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Jade Wilkins
Professor Grant
Political and Global Issues
November 26, 2018
Why Are Women Underrepresented in the Fields of Business and Politics?
1.Introduction
The 19 ?th
?
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote.
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This right is known as “women’s suffrage”, and was ratified on August 18, 1920, nearly 100
years ago. However, women are still underrepresented in the political work arena and in
business as a whole. The majority of people who were against this amendment, which was
protested for nearly a century, had to have been men. The question is, “Why are women
underrepresented in business and politics?” Sadly, it has to be the fact that the majority of
lawmakers, hiring officials, and positions of power are being driven by men.
The percentage of women in government is disproportionately lower than other fields
such as Education, Medical Professionals, Paralegals and Human resources, to name a few;
which ranges from 96% to 74%, respectively. Female government professionals such as State
Legislators, Congress Members, Governors and the President ranges from 24% to 0%,
respectively. As we are well aware, 100% of our presidents were men, which is why this range
ends with zero percent. Donald Trump is the first and only US President ever with no political or
military experience. He is actually the most inexperienced president in American History. There
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has never been a president who has lacked both political and military service. Yet, Hillary
Clinton, a woman, a lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. Senator from 2001-2009,
Secretary of State from 2009-2013, during the Barack Obama Administration, and was married
to our 42 ?nd
?
President, lost her run to become the first US Woman President, to a man with zero
experience, and zero knowledge in this arena. But, he had money. Again, the question is, “Why
are women underrepresented in business and politics?” It’s been established that men are in the
highest percentage of decision-making positions, and I think it’s safe to add money to the
equation, as well.
Prior to entering politics and becoming our 45 ?th
?
U.S. President, Donald Trump was a
businessman and television personality, born and raised in Queens, New York, has a degree in
economics, and has been married three times. Our President is said to be work 3.1 billion
dollars. With no political or military experience, the only thing I can see as being his selling
point besides his political views, is his money. Money is power and men with money are
powerful. In the United States, women generally win elections at the same rate as men, but they
are less likely to run for office. In 1995 not one Fortune 500 company had a female CEO; today
there are 24….of 500 companies.
Some social scientists cite traditional family arrangements that limit women’s career
choices. ?Researchers at the Brookings Institution ? have found what might be called an ambition
gap, with women underestimating their abilities and chances for success. It makes them less
likely than men to even consider seeking public office, or to have political professionals
encourage them to run.” ~The Times Editorial Board I will explore in “Why are Women
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Underrepresented in Business and Politics?”…what role powerful men and money play in this;
among other factors such as, gender bias and the family dynamics.
2. More Women Need to Run for Office
Thirty years ago, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman named to a major party’s
presidential ticket when the then-New York congresswoman won the Democratic vice
presidential nomination on July 19, 1984. From that point forward, women have made numerous
steps in the political arena. “The present Congress contains a record number of women: 20 serve
in the Senate, and 82 serve in the House of Representatives.”(HuffPost UK, 2018) ? ? Yet, women
are still underrepresented in and less inclined to keep running for political office at all
dimensions of government, from local to national. “Members of Congress are more than 80
percent male, about 80 percent white and about 60 years old, on average”.(HuffPost UK, 2018)
There are over 500,000 elected offices and less than ? are held by women. In 2 states no
woman has been elected to congress. In 24 states no woman has ever been elected governor. In
25 states women are less than 25% of the legislature. The one big reason is that is that women
quite simply don't run for office as much. It's not the fact that women don’t win, it's the fact that
they don't run, because when women run they win at the same rates as men. While women have
proven that they can raise money and win elections ? at comparable, if not higher, rates than men
still too few women run for office at all. Even extensive research shows that when women run
for office, they perform just as well as men but there is a substantial gender gap in political
ambition; men tend to have it, and women don’t. Citizen Political Ambition Panel Study is a
research project that ?Richard L. Fox ? and ? Jennifer L. Lawless ? have been conducting over the
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course of the last seven years. They interface this persevering gender gap in political ambition to
a few distinctive factors. “Women are less likely than men to be willing to endure the rigors of a
political campaign. They are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less
likely than men to have the freedom to reconcile work and family obligations with a political
career. Women are less likely than men to think they are ‘qualified’ to run for office. And they
are less likely than men to perceive a fair political environment.” (Lawless, 2018) ? ?One of the
biggest barriers pertaining to why women do not run for office dealt with self-perceptions of
electoral qualifications and viability. “Consistent with the findings from seven years ago that
men remain approximately 65 percent more likely than women to assess themselves as qualified
to run for office. Women are twice as likely as men to rate themselves as not at all
qualified.”(Lawless, 2018) ? ? Similar gender gaps appear when we consider women and men’s
assessments of whether they are qualified to perform the job of an elected official. Women’s
tendency to underestimate their political qualifications also does not reflect their actual concrete
credentials.
What would it take to get more women to run? According to “POLITICO" it starts at
childhood. The keys to cultivating girls’ interest in running for office later in life are parental
encouragement and sports. Political scientists ? Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox have found ? that
college students who played varsity or junior varsity sports were much more likely to have
considered running than those who did not. “Women who played sports were about 25 percent
more likely to exhibit political aspirations.”("Why women don't run for office", 2018)
In high school, boys and girls report almost equal interest in politics, and they are equally
likely to participate in student council. The gender gap opens up in college, when more men
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begin to get involved in politics on campus and to consider running one day. Both college-aged
men and women report being encouraged to run for student government at nearly equal rates, but
family and friends were far more likely to encourage men to consider a run for political office
later in life.
In college, men’s political ambition grows, while women’s fades. While only a third of
high school girls doubt they’d ever be qualified to run, half of college women have the same
doubts but clearly the lack of confidence continues well beyond college, even among women
with relevant political and policy experience. When Lawless and Fox polled women and men
among “feeder” careers (business, law, education and politics/activism), they found that ? women
were almost equally likely to have had relevant political experience ?, including extensive policy
research, public speaking, soliciting funds and interacting with public officials. But when asked
if they thought they were qualified to run for office, only 57 percent of those women said they
thought they were qualified or very qualified, compared to 73 percent of men. We know that
when women run for office they win at the same rates as men. Yet women are not encouraged
and recruited at the same rate as men, which needs to change in order to make a difference.
3. Gender Bias and Inequality in the Workplace
Gender bias can start as early as grade school education–long before venturing into the
workforce. Carolyn Butcher Dickman, the author of "Gender Differences and Instructional
Discrimination in the Classroom," writes, "Most Kindergarten through 8th grade teachers, almost
all women, suffer from inadequate preparation in science so that they fear teaching science and
lack confidence in their ability to do so." Consequently, according to Dickman, "The quality of
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teacher contacts varies between the genders. Boys receive more teacher reactions of praise,
criticism and remediation." This early form of gender bias continues through years of education
and into the workforce.
As of late women have gained noteworthy ground in the realm of work. They have
entered numerous divisions and exceeded expectations in fields that were at one time the
selective area to men. But regardless of the advancement that has been made toward gender
equality, women are still sometimes kept down by organization practices and structure that are
biased toward men. ?Women are often relegated to low-paying, clerical and administrative jobs,
while men are often placed on career tracks that promise upward mobility and career
advancement. ?Comprehensively, women are underrepresented in companies, and the share of
women diminishes with each progression up the corporate pecking order. Women experience
numerous hindrances to progression into corporate administration positions, and these
boundaries include sexual orientation based separation and additionally oblivious sex
predisposition. In any case, gender bias keeps on affecting women in the working environment,
and more should be done to empower highly skilled women to progress into administration
positions.
Societal standards, principles, and jobs teach and urge men to value or devalue ladies
even in the United States even where there are anti-discrimination laws set up to debilitate such
demeanors. In the working environment, women are as often as possible exposed to unobtrusive
discrimination by both genders. Qualified women might be ignored for advancements and
occupations might be offered to a less qualified male candidate since he is male. Ladies are
presumably more inclined to be made a decision based upon their looks and how they dress than
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their male counterparts. Women are not just victimized for being pretty or provocative they are
likewise oppressed for being truly not enough, excessively old, or, in a few positions for not
being provocative enough.
Countless examinations have demonstrated the advantages of more prominent gender
equality in the work environment and of acquainting more women with administration positions.
One recent examination assessed that gender equality could add $12 trillion to the worldwide
economy, while others have discovered that organizations with women on their board
outperform those with all male boards. Today there are various prominent female pioneers, and
women in business are more conspicuous than ever. However, working environment insights
recount an altogether different story. Women remain underrepresented at each dimension in the
corporate pipeline, with the most senior dimensions by a wide margin the most exceedingly
awful influenced. The difference among male and female profession movement is most
articulated in the monetary and innovation segments, where in spite of long stretches of exertion,
there is as yet a precarious drop off of female cooperation at the administration and authority
levels. Women make up 55% of manager level representatives, however just 15% of officer-level
staff, and only 5% of CEOs.
Unequal also pay plays a huge role in gender inequality and discrimination. The
gender-pay gap is the distinction in pay that women make contrasted with men, despite working
within the same field, with the same responsibilities, and with the same amount of skill and
experience. Currently, the national average for pay inequality is 80 percent, which means
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women are paid 80 percent of what a man is paid for the same amount of work in the same
position.
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Bibliography
Blake, Aaron. “Yes, Politics Is Still Dominated by Old, White Men. Here's Why.” ?The
Washington Post ?, WP Company, 3 Sept. 2014,
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hite-men/?utm_term=.53ae9d7f6ebf.
“Gender Discrimination in the Workplace | Fiscal Tiger.” ?Fiscal Tiger | A Resource for Personal
Finance and Credit Card ?, 21 May 2018,
www.fiscaltiger.com/gender-discrimination-examples-definition/#Unequal_Pay.
“Homepage.” ?She Should Run ?, www.sheshouldrun.org/.
Janie, and Ellen Weinstein. “Why Women Don't Run for Office.” ?POLITICO ?, POLITICO,
www.politico.com/interactives/2017/women-rule-politics-graphic/.
Lawless, Jennifer L., and Richard Logan. Fox. ?It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run
for Office ?. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Parker, Kim. “Gender Discrimination More Common for Women in Mostly Male Workplaces.”
Pew Research Center ?, Pew Research Center, 7 Mar. 2018,
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/07/women-in-majority-male-workplaces-report-higher-
rates-of-gender-discrimination/.
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