Gender In The Workplace: A Literature Review Of Gender In The Workplace

Gender in The Workplace: A Literature Review Regarding Gender Based Discrimination

World War II brought upon us a time of scarcities: In food, in money, in soldiers, and in the working class. From 1940-1945 the midst of the war brought a shift upon the workers in North America. Suddenly, with most of the men overseas or in tied up in military affairs, it became acceptable for middle class women to workforce. 1940-1945 showed an amazing 50% increase in the female labour force with an incredible 462% increase in employment in the defense department (Quast, 2011). It seems hard to imagine how little we could have known on how this necessary alteration in our working practices would forever alter the foundation of not only our workplaces, but

In a study analysing the gender gap in authority in the workplace, Baxter and Wright found that even when such factors as the values of individual firms, the status of the job market, individual hiring bodies, and countries cultural beliefs were taken into account that an alarming amount of the disparities could only be explained by blatant discrimination (1995). Although this trend is decreasing, woman are still the most likely to be expected to occupy most of the mundane but essential family oriented tasks such as cooking, cleaning and caring for children. This belief in itself creates a stereotype that paints women as a sex more committed (forced or otherwise) to their family than their professions (Brinton, 2013; Waber, 2014). Gender based stereotypes such as these are proving to be extremely hard to shake. In fact, in a study analyzing the gender discrimination and the wage gap by Philip Cohen and Matt Huffman published in the American Sociological Review it was found that both male and female college graduates were more likely to devalue potential female applicants who stated motherhood on a job application form (2007). Another study by Mahzarin R. Banaji combining the faculties of psychology and gender studies found that during a memory test recalling a list of fictitious names, test subjects were more likely to incorrectly identify the names of fictitious males as being famous than the generated female names (Johnson, 2013). These interesting findings only further accentuate how deeply these stereotypes are ingrained in our everyday life, and that it will take a sustained generational movement to eradicate them (Brinton, 2014; Waber,