Kahsai 1

Meron Kahsai

ENGL 115

Professor Rodrick

19 October 2019

Conforming Within The Workplace

Throughout the years women have had to conform within the workplace to achieve a

level of success. Conformity is when a person matches their attitude, belief, and behavior to fit

into a group norm. Many women feel the need to present themselves in a way that fits into the

expectation of how a woman should act because of societal expectations. One of these reasons is

because women have been told to dress and act feminine from a young age and even up until

they are adults. They are taught that to be feminine you have to show characteristics like

gentleness, sensitivity, and sweetness and not characteristics that are looked at as more

masculine like strength and assertiveness. Society has put an image on how women should act,

how they should look, and who they should be.

When women are in a professional setting where the majority of the people there are

male, it pressures them to perform their tasks in a different way from men. They feel that they

need to excel in every aspect of their work and how they present themselves because they

probably aren’t seen at the same level as the men in their workplace. In an article about the

perception of women, Mary B. McVee says, “Society forms expectations of individuals and

situational outcomes through stereotypes and norms.”(McVee, et al., 2005). It is known that in

almost every kind of job there is, there are instances where women have been judged more

frequently and to a further extent from their male coworkers. When it comes to jobs like

Construction, Engineering, and Computer Programming, there is sometimes a bias in favor of

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male workers that causes women workers to have the need to change their attitude so that they

can be noticed. They feel the need to prove to the other people in the workplace that they can be

just as good by presenting themselves in a less feminine way to fit into the atmosphere. An

example of this would be how sometimes in male dominated occupations, there are times where

a woman worker may be excluded from a social circle when the majority of the workers are

male. To be included into the social circle at that workplace, that woman worker will probably

try to match with how the others workers act so that she can fit into that group and be seen in a

positive way at work.

While this happens less in today’s world than in the past, it still happens in jobs that have

a stereotype of men working in it. An occupation where this behavior of women conforming to

the area around them is the military. While more and more women are joining the military than

ever before and it is becoming more of an inclusive space, there is still the stereotype that men

do better in it. Even though both females and males need to conform to the ideals that the

military have, there are more expectations for the women then there are men. In the article “The

Inconvenience of Being a Woman Veteran” Sarah Maples says, “The uniform and grooming

standards work to downplay their physical female characteristics. Additionally, the

expectation—explicit or implicit—is that they also downplay other attributes that are

traditionally considered feminine, such as open displays of emotion.” (Maples, 2017). There is a

gender bias in the military when it comes to wearing the uniform and how you present yourself.

This is shown in the uniform that is required for the female officers to wear. Since the female

officers have to view themselves as the same level as the male officers, it means that their

appearance can’t be too feminine and they have to downplay some of their characteristics.
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Female athletes also experience the feeling of needing to conform to the ideals and

stereotypes that sports have. In professional sports, when a female athlete dresses more feminine

or acts more feminine than most players, people’s attention tends to be more on her appearance

than her ability to play. On the contrary, if a female athletes appearance was more masculine and

she didn’t really show feminine characteristics, she would be told that she looks too manly and

would be looked at as less of a female athlete. In the article “Conformity to Gender Norms

Among Female Student-Athletes: Implications for Body Image” the writers Steinfeldt,

Zakrajsek, Carter, and Steinfeldt say, “Female athletes often participate in sports using standards

of traditional male athleticism, yet at the same time attempt to manage societal expectations of

conforming to traditional femininity.”(Steinfeldt, Zakrajsek, Carter, and Steinfeldt, 2011). In the

world of sports, most female athletes can’t be too feminine or too masculine and have to find a

balance in between so that they fit into the ideal of a female athlete. If they are more of either of

these than they usually receive criticism and hate towards their appearance. They also receive

assumptions on what kind of person they are just on the basis of their clothing.

Although some people may say that women aren’t treated differently in the workplace,

statistics from Catalyst shows that women make up less than 6 percent of CEOs in S&P 500

companies. If there isn’t any bias against women in the workplace, why are so few of them

getting promoted or not having the opportunity to achieve a higher position at their job? If there

was no gender bias within occupations, then there would be way more women who have a higher

position in their job. In a Ted Talk about women in business, Kirsten Hall says, “We celebrate

achievement of women in business because women in business are seen as a high achieving

exception which is contrary to the norm.”(Hall, 2:22). Even today there are still many jobs that

are seen as more normal for men to achieve and work in than it would be for women. Men are
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seen as the norm when it comes to jobs that require strength. It is still unusual to the majority of

society to see a woman working in an auto shop or in a job that requires a large amount of

strength. This is why so many women who work in a job that fits these categories change their

appearance to be less feminine and more similar to the people around them. If they are working a

job that requires a large amount of strength, they might feel pressure to not dress feminine so that

they look more like they belong there. If they dress less feminine they would also be judged

more on their abilities than on their appearance. The image of physical strength leans more

towards masculine characteristics than feminine ones to the majority of people. This needs to

change so that there is less of a bias against women. As long as there is a bias against women in

the workplace, female workers will continue to conform at work and adjust their identity to the

atmosphere at their job.

Workplaces need to break this gender bias so that women won’t have to change who they

are to fit into the atmosphere. Without this bias, many women wouldn’t have to worry so much if

what they wear is too feminine or too masculine for their work environment. If this bias was

removed, it would not matter whether their outfit is less feminine or more because it wouldn’t

affect the way that they are viewed or the way that they are judged on their abilities. Their

abilities to get the job done would be judged solely on the way that they perform the task and by

the way that they present themselves. If male dominated occupations work harder to get rid of

this bias against women, women can feel more comfortable in their surrounding area and not feel

the need to change the way that they dress and behave to fit into the image of what is expected of

them.
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Work Cited Page

Catalyst, “Pyramid: Women in S&P 500 Companies”, September 1, 2019.

https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-sp-500-companies/. Accessed Oct. 20, 2019.

Hall, Kirsten. “Women in business: entirely unremarkable | Kirsten Hall | TED Institute”

Youtube, TED Institute, 12 Jan. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjdB8u0Izws.

Accessed Oct. 20, 2019.

Jones, Amy and Jennifer Greer. “You don't look like an athlete: the effects of feminine

appearance on audience perceptions of female athletes and women's sports” Gale,

University of South Alabama, 1 Dec. 2011,

https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&search

ResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId

=GALE%7CA272739195&docType=Report&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZE

AI-

MOD1&prodId=EAIM&contentSet=GALE%7CA272739195&searchId=R1&userGroup

Name=csunorthridge&inPS=true. Accessed Oct. 20, 2019.

Maples, Sarah. “The Inconvenience of Being a Woman Veteran” The Atlantic, 20 Nov. 2017,

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-inconvenience-of-being-a-

woman-veteran/545987/. Accessed Oct. 20, 2019.

Steinfeldt, Jesse A., et al. “Conformity to Gender Norms Among Female Student-Athletes:

Implications for Body Image” ResearchGate, October 2011,

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232536953_Conformity_to_Gender_Norms_A

mong_Female_Student-Athletes_Implications_for_Body_Image. Accessed Oct. 20, 2019.