only in professional contexts but in society more broadly. The emerging trend is for women to respond to male stereotyping with a corresponding form of female stereotyping.

Conclusion

It has become clear from the above that gender roles still play a significant part in how women are perceived in the workplace. Certain expectations and perceptions, held by members of both genders, at times hinder women's advancement in certain professions and at certain organizational levels. This is the result of centuries of conditioning.