THE CORPORATE WOMAN OF THE 1990s
by Jason Alan Weiner (Editor in Chief of Psyched-Out)
Consideration of the sexes and the effect of understanding female/male diversity with respect to occupational choices, occupational conduct, and profession selection climaxed during the last decade and evidently reached a level with the agreement that almost all business gender-specific diversity can be calculated for by other factors such as the time in that position of responsibility and departmental status.
During the middle of the last decade, women who joined the business world are now entering the core ranks of the workplace. There were countless conflicts involving many of those women who entered the work force, which, in turn, brought many important issues regarding gender diversity and equal rights for woman such as differences in salary and opportunities for promotion within the workforce.
Personality traits and values associated with males were similar traits associated to supervisors, whereas the same traits and values regarding women were inconsistentwith traits associated to supervisors. Researchers determined that much of the inconsistencies were due to stereotypical generalizations regarding the assumed behavior of woman such as obedience, non-competitiveness, incapability as a team-player, babbling, etc.
Eventually women determined that in order to be successful in the workplace, they needed to carry similar traits and values of their male counterparts. This meant that the only way they’ll be able to excel is if they behaved like men. For many women, this was a real struggle to deal with. This meant that women had to stop displaying their traditional role as a mother, nurturer, and submissive individual that they were accustomed to for not only most of their lives, but for most of history of the “living world”.
This meant that women couldn’t express themselves naturally or portray themselves as the traditional “woman”. Some may argue that this repression of gender expression is not only discriminatory, but they also feel that the workplace suffers from the absence of a feminine “point of view” which in some business situations has proven to be quite beneficial.
There was a multitude of civil lawsuits and varying degrees of litigation that resulted in unfavorable decisions against women during this time. Many of the women who did have the courage to stand-up against their employers were eventually fired or “let go” There were many cases in which Employers would find other reasons to terminate a woman who felt that she was being discriminated against. One woman, Cliessa Nagle formerly of the firm “Women Haters R Us” tells Psyched-Out the following: “During my employment with ‘Women Haters R Us’, I quickly climbed the corporate ladder to find out that all my hard work and dedication was not only unrecognized, but I was being paid less for doing the same job as my male co-workers. When I consulted with an attorney, he told me I had a very strong case. When it came time to testify in court, “Women Haters R Us” claimed I was being “insubordinate” and “uncooperative” after I brought this to their attention during my employment. In fact, “Women Haters R Us made me feel so uncomfortable at work during the hearings that I became so stressed-out from everything and needed some personal time off. After arriving back to work from my personal time, “Women Haters R Us” told me “They no longer need me and my position was no longer required because “computers” can now do my job” Personally, I feel that they simply used this as another reason to terminate me for “debating the discrimination issue.”
This is just one story of the thousands of professional woman who decided to take action against her company for gender inequality. Many suffered the same or similar fate resulting in losing their jobs, statuses, retirements and many other benefits that related to their profession.
