Download - Gender Stratification (Social Studies)
Gender Stratification:
Mommy track, Glass Escalator and Glass Ceiling
This assignment comprises two parts. The first part discusses the concepts of
mommy track, glass escalator, and glass ceiling. In so doing, four courses on the
importance of equality among gender will be highlighted. The second part focused
on the ways to diminish the issue of disparity in work place among women.
The words “mommy track” used for the career path decided by work schedule
offering mothers certain benefits, such as negotiable working time but regularly
providing them with fewer opportunities for advancement. Women are discriminated
against when the want to have children and society ought to force private enterprises
to make allowances for childbearing. In sociological terms the “mommy track” is the
action of employers discouraging women from goals in the work force due to the
responsibilities of being a mother (Curiel 2008, Chuck N. Brandon P). Mothers
returning to work after maternity always find themselves placed on the mommy track.
The feeling of guilty is always haunted them when they are going back to the job
after having children because, not just they will face the prospect of being put on the
mommy track but also more likely to be left off with the easier and lower pay job.
They also feel upset by their busy career-oriented counterparts.
The second obstacles that usually faced by the careered women is “glass
ceiling”. The situation referred to as a “ceiling’’ because there’s a restrictions
blocking upward advancement, and “glass” which is literally transparent referred to
the limitation that is not immediately noticeable. This obstacle continues to exist even
though there are no clear barrier keeping women from acquiring a good job position.
When there is such discrimination in workplace, they usually use an indirect excuse
like spontaneous movement or sounds that upset the women. Mainly, this unseen
obstacle seems to happen in more of developing countries. This is the barrier that
keeps a numbers of women from obtaining and securing the prestigious jobs in the
workforce. These kinds of walls make many women feel as they are not valuable
enough to have the high-ranking positions. They also feel as if their employers do
not take them seriously or maybe not see them as potential candidates.
The term “glass escalator” on the other hand means the hidden advantages
for men in the female professions. Most studies of sex segregation in the workforce
on women’s experience in male-dominated occupation. However, men are less likely
to enter female-dominated occupations than women are to enter male dominated
jobs. The examples of women’s dominated job are elementary school teaching,
nursery and also librarian. In some rural Texas school, they refused to hire men in
the younger grades. Nationwide, about 7.5 percent of all nurses are male (T.
Schaefer, 2001). The glass escalator will retain the men from getting a promotion
because the employer’s think that the women cab do the certain job way better than
men. In particular, women in engineering and blue-collar occupations encounter
gender-based stereotypes about their competence which undermine their work
performance (Martin1980; Epstein 1988).
However, there always ways to diminish the issue of disparity in work place
among women and other causes such as sexism and racism. In order to lessen the
impact of the mommy track, there are a few steps that can be taken. First of all,
women must be fully clear in achieving their goal or in another meaning, they must
have a good plans pertain to maternity leave, make a fine leave plan to the
management and also planned the date to return. A pregnant working women that
are planning to take leave have to make sure that outstanding projects properly
changed. Learn from others mistake and be prepared even though sometimes this
can’t be avoid. It’s a must for new mother to always have a back up plan if there’s
anything unwanted to happen to their children. It is also important for working mother
to keep the line of communications open in order to avoid mommy track. An e-mail or
short phone call to the employer and other important people is vital to make
everyone know that you are still in the game.
In the same way, we can also lessen the effect of glass ceiling by
comprehend the significance of identity in minority success. One should study on
how to blend their identity with the realities of workplace. The two most important
things are self- awareness and self-confidence especially for men who work in
female-dominated workplace. Besides, ensure your prospects are realistic and
achievable. Some people will just blame others when they can’t achieve their
expectation and this will make you look not responsible for your action. Even though
the biggest contributing factor is biasness, you still need to evaluate how you could
have handle things differently and determine what you will do in the future to prevent
it. In addition, by actively seeking out for opportunities for training and education can
helps in learning and build up the right profile of an executive. Constantly practice to
develop communication, self-management and decision making skills because they
are important for you to climbing the corporate ladder.
Similarly, there’s also ways to decrease the effect of glass escalator if we all
work together to lessen the gap of inequality between male and female. We need to
do work that we really enjoy and jobs in companies with cultures that compliment
your strength and personality traits to make it easier for us to tolerate the possible
isolation, bias, prejudice and other barriers that we might encounter. We must
always stay motivated and make sure people will notice our accomplishment in the
workforce. To overcome class escalator, minorities must be extremely visible.
Develop the ability to promote your skills and accomplishment so that people will
always look at you as and important and reliable man. Once you know what to do to
be visible and important, you will become in demand and the discrimination will
slowly decrease.
As for the conclusion, all the social stratification must be overcome in order to
have a better and more develop country. A company will perform better if there’s no
sexism and discrimination. Like other forms of stratification, gender stratification can
also be avoided if everybody plays their part in overcoming all the differences and
the inequality.