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Meron Kahsai
ENGL 115
Professor Rodrick
19 October 2019
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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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Hall, Kirsten. “Women in business: entirely unremarkable | Kirsten Hall | TED Institute”
Jones, Amy and Jennifer Greer. “You don't look like an athlete: the effects of feminine
https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&search
ResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId
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MOD1&prodId=EAIM&contentSet=GALE%7CA272739195&searchId=R1&userGroup
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-
Steinfeldt, Jesse A., et al. “Conformity to Gender Norms Among Female Student-Athletes:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232536953_Conformity_to_Gender_Norms_A