|
A little walk down memory lane: During the years between
1940 and 1945, six million women entered the U.S. workforce
which according to C.E. Harrison (University of Berkeley Press,
1988) was a 500% increase of the number of women in paid labor.
The world wars were the major contributing factors. They were
needed to keep the economy going and their households afloat.
And thus began the "love-hate relationship" between the place
of women in the work force and the "moral" backlash of a woman's
place within the social order.
The sixties heralded in the acclaimed book The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedman galvanizing the women's movement as it "exposes"
the dissatisfaction many women experienced as a result of
narrowly defined roles. The National Organization of Women
(NOW) was also founded by Freidman during this decade. Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act bars employment discrimination
against race and sex and at the same time establishes the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Equal Rights Amendment
is passed in 1972 and 1973 the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court
decision gives a woman the right to determine her own reproductive
choices legalizing early stage abortion. The Family and Medical
Leave Act of 1993 paved the way for 12 weeks of employer support
for family emergencies including childbirth; it was upheld
in 2003. In 1996, women break the military academy barrier
and win the right to be admitted.
Subsequent years have brought a variety of "wins" and continued
struggles on individual and collective fronts to increase,
improve and invigorate a woman's place in the male dominated
workplace. Under the current administration, President Obama
passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, giving
women the opportunity to file a discrimination complaint against
an employer within 180 days of their last paycheck. According
to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, in 2008 women
made up about 48 percent of the labor force and men 52 percent.
The U.S. Small Business Administration website reports, America's
9.1 million women-owned businesses employ 27.5 million people
and contribute $3.6 trillion to the economy. This incredible
journey of women's rights into the workplace revisits the
once popular women's cigarette advertisement, "We've come
a long way baby", but have we?
At what cost have women become major players in the male-dominated
workplace? What exactly have they gained? Or maybe a better
question is what have women bought to the workplace that distinguishes
them as workers and leaders from their male counterparts?
Women have entered the workforce in mass numbers physically
but their mental and expressive ways of communicating have
not been welcomed in most environments. For many women, the
rise to the c-suite has come with a dismantling of the feminine
nature of thinking, listening, communicating, resolving conflict
- behaving. Masculine norms of thinking, speaking, and doing
business, pervade the workplace. Julia T. Wood in her book
Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender and Culture (2009),
researches and writes about the myriad of problems women face
due to the "institutionalization" of male-behavior in the
workforce. In the chapter "Gendered Organizational Communication",
Wood speaks of a variety of factors that perpetuate male-dominated
workplace environments. These factors include: "Think manager
- think male", "linear, analytical models of communication",
"perpetuated stereotypes of men and women" as well as "formal
and informal workplace practices" that hamper women's progress
often leading to the proverbial "glass ceiling and walls".
For the rest of this discussion, I will focus specifically
on the question of communication and the significance of feminine
speech - its value and devaluing in the workplace.
Communication, gender and culture are inextricably tied.
Individuals are socialized into their gender roles based on
their male/female marker. The socialization process of masculine
versus feminine, based in cultural norms, produces communication
that is genderized. So, men engage in masculine speech and
women engage in feminine speech, IF they have followed prescribed
patterns of communication behavior. The workforce, historically
dominated by men, has been infused with masculine speech patterns
that have become the "norm" of communication behavior.
Think about the way in which men are socialized to communicate.
You may recognize socialization patterns such as: straight-forward
(linear), problem-solution oriented, report oriented, activity
dominated, control focused, and independent. Females are enculturated
to use communication for a dissimilar social role, which initially
did not include the workforce: relationship talk (rapport
building), circular communication (descriptive/expressive),
nurturing, supportive, egalitarian, interdependent and conflict
managing. As evidenced in the communication climate of most
workplaces, masculine speech has been encouraged and feminine
speech discouraged. The individualistic, competitive and aggressive
manner of U.S. business relations has often been regarded
as needing communication behavior that is assertive, controlling
and hyper-individualistic. Feminine speech is not the typical
pattern of doing business. However, maybe it is time to rethink
our current way of conducting business. Why?
The United States is experiencing unprecedented "lose of
face" not only with the global community, but its own citizens.
The current economic crisis and resultant fallout can be traced
back to long-held patterns of "business as usual" that valued
individual interests over the collective good of the society.
Insider trading, personal greed, ponzi schemes, monopolization,
corporate takeovers, immediate gratification, insurance and
bank fraud/failures, and the list goes on. Could a corporate
climate of feminine speech create a different way of doing
business? If we examine patterns of global business negotiations,
most are based on building relationships and negotiation/pacing
that requires a more circular manner of communicating. Maybe
it is the feminine speak that will carry us into the 21st
century of the global business market. Could feminine speech
help create communication climates of co-opetition - building
teams where members bring their individual best for the collective
good (P.S. Perkins, The Art and Science of Communication,
2008)?
The new global business model is about building relationships
of trust and mutual benefit. These are characteristics inherent
in feminine speech communities. Maybe its time for a new model;
maybe its time for women to speak up!
Author, P.S. Perkins CEO, Human Communication Institute,
LLC
Return
to HOME Page
|
|
