Are Women Stereotyped in the Workplace?

Are Women Stereotyped in the Workplace?

To define stereotype I would define it as a popular belief about a specific social group or types or individuals. This can be very similar to discrimination. Discrimination can be defined as making a distinction. Both lead to making an assumption. Assuming thing can get you in a lot of trouble down the road in the field of Human Resources. There are many laws that have been set in place to protect people and reduce discrimination and stereotyping.

There are many reasons people may be stereo typed. A person can by stereotype in many different settings at work, school and even church. How many woman priest or preachers do you know? The workplace is one that may have the biggest effect. At work being stereotyped may affect your income, which affects your life at home. In the workplace someone may be judged or stereotype due so their religion, race, sexual orientation, age and/or gender. I am sure there are many others but these are probably some of the main reasons affects. It is important to recognize this in our field of study because a diverse working environment can be a comfortable productive one.

Stereotyping women in the workplace may involve having different hiring and firing processes for a female when compared to a male. I watched a video on YouTube that presented a well-educated woman that applied and was interviewed for a position. She demonstrated herself professionally and took the interview seriously. The next interview showed a male interviewee. He did not have half of the education the woman interviewee had and treated the interview as if it was a joke. The male was chosen. Even though this was a skit unfortunately this is something that happens in real life.

Promotional practices are something that can be very big. So let's say that the female interviewee was chosen for the job but she rarely or never received promotions. When promotions come up she is always looked over. This is part of stereotyping. A perfect example of this was one time I had an interview for an Human Resource Coordinator position about two years with a very well know company here in Topeka. I wanted this job more than anything. I later find out that my "would to be" manager was in the middle of a lawsuit with this company because she claimed the bonuses and wages were fairly given. She also claimed that she was moved to low productive stores right before it was time for her to receive her bonus. The case also revealed the same this happened to the three other female managers here in the Topeka location. This is one job I am really glad I did not get. It can bring down moral in a company to find out that something like this is occurring.

Something that most people would not even consider is mothers in the workforce being treated differently than someone without children. Some managers that preform interviews may see it as a downfall for the interviewee to have