Reskin and Roos talk about how in the 1980s women started doing what was usually considered to be jobs done by men. Women had shown disproportionate gains in some predominantly male positions. But this didn’t really show the whole story. It only showed that women had gains in the jobs that the census looked at while they actually lost ground in some machine-heavy jobs. It is to be expected that the jobs that men tend to over represent the highest paying jobs in white-collar and blue-collar jobs. Women were overrepresented in jobs that are seen as jobs that are caring and administrative-support occupation. So instead of being a doctor they are more likely to be the nurse, who aren’t in charge but still works as hard and know as much as the doctors, who are generally men.
Not only is job segregation done by sex it is also by race. So whether or not an African American was a male or female they would still be below a white person. African Americans are overrepresented in service and labor jobs, no matter their sex. The authors state that occupational sex segregation has been more resistant to charge than race segregation. So even though there has been a lot of advancement in trying to make jobs equally dispersed between races and sexes women still tend to get the lower paid and less respectable jobs than men.
Even though the feminist movement has tried to open up doors to occupations that were generally reserved for men, the labor force hasn’t quite gotten to be completely integrated. Occupational sex segregation is deeply rooted in the ideas that our society has about gender roles. There are just some things that we believe women are suppose to do, like take care of children and clean the house, and there are some things that we are taught that men are suppose to do, like be the bread winner and do the heavy lifting. This leads to jobs that are just supposed to be done by women, like school teachers and nurses, and ones that are just suppose to be done by men, such as CEOs and construction workers. This is why it has been so hard for our society to get rid of sex segregation in the workplace.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
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ReplyDeleteSmith does a good job explaining the segregation outlined by Reskin and Roos. All in all, the article explains how women are seemingly entering positions and fields thought to be dominated by males. Although this may be true, the article also points out that males have a history of (and still tend to) dominate the higher paid, qualified, and glamorized/prestigious positions while females tend to occupy the less paid, support/service fields (like nursing, social work, etc). The article also exposes a racial side to occupational segregation, by stating that racial minorities that have the same education, experience, skills, etc. as their white counterpart will typically not be hired. Even if racial minorities look better on paper then their white counterpart they will still encounter difficulties landing the job when in competition with a white person.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting part of this article to me was the section where Reskin and Roos explained how employers rank males and females in labor queues. I found it extremely unfair that employers tend to hire based on the sex labels that characterize jobs as belonging to men and women. So let’s say that a male college student goes against the grain and decides to major in nursing (deemed a feminine career). Does this mean that by being a male in a category labeled “female”, his seemingly “dominating” sex will actually end up hurt his chances of landing the job? Or will his sex trump the hiring process and he will be hired before a female applying for the same job? I believe that Reskin and Roos may have implied that it would be a female trying to enter a male labeled profession when they explained this hiring process, but I still wonder about my example and ones like it.
On a side note, I would like to see how sexuality would influence occupational segregation. If an employer somehow knew (or thought they knew) that a potential employee was homosexual, would they rather hire a white homosexual man, or a white straight woman? What about a homosexual white woman and a straight black man? Or would sexuality not matter in the workplace? Just something to chew on.
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ReplyDeleteI think that it would depend on the person applying for the job. If the man had some attributes that most people stereotype as being a gay man, I would think that the straight woman would be hired before him. On the other hand, lesbian women are not as stigmatized as gay men (not always the case though), so I think that the lesbian woman would be hired before the black man. Especially with what the book has already said about racism/employment.
ReplyDeleteSexuality definately matters in the workplace, because there is no Federal regulation (ENDA will be passed soon) banning employers from discriminating against this group as there is for other groups. (not that discrimination doesnt happen anyways).