å Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016

Part A

In Elaine Hall’s essay “Doing Gender by Giving ‘Good Service,” she explains the association between gender and organizations by identifying two different models: the gender-in organization and the gendered organization approach. Hall explains that the gender-in organization tends to be gender-neutral organizations that affect men and women differently. This model tends to be a disadvantage for women, as it tends to steer men towards the better jobs. As for the gendered organizations instead of supposing neutrality it directs the worker to their given role. This model tends to breakdown how organizations and workers differentiate gender at work. (Hall 453).

Hall clarifies that the gender-in organization model identifies men and women as different types of workers that give specific meaning to their jobs. She uses the example of the role of a police officer; society tends to see policewomen as less authoritative than the policemen. Their gender is what brings meaning to a neutral setting. As for the Gendered organization model its when specific occupations are viewed as gender specific. Their gender is viewed as an essential part of doing their job and its something that people do with their behavior (Hall 454).

Elaine Hall believes that the gendered organization model has more explanatory power in the restaurant industry because they generally “do” gender by:

• Creating gender divisions, they view restaurant work as women’s work.
• Creating the image of deferential servant, waitresses have to learn to “accept one’s Place”
• Creating the image of women as being sexual objects, they hire attractive young women to attract the opposite sex.

The gendered model that restaurants use specifically allocates men and women to the different jobs that are needed in restaurants and they define the job performances in gender terms. Hall notes that regardless of the type of restaurant, in order for their employees to provide good service they must follow three scripts: Friendliness, subservience and flirting (Hall 465). In their initial training employees are taught to always welcome patrons with a smile, make them feel welcome. Being that women are viewed as friendlier, this is when the gender division comes in. The second script is subservience; in this the customers do differentiate, as they often treat their waitresses as less than and look down on them more so than a waiter. The third scrip is the flirting, this is suggested as the owners see it as essential to keeping the customers interested in coming back to spend their money.

Due Sunday, November 27th, by midnight. Word count: 400 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. If you paraphrase, make sure to include the proper citation.

In their report, “The Roots of the Widening Racial Wealth Gap,” Thomas Shapiro, Tatjana Meschede, and Sam Osoro (2013) provide information on what factors have fueled the racial wealth gap in the U.S. as well as note policy approaches that will “set our country in a more equitable and prosperous direction.” Briefly summarize the factors and findings mentioned in the report. Do you agree with the authors’s explanations for factors that have exacerbated a black-white economic divide in the US? Why or why not?

Part A

In “Doing Gender By Giving Good Service” Hall identifies two different approaches on the relationships between gender and organizations which are gender-in-organizations and gendered organization.

In Hall’s essay on gender-in-organization she explains that systems that are in place at certain organizations create disadvantages for women from the early stages of recruitment. Also, there are both collective and individual ways that genders, particularly women take on roles in organizations. In collective gender we see that generally the organization has generally made a certain position a woman’s job. For example a retail clerk is collectively designated to a woman. Individually, gender-in-organization a woman would take on stereotypically female roles such as a caregiver or a mother like role. (Bell 453) Hall also describes that gender-in-organization is brought into gender-neutral workplaces by individuals themselves. She gives us the example of the a police woman who is supposed to be considered to be in a gender neutral occupation but the gender differences can easily be distinguished when sexual harassment is involved. This differentiates the gender roles and what is appropriate and not appropriate behavior. (454)

In gendered organization, organizations are assuming that the gender will play a role in all organizations and will be a part of the person’s job. They will use whichever gender in their particular position in order to successfully complete their task. Gendered organization has already assumed that your gender will be used in a particular way that will benefit the organization and specific clientele. One great example of this method is in the hospitality industry. A waiter or waitress, are given two different names not just one gender-neutral name for a server. Both genders are typically expected to better serve a client of the opposite sex. Waitresses are expected to appear talkative, happy and always smiling. It is also acceptable for a waitress at certain organizations to flirt with male clients. Waiters (men) are expected to do the same with female clients but are allowed to be assertive in this industry. The level of flirting and assertiveness can vary depending on the individual and what the restaurant prefers.

Bell found that gendered organization explanatory power is greater because it defines what male and female roles are in each organization. Organizations, which in her essay are restaurants, the waiters or waitress are able to be in these generalized gender roles but are able to play around with the degree of stereotypical behaviors depending on the restaurant. Gendered organization provides a wider spectrum of issued that can be researched.

Part B

Budig and England give five distinctive cause of how mothers are being penalized in the workplace. Interrupted job experience do to caretaking of children, taking lower paying jobs that are convenient for mothering needs, lack of productivity due to exhaustion from mothering, employer discrimination and the association of motherhood that leads to a lower paying job.

Women lose job experience when they have children and have to care for them. They either temporarily leave work, go from full time to maternity leave or from full time to part time in due to child rearing or order to care for their child. This time lost creates a loss in work experience and loss of on the job training creates a long-term effect for their future wage earnings. The lapses in jobs also contribute to lower wages verses someone who has continuously worked and “proves” that they have more experience.

Some women chose mother-friendly jobs, which are most commonly lower paying jobs in order to balance their lives as mothers. These jobs pay less but the compensation acceptable to mothers because they are able to attain a flexible schedule. The mother-friendly job is less demanding or less hours are required of them. This would be beneficial in exchange for being able to spend more time with their children. If a mother would take on a demanding job with many hours, they would me more likely to be unfocused or distracted due to being tired and household demands, which will eventually make them less productive at work.

The penalty of discrimination by employers is broken down into two different ways. Discrimination based on taste, which would be that an employer just thinks they just would not like to employ mothers, or if they believe their clientele would not like them. The other way an employer can discriminate a mother would be the statistical discriminations. In this method of discrimination, an employer would use generalized data to measure the productivity level that someone with children would likely have. This would help the employer determine/penalize the mother or whichever type of person they are discriminating against and offer them a much lower wage than someone who does not have children.

Motherhood in general can cause someone to be on the lower end of the pay scale. Having a lower education level therefore bearing more children at an earlier age can put a mother out of the job force for a long amount of time, which will eventually lead to a lower wage in the future.

In Terkel’s work he argues that that our concept of a “work ethic” needs to be wrested from its more banal invocation as the effort putting into making a buck. I believe he is trying to show the relationship between people and work. He gives different examples of professions and peoples reaction to what they do. He goes on interviews asking people about their job. I think he is showing a different idea of a calling people who love what they do and aren’t just there for the money but work because they truly love what they do. For example, the musician he spoke to who told the story of juggling a lot of different jobs and how he can go from a show where he’s the center of attention to not being seen. He also said that he even played at a funeral and one would look at it as if his job is tiresome and something we would not do but he enjoyed what he did.

Terkel’s interviews show that no matter who you are of what kind of job hey had every one had a different meaning of what makes work meaningful to them.  When he interviews Mike he found out all the struggles that mike go through just to get his son to go to college and how he stops at the bar before going home because he have to de stress before he goes home because he cant take out his stress on his family.

Almost 50% of us hate our jobs but because of circumstances we are in the job we are we have no way out because of life but we must find meaning in what we do. It might not be what we want our long-term goal but it’s what we do to live and provide for our family so with that title we have to look for meaning and find a way to continue doing that job over and over again each day. Im sure if we take a survey now or interview my classmates we would not get 100% of students who find joy and take great pride in what they do. Maybe the few that are teachers who love molding and preparing children love what they do. He also mention people who were looked down upon because of their job title so they change the name to make it look better when they were with other people who had better job titles.

Part: A

In the Doing Gender by Giving “Good Service” essay Elaine Hall describes the differences between gender -in- organization perspective and the gendered organization approach and how they are both define in the work environment.

The author describes how gender in-organization is different for women and men and it implies that different gender has different approach to the same kind of work. The different genders also are view differently by costumers. (in p.454) This article describes how for example police women are trying to resolve the gender role between being women and a police officers. How the gender expectations and behavior when harassment is involved these behaviors are inappropriate.

In gendered organization approach (in p.454) it describes that the type of job a person chooses will imply the gender at work. This approach is different than gender in organization approach because it tells us that men and women bring different gender behaviors to work. But the gender organization approach implies that the type of job determines how men and women behave differently when it comes to the work environment.

When addressing the way, gender is constructed within and between restaurants. All this because restaurants makeup their own rules when it comes to hiring people to work for them. Some restaurants only hire young beautiful women in order to attract more customers into their establishment. This discriminates on other people trying for the same job. Some places discriminate depending on what type of restaurants they tend to hire older women, not young ladies because they tend be mothers and house wife and are able to take care of families. But if it’s a restaurant they tend to want young women with nice bodies in order to attract and flirt with male costumers. For example, I have a close friend that used to work in a fancy restaurant in Washington highs where I live, my friend felt so much pressure from her place of work and from other co-worker and waitress that she made the decision to go have plastic surgery in Dominican Republic. She felt other waitress were making more money because they had better bodies specifically bigger behinds than she did.

In this case, both the gender -in-organization and the gendered organization played a role in how my friend was able to get this job. Because in this job she walked in with gender neutral believes but quickly realized that wasn’t how she was supposed to act at work but Instead gendered organization determined how she was supposed to look and act around costumers at work, in order to make more money.

Part: B

In the article “The wage Penalty for motherhood” The authors Michelle Budig and Paula England write about how women in their childbearing years are being paid less than women that are not in their childbearing years. All this because when women have children they tend to spend more time at home and away from their jobs. They may get discriminated against because of having children and be seen as less reliable than women without children.

The first explanation (in p.205) is that when women are in childbearing years they spend more time away from work because they are taking care of children causing them to interrupt they carriers and therefore their job experience. For example, when my children where young I had to work and spend more time away from home than I wanted to. But that made me feel guilty about not being with them I was missing out on my children growth. At the same time, I had to work because of fear of losing my place at work, it was a lot of pressure from both sides.

The second explanation (in p.205) is that some mothers may want to change jobs to more mother friendly jobs even if those jobs offer less pay because to them it is more beneficial to be in a mother friendly job, like for example working in a school were later on mothers could bring their children to work with them which makes it essayer for them instead of having to pay for childcare and it saves time.

The third explanation (in p. 207) is that some mothers may earn less pay because having to take care of a young child and working is an exhausting job that can leave them feeling sleepy and can lead them to be unfocused on the job at hand. For some women, it takes about a year to get used to the routine of juggling a job will taking care of their children.

The fourth explanation (in p.208) is that some employers can discriminate against mothers because they feel mothers are less productive than women how don’t have children for the reasons I mention above. In this society, women that have career ambition are viewed as being less ambitious if they also have children. Because bosses tend to prefer women that are not attached to children in order to have their focus on the job at hand.

The last explanation is where the authors sort of retract what they said because they mention (in p.210) that maybe women of childbearing years are at a young age. They may have a lower academic status and that is way they tend to make less money than those women who don’t have any children.

Part A

Doing Gender by Giving Good Service

In Elaine Hall’s essay, she declares two particular identifiable approaches towards the relationship between gender and organizations. Hall mentions the disadvantages of women and how they are affected in a different way when surrounded by gender neutral organizations. She illustrates preexisting systems already in play. These systematic movements have created harsh disadvantages for women since the introductory of recruitment.

Elaine Hall notes the significance of gender and work; our gender dictates the kinds of roles we play and the sort of work we do. There are two approaches, the gender in the organization approach and the gendered organization approach.  The gender in the organization approach focuses mostly on the differences between genders. With the consideration of collective and individual perspective roles in organizations, particularly women, we are able to visualize the generalized norm for certain occupations. Collective genders are organized with specific roles designated for women; such as clerical work.  Men are often identified as servers and women as the sexualized waitress, in reference to this pre-historical agenda systematically referring to women as the caregivers. Women waitresses are expected to flirt with customers as part of her job description. Elaine Hall’s research showed that women were told to mingle, smile, and engage in a friendly manner, more so than the male servers.

Elaine Hall’s notes the role of the women in the police force and the subjective notion of their gender. Immediately, they are perceived and judged based on their ability to ovulate over their professional title. The people’s behavior reflects the gendered approach. This approach reflects the social settings of their relationship among women and men when it comes to gender. Women are often sexualized and idealized for their beauty in their workplace. In a sense, Elaine Hall refers to the weaning out a process of candidates during interviews. Her example of hiring the young and sexy women, and then issuing them uniforms to bring focus to their assets to draw attention to men. This notion only feeds into this ideology of the preferred women instilled by society, conditioning every man to want, and every woman to want to become. In many ways, if you don’t fit this model of this ideal “societal norm” chances are you will become extremely limited in your choices of work. No employer would want to hire women who are not visually appealing. If hired the women is conditioned to up sell the company’s products while the men are obligated to continuously supply and pull longer hours when surrounded by beautiful women.

 Part B

The Wage Penalty for Motherhood

In Michelle Budig and Paul England essay “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood”, focused on women and their childbearing years. Women are more likely than men to be paid a lower wage for doing the same kind of work. They offer five reasoning’s for this theory:

One, Michelle Budig and Paul England speak of the women who spend the majority of their time home raising their children as a caregiver. This gave the women no time to work a full-time job with a salary; they were already doing so at home with their kids. This applies to all women who refuse to miss their child’s first anything, especially if it is their first child. With that being said, a woman with more than one would not possess any sort of free time dedicate to a paying job, making it impossible for single mothers.

Secondly, they explain the rationale of accepting a lower waged position in exchange for childcare. Women who are able to take their kids to work with them offers them the freedom and flexibility to work knowing their children are being taken care of. Women with children require many accommodations in their workplace. These women may have schedule limitations that restrict them from working certain days and needs a shorter work commute than others in order to uphold hold their main priority; their children.

Their third reasoning focuses on the children as a liability. Their children can be seen a distraction leaving the women exhausted and unfocused to their paid jobs. Excuses for further accommodations are to be expected. Like if their child was sick and now they are exhausted from lack of sleep. This cycle of behavior affects their efficiency over women without a child. Their priorities are designated at home rather in the workplace.

Fourthly, mothers in the workplace are discriminated against nonmothers. Different treatment is given to women with children. They are offered less satisfying jobs and should not expect significant wage increases or promotions. Discrimination among perceived liked gender mirrors the gap in wages. Once you become a mother, be prepared to make less than someone without a child.

Finally, the last reason dictates the aftermath of having a child on wages. They home in on the lack of education and the high reflection in numbers who have children. This is due to a limited outlook on available satisfaction. Uneducated women feel having a child will be fulfilling, whereas an education woman seeks a career to be satisfied.

In Elaine Halls essay titled “Doing Gender By Giving ‘Good Service”, She mentioned the two identifiable approaches to the relationship between gender and organizations. They are gender in the organization approach and the gendered organization approach. Hall states that women and women are affected differently in gender neutral organizations.

The gender in organization approach is more geared towards gender differences. Hall mentioned that gender is embedded in the jobs that we do. They believe that women and men are different kind of people who bring different kind of meaning into gender neutral setting Hall states that the jobs we do rub off on us. She mentioned that police women role conflict of being police WOMAN and the professional role of POLICE woman (Hall454). Meaning that being a woman trumps over their professional title.The gendered approach is what people do with their behavior. This approach states that women and men and women encounter gender meaning in relationships in social settings(Hall454). She goes on to talk about the relationship between women sexuality and work. She talked about how women are refer to as waitress and men are servers.  She then spoke about how waiters are caring like mothers and how service jobs are women work.

Hall first points out three ways in which restaurants “do” gender.  Division and hiring gendered women to fill them.  Two where waiters learn their place and how to behave around costumers and three Hall also talk about women servers as sexual objects by both patrons and workers. She used the example of hiring young sexy women as waitresses and giving them uniforms that highlight those areas that men like. For example, in today’s society all the women at hooters are beautiful and mostly blonde women of a certain size that they hire to serve men wings. If you don’t fit the requirement, then you won’t get hired because they need these women to help sell their products men are compelled to order more and stay longer when they are in a room filled with attractive women.

Hall talked about the flirting game where the waitress flirts which is said to be a part of her job. In halls research she found that women were told to smile more be friendly and be more friendly than their male counter parts. Females were treated as worse servant than men in the gendered organization approach just like Hall’s findings of males and female’s treatment at work by their employers and the people they serve. Hall believed the gendered organization model has more explanatory power when it comes to the way gender is constructed within and between restaurants because it fits the data and because it encompasses the multidimensional ways of gender(Hall467). It appears as if it is more explanatory because I involve one’s work and their behavior to provide a full explanation of why society is the way it is.

                                                                                  Part B

In Michelle Budig and Paul England essay “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood,” they gave five explanations to support their claim why women in their “childbearing years” are more likely to be paid less than their male counter parts for the same work. They are as follows:

The first explanation that Budig and England mentioned is that women spend most of their time at home caring for their child so they don’t have time for a fulltime job because they already have one at home. Which in some case is true if you’re a single mother with no help or its your first child you would want to be there to hold that child and watch them grow. Frist time mother hate to miss a step in their child’s life.

The second explanation is that they would take a lower paying job that cater to the fact that they are a mother for example a job where they could bring their child or have a day care attached to it. They also would need flexible hours and work that they wouldn’t have to work on weekends, less travel time and can keep in contact with their children always.  It’s said that a Mother friendly characteristic is to work part-time (207).

The third explanation is that their children may distract them and leave them tired so their productivity at work is low, they don’t make their quotas or they slack off cut corners because they were up all night with a baby with fever. Mothers are less productive than non-mothers because they storing energy for home.

The fourth point is discrimination against them because they are mothers. They are treated differently for example they are given less rewarding jobs and are not considered for promotions. Sex discrimination creates a gap in pay but not a gap between women mothers or none mothers (Budig& England 208). They spoke about both types of discrimination taste and statistical discrimination.

Last but not least they mentioned that the fifth is the effects of motherhood on wages. Where they start of by saying maybe there Is no effect on wages just because they are mothers (210). They state that women with lower academic skills may more likely have children early because of their career prospects are not good and children give more satisfaction.  I am not sure I agree with this as a female but it sound like they said women have kids because that’s all they could do if they can’t get their life together. Maybe I read it wrong.