I recently stumbled upon the article “Workplace Advice I Wish I Had Known”, by Joann S. Lublin, a woman who struggled with workplace gender bias throughout her prestigious career. The article contains pieces of advice that may help women battle this gender bias.
I love this article. I think it is so important for women to stand together in the face of oppression and sexism. However, the article did produce the following questions in me: Why are excessive tips and tricks for allowing a woman to have a similar work experience to men necessary? Why is this still a problem?
I know we all saw the article “The Top Jobs Where Women Are Outnumbered By Men Named John” (or maybe it was just me and my carefully curated Facebook followings that allow for any and all news about sexism). At first, this article is laughable and seemingly ridiculous, but then it sets in. There really are more Republican senators named John than there are female Republican senators in the United States.
When one thinks of workplace gender bias, one often thinks of unequal pay.
The wage gap is obviously a very important, REAL issue (and, yes, it’s sad that I have to indicate that it is, in fact, a real phenomenon), but there are other important issues that need to be addressed.
As aforementioned, the staggeringly low number of women in certain, more prestigious professions is highly concerning. But there are also social issues within workplaces as they pertain to gender bias and the oppression of women. One example of this is the way women who are successful in receiving a prestigious job are treated by coworkers and consumers. Lublin writes in “Workplace Advice I Wish I Had Known,” that she was mistaken by consumers “for a secretary, phone operator, or subscription saleswoman,” and that her male coworkers often made advances at her, asking, “Where have they been hiding a dish like you?”
Perhaps because of the male coworkers’ inability to contain themselves around women at work, women often feel socially alienated in their workplace by their coworkers. The lack of proportionality between genders in the workplace as compared with men makes socializing awkward, and the female coworkers are often left out of after-work functions and even conversations at work. This concept may seem trivial, but it is one of the many problems that lead to female inferiority in the workplace.
I invite you to ask yourself why, in 2018, gender bias and sexism is still so prevalent in the workplace.
As there is a growing gender gap in higher education, with more women pursuing degrees than men, it is absolutely not because of the lack of educated women searching for prestigious careers. Maybe if we started changing our names to John there would be some change.
