Women and the Family
Women and the Family
The movie viewed in class, “Juggling Work and Family,” by Henrick Smith, exposed many of the realities of accelerating ones career or making ends meet, and maintaining a stable family home. Whether it was about lack of time or finances it is clear there is a common theme of not feeling like one is doing enough with or for their children and the family unit is suffering because of it. How we work is at the core of the issues we face today in this 24/7 economy. Smith proposes that it is possible that a greater social change must occur for the family unit to survive and even suggest that is is a structural problem; we must rethink how we work and how we organize work as an economy and society in order to protect the family.
I agree. I believe the social changes occurring in society are so drastic that necessary adjustments must be made in the structure of how things are done in order for these social changes to be beneficial rather than detrimental. I believe this concept of problems lying at the structure can also been seen with women in the work force. While socially, people changed and to some extent practices changed in order to accommodate women professionals, the structure of how business takes place within an organization has not. Furthermore, institutions have not changed the organizations practices in the light of women working in a gloablized context and internationally. As a business student, soon to enter the workforce, and hoping to work internationally, this is a concern.
Worldwide, women hold a very low percentage of management positions, even proportionately lower than the number of women in management overall. Based on female styles of leadership, women make excellent global managers; however, gender biases and barriers from within organizations limit women in these positions. More specifically, at the emergence of gender discrimination and international business, exists the concept of ‘glass borders’. This metaphor refers to the obstacles women face in achieving key international positions due to both socio-cultural backgrounds and from barriers within organizations (Van der Boon, 2003).
The structure within a business – the formal assessment of employees, selection, hiring and business processes- reflects the discrimination that exists within many organizations. Although in recent years businesses have adopted an equity approach, where there is emphasis on equal representation of the genders, the underlying objective was to assimilate women to male management which does not allow females to perform to their highest capability. Women are judged against the male model of career development and differences are deemed detrimental to women’s abilities to manage successfully and therefore to successfully contribute to the company’s performance. This systematic discrimination continues to be revealed through objective recruitment and human resource procedures existing within organizational policies (Van Der Boon 2003). These structural barriers explain the low participation rates of women as international managers.
The root obstacle faced by females seeking roles as international managers is in the existence of gender discrimination from barriers within organizations, not the actual effectiveness, skills, and attitudes of females working in a global environment. I believe that the suggestion made by Henrick Smith in the movie regarding work and family – that how we organize work, the structural problem, is at the root os family issues- can be transferred to the issue of women managers in the international workforce. Social conditions of changed, and discrimination will continue if the root of the problem – the structural organization of companies- does not change.
Van Der Boon, Mary. 2003. “Women in international management: an international perspective on women’s ways of leadership.” Women in Management Review 18(3)132-146.
