Women At Work

Women at Work

Throughout the 20th century women have had to fight harder to get ahead in the male owned workplace. With obstacles such as discrimination, lower wages, and the lack of management positions how are women competing with men? Are women accepting the treatment from society or is this the way it should be. No way! That is why women are fighting back.

In today's society women are as active as they have ever been in our workforce. In recent studies (Sociology Text Book) women have taken to the forefront in starting there own businesses yet they lag far behind there male counterparts in positions of corporate management. The Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor lists the 20 leading occupations of employed women. Of these occupations which include teachers, nurses, and secretaries women outnumber men by more than 80 percent. Some of the other occupations that women perform more than men include retail sales clerks, customer service representatives, and office clerks. Women and men traditionally have worked in different specific occupations within the professional occupational category, a pattern that continued in 2005. For example, women were less likely than men to be employed in some of the highest-paying occupations, such as engineers and mathematical and computer scientists. Instead, women were more likely to work in lower paying professional occupations, such as teachers. Women have been know as the care givers in our society and that may be why women often find it difficult to change job fields and pursue management type positions.

Women continue to face various obstacles during their daily attempts to succeed in the workplace. In recent years, the numbers of sexual discrimination cases have continued to increase. Besides discrimination, women also seem to be finding it more difficult to earn the respect of men and even sometimes women once they become a member of management. Women have bonded together to form various groups and organizations to help assist other women with some of these challenges. One of the most noted of these organizations is the Women's Business Center which offers grants and resources to female small business owners. Many women have overcome the challenge of getting ahead of there male counterparts by going back to college and in some fields receiving specialized training. A lot of employers often see women as emotional and attempt to keep women out of management positions. Women can be and often are just as aggressive in business as males but women tend to have a sense of conscience in which many men see as a weakness.

Though women outnumber men in many job occupations, there still remains a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the salaries women are paid versus than male counterparts performing the same job. Women are steadily playing the catch up game when it comes to salaries. The average woman must work 15 months to make the same wages that men make in only 12 months. When comparing women's salary to other employees of their own gender, it has been proven that college educated women make higher than women with little to no college education. The 1999 Salary Survey performed by the Special Libraries Association showed