Feminism in Workforce Diversity

In earlier time, women have no position in any field. Women possessed no right and treated as puppets in the hand of man. Nowadays, women’s position and status have come up. They are stepping out on equal footing. It has led to reconsideration of women’s role in workplace. The changes result policies in equal pay and equal opportunities. It is challenging perceptions of women skills, not only enter traditional areas of female employment, but also nontraditional areas such as construction industry. The organizational behavior is also influenced by women’s role in workplace.

Feminism pays special attention to women’s right and position in culture and society. In earlier time, the society had been overtaken by patriarchal culture that men were kept in dominant and women were kept in subordination. The women have to obey their husband and have no right to speak. At first, feminism was concerned in equal legal status, but later feminism began to call for better education, right to vote, and employment opportunities.

The diversity refers to the board mixture of items, objects, or people that are characterized by difference and similarities. In the workplace, we refer to this variation with such terms as “cultural diversity”, “workforce diversity”, and “cultural variety” (Moorhead, 2000). Workforce diversity was derived from several dimensions that shaped by similarities and differences of individual characteristic. Gender is one of the dimensions of diversity which often happens in workplace.

The issue of workforce diversity has become essential as managers realized that composition of the workforce affects organizational productivity. Managers have to deal simultaneously with similarities and differences among people in organization (Banker’s Digest, 1987, p.8). This is very important for managers and companies since the issues will affect on creating new policy of company.

This paper is going to look how feminism impact women’s role in workplace. The impact will be examined as one of dimension in workforce diversity. This paper will be divided into three parts. The first part is the main concept of Feminism. It will summarize the history of feminism movement and the transformation of women inequality into equality in workplace. The next part will be discussing about the value of workforce diversity. There will be a brief resume about the definition of workforce diversity. Finally, the impact of feminism in workforce diversity will be discussed in the third part. The real examples of women’s role in workplace will explain in this part. This paper will be closed by a conclusion and suggestion from the writer for further study in the future.

Main Concept of Feminism

Motherhood and the ideas about femininity that go with it are still handicaps for women in the workplace and the political arena: occupational choice, opportunity, and salaries are still determined by sex and reproduction (Kaminer, 1990). Many women have no freedom and no right in the family, society, and the workplace. The form of masculinity that men are a leader influenced culture in society belief.

In the 1960s and 1970s feminism seems to be frightening since women did their action in equality when they have no choice in social life. Women were socialized to fulfill subordinate roles that culture assigned to them and not only follow their nature. In 1980s, women were challenged by sexual difference as a matter of public policy. The irony of the feminist is that the separated women’s world created by discrimination and traditional divisions of labor has always been a source of strength (Kaminer, 1990).

 The Value of Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity is the similarities and differences in such characteristic as age, gender, ethnic heritage, physical abilities and disabilities, race, and sexual orientation among the employees of organization (Moorhead, 2000). In the 21^st century, workforce diversity has become very important in business concern. Many companies diversify their workforce as a social responsibilities, economic payback, legal requirement, marketing strategy, business communication strategy, and capacity-building strategy.

Understanding diversity means recognizing and accepting differences as well as valuing the unique perspectives such different can bring to the workplace (Ferrel, 2009). As Taylor H.Cox.Jr., said in his book, “The Multicultural Organization” (1991), there are several benefits to fostering and valuing workforce diversity, including the following:

1.      More productive use of a company’s human resources.

2.      Reduced conflict among employees of different ethnicities, races, religions, and sexual orientation as they learn on each other differences.

3.      More productive working relationship among diverse employees as they learn more about and accept each other.

4.      Increased commitment to and sharing of organizational goals among diverse employees at all organizational levels.

5.      Increased innovation and creativity as diverse employees bring new, unique perspectives to decision-making and problem-solving tasks.

6.      Increased ability to serve the needs of an increasingly diverse customer base.

The Impact of Feminism in Workforce Diversity

Economics necessity and feminist attitude have brought more women’s role in workplace. The number working women in United States is projected to increase through 1990s and to be 63 percents of all women by the year 2000 (Statistical Abstract of US, 1992). In the early 1990s there were only three female CEOs on Fortune 1,000 companies (Marsh, 1991). In twenty of the nation’s largest corporations only 4.8 percent of managers within three levels of CEO were women (Fisher, 1992). This situation shows that women have break the barrier of discrimination in the workplace between men and women.

According to the history, men and women have been socialized into different sex roles. Women were object of sexual desire, emotional, homemakers, and submissive. The male was traditionally aggressive, logical, the breadwinner, and dominant (Steiner, 1994). These traditional attitudes were carried from family and social life into the workplace.

Nowadays, most of companies assumed that women employees should be treated the same as men employees in the workplace. Many case happened in different situations such as women feel uncomfortable in having drink together on a meeting in hotel bar, some golf clubs prohibit women in attending golf meeting, and men sometimes continued a meeting in dirty jokes as informal communication. The increasing number of women in the workforce means the employees with different attitudes, background, and capabilities need to be utilized, possibly in different ways than were the norm in many organizations (Moorhead, 2000).

The impact of feminism in workforce diversity also challenges employees and companies in creating new policy. Some special needs of women are work due to pregnancy and days absent to take care of sick children. The women have to balance their dual roles as mother and employee. This matter makes women’s role in the workplace to be considered, for example some companies built child-care center, flexible scheduling, and job sharing.

In the earlier time, women have no freedom and no right in the family, society, and the workplace. The form of masculinity that men are a leader influenced culture in society belief. In recent time, gender is one of the dimensions of diversity which often happens in workplace. Workforce diversity has become very important in business concern. Workforce diversity was derived from several dimensions that shaped by similarities and differences of individual characteristic. Workforce diversity has several benefits among diverse employees as they learn more about and accept each other.

The impact of feminism in workforce diversity challenges employees and companies in creating new policy. It is also challenging women skills in the workplace as men and women work in equality. For further study in the future, we need to examine what are the new policies of company should be taken in order to workforce diversity especially in gender. It is also important thing to realize that company productivity does not depend on men or women, age, races, but on how much the workforce can do their best part in a company.