Gender &Work A10
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.
