Leadership, Management & Life in the Workplace
  • Blog
  • About John
  • Decoding the Workplace
  • Dr. Juran AIG Archival Project
  • Contact
  • Disclaimers

Unintentional Sex-Role Stereotyping in the Workplace

2/13/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
We see the world and the workplace through a lens of masculinity-femininity. We may not realize that our perception of others in the workplace may be sex-typed. Sex-role stereotyping may disadvantage employees and the organization.

Read the following words and ask yourself which you think are more likely to describe men, which are more likely to describe women? Aggressive, works well with others, dynamic, good administrator, logical, perceptive, assertive, personable, forceful, tactful, true leader. For years I have used a longer version of this exercise in my introductory management course. Consistently most of my students see these words as mostly either masculine or feminine.

The effect of our masculinity-femininity lens can be subtle, easily missed, yet significant in impact. A supervisor can be fair in treatment, actively provide equal opportunity, and still manifest stereotypic tendencies without being aware of it. How? One example is performance appraisals. Analyses of key words, such as those just listed, in written performance appraisals sometimes show sex-role stereotypic traits. A male manager may be described as "a true leader", “dynamic”, “logical”, “assertive”,  “forceful”.  A female manager, viewed as equally effective, may be described as a “good administrator", "works well with others", “perceptive”, “personable”, “tactful”.  Somewhere from within us, the masculine and feminine traits we learned from our childhood may emerge in our writing (and sometimes our speech) unintentionally affecting the opportunities of others.  


Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncngpao/8359944332/
Free to share:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    RSS Feed