Unveiling Gender and Race Dynamics in Workplace Perception: Insights from Two Studies

Question

Task: How do the readings shed light on the intersection of gender and race in shaping individuals' experiences in traditionally male-dominated and female-dominated occupations, and what implications do these dynamics have for understanding workplace inequality?

Answer

The distinction between Women’s and men’s work

Men's and women’s duties contrast strikingly, across divisions, enterprises, professions, types of occupations and businesses. While these contrasts advance with economic growth, the ensuing progressions in the arrangement of employment are not sufficient to wipe out segregation in the workplace by gender. Everywhere in the world, females are focused on low-productivity, low-paying roles (BRITTON). They toil in minor farms and manage little firms, they are extremely exemplified among unpaid employees and in the informal sector, and they infrequently ascend to posts of authority. Even though disparities in worker traits (particularly in human capital) and returns matter, it is first and foremost contrasts in jobs that represent the gender spaces in productivity and wages. Three major factors bring about gender isolation in access to financial openings among farmers, entrepreneurs, and wage labourers: gender contrasts in time use (generally emanating from disparities in care obligations), gender disparities in access to profitable resources (particularly property and credit), and gender contrasts coming from business and institutional disappointments:

Females undertake an unequal share of house and care duties and as such face essential fixed expenses associated with market employment: fixed timetables and least hour prerequisites, and the trouble in changing commitments at home. Social models regarding the part of females also influence these compromises (BRITTON). Women are more liable to provide fewer hours of market work than men, placing them at risk of channelling into lower-quality jobs. Female cultivators and entrepreneurs have less admittance to property and credit than men. This is because of obstacles to market access, including discrimination and diverse estimating in land and credit markets, and institutional impediments, including property rights and financial guidelines and regulations.

Partition within families favours men in the allotment of productive resources, which signifies gender contrasts in the scale of creation, productivity, and investment and development limit. Women's restricted nearness in specific markets might make hindrances to comprehension and learning about females’ execution, which re-enacts ladies' lack of access to these markets (Wingfield). The plan and activity of organizations may be (unintentionally or intentionally) slanted against females in manners that uphold current biases. International ageing implies that fewer labourers will bolster a developing populace of the elderly during the following many years, unless labour power interest rises significantly among gatherings with low rates today—basically, females (Wingfield). Effective intercessions will rely upon rightly recognizing and focusing on the most binding limitation in each setting, while perceiving the issue of numerous constraints, maybe by sequencing strategies.

Summary of the first reading

This research examines four key questions: (1) Differences, if any, exist between the race and gender of correctional officers regarding their understanding of the work settings. (2) Are such discrepancies attributed to specific work and facilities? (3) Are such distinctions mitigated over time? (4) Are there mediating factors between race, gender and view of the job environment? Data was harvested from the 1992 Prison Social Climate Survey iteration from a subset of correctional officers. The results support that race and gender affect the prison employees' perceptions of their work atmosphere, that these disparities cannot be attributed to the workplace or institutional elements and that they won't be reduced over time (BRITTON). Furthermore, further factors interfere with the rapport between race, gender and professional understanding. Particularly among male officers who are minority, higher effectiveness in conducting with prisoners appears to result in reduced levels of job pressure. On the other hand, higher general job fulfilment among white female officers largely derives from a more positive assessment of leadership excellence.

Summary of the 2nd reading

Many men employed in work traditionally undertaken by women have reported a glass escalator effect that accelerates their development and progression in such occupations. The analysis found that subliminal aspects of the practices, attitudes, and presumptions in women's professions help propel men toward higher-level, more lucrative and typically more “male” functions in these fields. Although much of the research contains components on minority men, limited evaluation has been done to examine how racial dimensions affect these male confrontations with the mechanism of the glass escalator (Wingfield). Here, the author inspects how the intersections of race and gender create experiences for minority men in the usually considered 'feminine' nursing field, locating that the upward mobility suggested by the glass escalator does not extend similarly to all men in traditionally 'female' works. The author concludes that the glass escalator is a racial and gender-based principle and explores the ramifications of this for upcoming studies of males in feminized.

Reading #1: what did you agree or disagree with the author’s concept?

Britton (1997) researched how race and gender influence correctional officers' understandings of the occupation milieu. This exploration discovered that African American and female officers thought of the occupation atmosphere less beneficially than their pale and male mates. Female officers suffered greater job-connected stress due to their gender and experienced more gender-related aggression. African American officers also experienced more partiality based on lineage (BRITTON). The study implies that there are still considerable discrepancies in how females and minorities are treated in traditionally male-dominated positions such as corrections.

From the reading, it is clear that there remains a distinction between women's and men's work, particularly in male-dominated industries like corrections. Women go on to face gender-oriented nuisance and discrimination, and the examination indicates that these occurrences can detrimentally impact their views of the job environment. The study brings attention to the need of observing how race and gender intersect to form personal encounters in the workplace. I coincide with the writer's notion that these intersectional encounters are significant to ponder when checking work settings (BRITTON). The exploration presents precious foresight into the experiences of correctional officers and highlights the continuous troubles of gender and racial inequality in the workplace.

Reading #2: what did you agree or disagree with the author’s concept?

Wingfield (2009) analyses how sex and race cross to shape men's encounters in customarily female-dominated occupations. The ponder centres on men who work in social work, nursing, and basic instruction and contends that these men advantage of a "glass lift" that lifts them to positions of specialist and control inside these areas (Wingfield). The ponder proposes that these men involved fewer boundaries to headway than ladies within the same areas but moreover confront challenges due to their sexual orientation. The study highlights that whereas there's still a qualification between women's and men's work, men who work in customarily female-dominated areas involve special challenges and openings. Men may confront a few gender-based segregations, but they too advantage of a framework that advances their headway. They think about recommend that understanding these elements is essential for tending to issues of sexual orientation disparity within the working environment.

I found the study's concept of the "glass elevator" to be compelling and shrewd. The ponder gives important insights into how sexual orientation and race meet to shape individuals' encounters within the work environment. The think about challenges conventional notions of sexual orientation parts and highlights the significance of considering how sexual orientation and race cross within the work environment (Wingfield). In general, the consideration gives important experiences into the progressing challenges of sex and racial disparity within the working environment.

References

BRITTON, DANA M. “PERCEPTIONS of the WORK ENVIRONMENT among CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS: DO RACE and SEX MATTER?*.” Criminology, vol. 35, no. 1, Feb. 1997, pp. 85–106, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb00871.x. Accessed 20 Feb. 2020.

Wingfield, Adia Harvey. “Racializing the Glass Escalator.” Gender & Society, vol. 23, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 5–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243208323054.