Feminism and Men by van der Gaag Nikki

Author:van der Gaag, Nikki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zed Books
Published: 2014-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

From individual action to collective change

So what will improve women’s equal participation in employment? It is important to note here that the solutions do not just lie, as Sheryl Sandberg suggests, with individual women, or indeed with individual men. Nor is it just up to employers, although the measures that they can take, as we see in the Australian study overleaf, are important. And although legislation is important, it too is not enough on its own.

As social economist Naila Kabeer points out, gender inequality in the marketplace is, according to feminist economists, ‘structured into market forces by discriminatory practices inherited from the past as well as by the bargaining power exercised in the present by powerful market actors pursuing their own self-interest’.55 It is on all three fronts therefore – individual, institutional and structural – that discrimination against women in the workplace needs to be addressed.

So what factors encourage women to work in certain professions and what deters them? A paper by gender and development experts Tina Wallace and Helen Baños-Smith that drew from a survey of public sector women across many countries found that it was both policies and attitudes which stopped women attaining more senior positions. Although childcare was the number-one reason, other disincentives were male norms that make life in the workplace uncomfortable for women – such as the lack of ‘old boy’ networks to support women at work, the fact that they were in a minority and there were few role models, and their lack of time for extra training because of domestic responsibilities.56

Wallace and Baños-Smith also looked at the strategies women in senior management in Africa used for support and found that, for example, in Ghana, ‘women participants in a University study said attributes such as perseverance, the ability to plan, and their determination to succeed aided them in their struggle to advance’.57 In South Africa, another study found there was a difference between black women, who said ‘their collective strength was drawn from their feminism, personal and social resources (partners, children, female friends)’, and white women, who ‘relied on friends, faith, and eating to help them to cope’.58

A survey by online job marketplace Elance of 7,000 men and women in the tech industry in the USA found that lack of female role models and stereotypes of ‘geeks’ were deterrents for women, while incentives were equal pay, more inspiration at a young age, more female role models and dispelling stereotypes.59

In one survey in Australia, respondents were asked to rank the barriers to women’s equality in the workplace.60 The results were:

1 Workplace culture

2 Lack of female leaders

3 Gender stereotypes

4 Lack of flexible work practices

5 Affordability and accessibility of childcare

6 Sexism

7 Lack of mentors

8 Societal expectations regarding gender roles (e.g. household work/childcare)

Other recurring barriers included:

• Entrenched boys’ club, the all-male work environment and macho behaviour;

• Workplace design including the one-income-earner household model and logistics of school and work hours;

• The confusion between ‘presenteeism’ and commitment, the association of flexible work with lack of commitment, and the lack

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