å Thursday, November 24th, 2016

Part B

In Michelle Budig and Paula England’s essay, “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood,” they both present the arguments of why our society penalizes mothers by paying them lower wages than their male counterparts. Budig and England present us with the data that supports the link between motherhood and low wages and why we should care. They tell us that it’s not only a large issue that symbolizes gender inequality that has always existed but because it has a lifetime effect on our society.  The following are the causes of why women in their childbearing years have lower hourly pay:

The first cause is believed to be because of the lost of job experience. As the mother needs to be away from work and stay at home to take care of the children, in return creates the break of employment. It is believed that mothers lose job experience with the interruption of work, as it stops the involvement of the on-the-job training. As per Buding and England, there are studies that show that continuation and experience may influence higher pay (205).

The second cause is that motherhood reduces job effort and productivity. Children take up a lot of time, which in return leaves the mother exhausted and distracted from work. Working mothers are considered to be less productive at work because they are always more concern with what is happening with their children rather than concentrating on their jobs. It is believed that non-mothers have more time for leisure and therefore have more energy for paid work.

The third cause is believed to be that mothers trade off higher wage jobs for “mother friendly” jobs that support their parenting. Mothers need to have flexible jobs that allow them to have time to take care of their children. They often settled for less paying jobs so they can have flexible hours, pay sick leave and vacation.

The fourth cause is that they are discriminated by their employers. They often place mothers in less rewarding jobs. If there is chance of a promotion they will likely give that job to woman who doesn’t have kids as they are viewed as more dependable and productive.

The fifth cause is the effects of motherhood on wages. They argue that lower wages leads to having more children. They are less interested in affluence therefore are more likely to have more children. As they find themselves valuing their family more than money.

Budig and England concluded that motherhood leads to employment breaks. That through time the lack the accumulation of work experience and seniority, which in return diminish the pension payments needed for retirement. We should be concentrating on “caring labor” that ultimately increases the level of care for the next generation (205).

In the article,”Doing Gender by Giving Good Service by Elaine Hall she explains how gender roles are a significant contribution to how people treat and rate their service if it’s good or bad. Hall describes two approaches gendered organization approach and gender in organization approach; she goes into detail to explain the relationship between both and how one has more power over the other using her information from her research.

Hall defines the gender in the organization approach to be center more to the differences between the genders and their behavior in the work environment. Hall explains that the gender in an organization is brought into a gender-neutral work environment by the person. She uses the example of the woman police officer who is classified as a gender neutral career, however as the difference between female and male police officers are very easily to rise to question when sexual harassment is involved. Also, society tends to view female police officers as weak and not up to the standards as male police officers would be. This is when the gender roles and their behavior set them apart.

In a gendered organization, Hall describes to be the gender who play a role in what job the person would perform better. It Dates back to when a woman would be only good as caregivers at home due to their gender. Hall explains how in the restaurant business women have to be flirty, to give excellent service, when the waiters do not have to be flirty to provide good service. The gender organization portrays a role different when it comes to gender. If you’re a woman you are mostly to be hired as a housekeeper or a nanny, why?. Because society has set the idea that woman are born with a giving to be caretakers and therefore will be performed better as so. Their gender plays a significant role when getting hired for certain jobs.
Depending on what the job is looking for they will hire you, in the club/restaurant business if they are seeking to attract men as consumers, they will hire young good looking girls and give them uniforms in which benefits their bodies. Not only do they have to wear tiny and rebelling uniforms they also have to flirt and be well put with their hair and makeup done. This is an example of how gender organization plays a role in whether or not you will hire and once hired you still have to keep up with the job requirements of the workplace giving more power when it comes to addressing the way gender constructed within the workplace.

In the reading “Doing Gender by Giving ‘Good Service’” the author Elaine Hall discusses about two identifiable approaches to the relationship between gender and organizations. These two approaches are connected to one another and I feel that are based on the perception of the people and their expectations. Both the customer and the organization play a big role into these gender roles and expectations. One of those approaches is the defining of gender in organization distinguished as incongruity. To further explain what gendered in organization looks like Elaine Hall explains and gives the example of the waitress and waiter example. Elaine Hall explains that it is more stressful for waiters than waitresses because the data showed that waiters get insulted more. Later on the author explained that waiters who were interviewed explained that waitresses get insulted more often because they are viewed as servant and sex appeal. Also another way is having the mindset that female customers are more stressful than males, because there is a perception that female customers are more demanding. Those are the examples of how organizations are gendered. The next approach to the relationship between gender and organizations is gendered work roles. In the waitering service waitresses are usually seen as sex objects and often the waitresses are instructed to approach customers in a friendly, flirty approach. At restaurants that are female servers it is seen as an obligatory job flirt. But it is also seen as a less of a male’s job, so males tend to be more reserved. I saw that both the approaches of icongruity and gendered work roles go hand by hand because since waitresses are seen as sex objects and servants because they are requested to flirt with the costumers then customers have the chance to offend them, harass them and make them feel less than them like their servant. The actions that most restaurants request from these waitresses are the outcome of the violations some customers have against waitresses. These women are seen with less respect than any job, it is unfair after all.
In the reading “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood” by Michelle Budig and Paula England they discuss about the difference wage between mothers and fathers due to motherhood. In this essay they spoke about motherhood penalty that exist in the United States and also in the United Kingdom. I had no idea there was a “motherhood penalty”, which honestly makes no sense. But Budig and England explained the reasons to why these countries have such penalty for mothers. This penalty also depends if the female is a first time mother or has two or more children. Fathers in the other hand, has no penalty against them to affect their wage or at times they have an increase of wage after their child is born. The motherhood penalty ranges from four percent to six percent of wage decrease for mothers of one child. The more children the higher the percentage gets. It ranges from twelve percent to fifteen percent of wage decrease for mothers that have two or more children. Now that is mind blowing, because that is quiet a high percentage and it affects their income a lot. The reasons stated for this motherhood penalty are the following, companies feel that mothers have less experience than non mothers, are less productive and may work less. The companies believe that mothers have less experience than those who do not have children or are not mothers (fathers) because of the maternity leave, to need to stay with the child, doctor’s appointments all that makes it hard for a mother to always be at work to obtain all that constant job experience. Also the believe that mothers are less productive because they might be tired of the duties they do at home or also might be storing energy for when they arrive home, to have energy for the work at home that awaits them. Also, companies believe that mothers will spend their work time worrying about their child instead of concentrating on work related issues. Lastly, that mothers work less, they mentioned on their essay that mothers might work less because they might have to call out sick to deal with their child’s sickness or appointments. These reasons that were stated to why there is a motherhood penalty do occur but fathers do not pay the same price mothers have to pay. But also there is a reason why we receive “paid sick days”, among other benefits. Women already get paid less than men in general and now are getting paid even less just for producing children. This mostly sounds like a discrimination against women. Lastly they also stated that mothers tend to ask for less demanding occupations to have fewer duties since they consider motherhood to be an “extra shift”.