Each generation experiences different social problems. In the past, women were confined to their homes and to caring for their children. At this point in time, women have progressed to having jobs outside of their home while still taking care of their homes and children. In the future, women may experience prejudice for being promoted to more executive positions in their workplaces. Although women are already experiencing prejudice in the workplace, in the next thirty years, they may grow up being discouraged from earning executive job positions at all.
Women are capable of just as much as men and should not be discouraged from reaching their full potential, especially not in the workplace. The invisible barrier that prevents women, among other social minorities, from obtaining higher ranking job positions is a metaphor known as the glass ceiling. It allows minority employees to be aware that those job positions exist while also preventing them from ever reaching those positions. They are often blocked on the claims of emotional, mental, or networking deficiencies. Women are often subjected to having their leadership skills questioned by accusations that their decision making is influenced by their emotions. Their intelligence and education levels are also doubted, even if they are comparable to the experiences of a male contender, when organizations decide how to fill their open positions. Lastly, it continues to be challenging for women to network with men, who are often biased to select other men who are more similar to themselves in any given situation. This may become a major issue because if women rarely hold higher ranking job positions, then children may grow to believe that women do not belong nor deserve to have such valuable positions in the workplace.
Many negative effects may result from the belief that women should not have executive job positions such as the intensification of the “gender wage gap, occupational segregation, [and the] denial of promotions to leadership.” (UN Women, 2011) The gender wage gap is the salary difference between men and women, even if they have the same capabilities and are completing the same work. Generally, the trend is that women are only paid an average of 75% what men earn for the same job positions. (AAUW, 2017) Occupational segregation is the distribution of social demographics across various career fields. For example, there are more female than male nurses because nursing is often considered a female career field. Lastly, women may be increasingly denied promotions to leadership because of the potential mindset that future generations may have that subjugates women to men. Whether consciously or unconsciously, employers in the future may preferentially hire a male over a female candidate because of gender stereotypes. These results may affect an immeasurable number of lives from working women to children, especially those who also belong to racial minorities, across America and the rest of the world. The working women, whether single or in relationships, may experience emotional abuse from never earning what they deserve for how much work they perform. In turn, both the immediate and extended families of these women may also struggle emotionally and financially.
This problem already exists in society today, but it will come to fruition within the next couple of decades. Patriarchy is a society that is catered to men while women are largely excluded from leadership roles. The majority of the world’s countries are and have been patriarchal societies for several centuries, including America. Additionally, gender roles are social expectations for each gender. For example, men are expected to be “more assertive, daring and violent than women, while women [are] more gentle, nurturing and maternal…” (Pieper, 2016) The culmination of a patriarchal society and gender roles offers men an advantage in the workplace that women have never experienced.
Sociologist Max Weber would relate this problem to attitudes, values, or beliefs about women in the workplace. According to him, capitalism and bureaucracy are the primary methods of dehumanization or alienation. He claimed that the development of rationalization during the scientific revolution caused bureaucracy, which is the concept of a government being run by elect officials. Bureaucracy, even on a smaller scale organization or business, eventually leads to disenchantment because anything considered non-essential is devalued and eliminated. In the future, women may become victims of disenchantment because men can technically complete the same work. Disenchantment ultimately leads to dehumanization because humans, women in this case, will lose their concept of self if their work remains unacknowledged.
This problem can be remedied by implementing laws, promoting gender equality, and encouraging young women to enter career fields that are traditionally male dominated. New laws should be stricter on gender-based violence and sexual harassment in the workplace. Gender equality should be promoted through quotas in the bureaucratic aspects of society, such as the federal and corporate government systems. Lastly, encouraging young women to enter male dominated fields should not only counteract the effects of a discouraging patriarchal society, but also change the overall societal mindset.