Working women are often
faced with a lot of prejudice and unequal treatment in the workplace. There are
numerous barriers to gender equity in most organizations all over the world.
Myths are often created about women in the workplace, their critical skills and
their priorities. Women are often judged for choosing their ambition and career
over more traditional choices like living a domestic life or managing the family.
Here are some myths about working women.
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1. Women prioritize family and marriage before their jobs
which require total commitment.
a. Women that manage families often have two jobs, that
of a homemaker as well as a career woman. This is often used as an excuse to
not hire women or to not give promotions as they believe managing a family
hampers the work life and output that women produce in office. This myth is not
true for the women who are career oriented and prioritize their careers as well
as the fact that many women can give close to equal effort and attention to
both their homes and their work and it should not be a reason to increase
gender inequity.
Picture Courtesy: Google
2. Career women will become old maids
a. There is a fear that has been perpetuated by society
for generations that says that women who postpone their marriage to focus on
their careers will end up old and alone. In the United States an article in
1986 asserted that a woman who hit the age of 40 without marrying has a better
chance of being killed by a terrorist than by having a wedding. This was proven
wrong as by 2012, more than 93% of those women were married according to the
U.S. Census.
3. No girls allowed, business is for boys
a. There is an enforced stereotype in society that
associates men as businessmen and women staying at home. The CEO is Palo Alto
stated in an article once about having to deal with male colleagues who feel
pride in not leaving their kids with a nanny unlike some of their female
colleagues without realizing the sacrifice women, especially their wives are
making in their careers just so they can feel that way. The bigger picture in
that story was that the men accepted her in the meeting as “one of the boys”
and did not discriminate her on her work basis which means that they myth is
debunked.
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4. Working women neglect their families
a. Many believe that women who work can’t possibly be
good mothers or spouses as they cannot effectively contribute the same amount
of effort and energy into both jobs. Its propagating the concept of “women can’t
have it all” but women have repeatedly over generations and generations
debunked that myth and proven that being ambitious and having a career has not
been a barrier in being a good parent or a family member and it increases the
overall lifestyle of the family if there is more than one parent earning.
5. Women are bad at math
a. There is a belief about men being more analytical and
mathematically advanced than women while women are better in linguistic and
written tasks. This myth is surrounded by the fact that women cannot do as work
in business or finance and statistics as men can. There is a surfeit of women
who have proven that this myth is false including Danika McKeller who was in
the famous Wonder Years. She graduated summa cum laude from UCLA and moved to
write math books like “Math doesn’t suck” and became an accomplished
mathematician.
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6. Women can’t be leaders like men
a. Research shows that the concept of merit is very
subjective as well as prone to a lot of bias from different areas. Statistically
it has been proven that women tend to show stronger leadership skills on all
fronts. Men tend to rate the performance of other men highly. 45% of mid-level
women in Asia felt that rising to a senior management position is very
important to them. People usually perceive women who are in leadership
positions as bossy and aggressive while men are looked up to as being assertive
and confident.
7. Women are too emotional
a. The office is known as a place where formality is key,
means maintaining boundaries at all times and being calm and composed is
crucial to being successful. Women are looked at as being emotional and
vulnerable creatures that will most likely let their emotions make a lot of decisions
instead of thinking about situations logically which will hamper progress of
the firm in totality. There is also the bias that women are sensitive and thus
they will be affected easily in adversity and won’t know how to handle tough situations.
This myth has been proven to be wrong as most women know how to act
appropriately at work and sensitivity is subject to different personality and
should not be associated to one gender.
Content Writer: Aanchal Thakur
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