Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Meron Kahsai
ENGL 115
Professor Rodrick
1 December 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 Amy Jones and Jennifer
Greers article You don't look like an athlete they discuss about the perception of women with the
help of Mary B. Mcvee. Mcvee states, “Society forms expectations of individuals and situational
outcomes through stereotypes and norms.”(Jones and Greer). 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,
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and Computer Programming, there is sometimes a bias in favor of 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 Sarah Maples
article The Inconvenience of Being a Woman Veteran she discusses the troubles that women
veterans go through. Sarah Maples states, “The uniform and grooming standards work to
implicit—is that they also downplay other attributes that are traditionally considered feminine,
such as open displays of emotion.” (Maples). There is a gender bias in the military when it
comes to wearing the uniform and how you present yourself and it is shown in the uniform that
the female officers are required 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
Female athletes also experience the feeling of needing to conform through 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 the writers Steinfeld et al. discuss how female athletes feel the need to
conform because of gender norms. Steinfeldt et al. states, “Female athletes often participate in
sports using standards of traditional male athleticism, yet at the same time attempt to manage
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 the achievements of women in business called “Women
in business: entirely unremarkable” 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
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to achieve and work in than it would be for women. Men are seen as the norm when it comes to
jobs that require strength and 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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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
go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResults
Type=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId=GALE
%7CA272739195&docType=Report&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-
MOD1&prodId=EAIM&contentSet=GALE%7CA272739195&searchId=R1&userGroup
Maples, Sarah. “The Inconvenience of Being a Woman Veteran” The Atlantic, 20 Nov. 2017,
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-inconvenience-of-being-a-woman-
Steinfeldt, Jesse A., et al. “Conformity to Gender Norms Among Female Student-Athletes:
www.researchgate.net/publication/232536953_Conformity_to_Gender_Norms_Among_