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Issues of Gender Communication in the WorkplaceAndrew NanceUniversity of Kentucky“It is the socially determined norms and traditions of gender roles, which must be challenged, and challenged with vigor. In nearly all countries, including America, the truth is that women have a low social status, and are considered inferior.” -- Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason right164465000In the world today, one of the major communication issues people are facing in the workplace is gender inequality. This is based around how women and men are differentiated within the workplace as far as communication about income differences, preferential treatment in professional settings, and gender stereotyping in offices. The inequality usually occurs when women step outside of their normal gender roles and take up a position that a man would typically fulfill. This type of behavior shows that our society as a whole has an inferior view of women as if they are useless or weak if it doesn’t have anything to do with what goes on in a household. This belief drives women to feel as if they have a need to challenge society by getting a degree to help them get into positions that are unorthodox to prove a point. The differences with the way men and women communicate within the workplace are basically logic vs emotion, according to recent articles and popular press writings. Using various unscholarly sources this piece will discuss how gender is a communication issue in the workplace today. In the first article I researched, 2013: The Year Men Became Obsolete?, the author discusses gender roles and differences during December of 2013, including aspects of the feminist movement, the social pieces of gender equality, and employment for men and women. Paglia, the author, discussed how the definition of masculinity has changed during the 21st century, as well as a comparison of men and women's roles in and outside the workplace. This article supports the point that gender is an issue of communication in professional settings by discussing the fact that society makes it seem like women have to have masculinity around them to guide their lives. This is shown when the author stated, “When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood, then women will be perpetually stuck with boys. And without strong men as models to either embrace or resist, women will never attain a centered and profound sense of themselves as women.” The text also gives examples of the sexual division of labor with charts and graphs, and it expresses the need to stop stereotyping individuals based solely off of their gender.One example of poor gender communication within the workplace was discussed in an article entitled Church and State. This article talks about reasons behind the firing of editor-in-chief of the New York Times, Jill Abramson. “This May 17, three days after Abramson’s firing became public, Sulzberger put out a statement attributing his decision to ‘a series of issues,32480251079500 including arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues.’” This Topics discussed include Abramson's appointment to the top editorial post in 2011, a story published in 2013 by Politico magazine about complaints by newsroom staff on Abramson's poor leadership style and contentious relationship with managing editor Dean Baquet. The article also suggests that Abramson's firing was a reaction to her grievance about gender-related pay discrimination.In another article I decided to include in my research entitled Four Pillars I've Relied Upon as a Businesswoman, Sol Daurella, the author, discussed various topics such as, sex discrimination, leadership opportunities for women in business, and pay disparities in the workplace, and gender roles. Daurella presented this speech at a Coca Cola Women’s LINC Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in August of 2013, as a chair of a bottling company. Within her speech she mentioned, “But we all know that women’s voices are not equally present in political and societal decisions that affect us all. Women are not equally represented in leadership roles. Women are paid less than their male counterparts. And, while the gender gap in academic achievement in many countries has disappeared, gaps are seen to reappear as professional careers progress.” This provides insight to how a real woman within the professional world feels about how women and men are not equal in the workplace. She feels that although women are treated equal when it comes to academic achievement the real treatment comes into play as women get into their careers. Daurella also questions how our society has gotten to this place and suggests that it’s because of the biological differences between men and women that are not just physical. This shows that because society has shaped our roles as men and women in the world it puts women in a predicament where they don’t mean as much in their careers as a man would in the same position.The world is coming up with ways to test gender intelligence so that communication within the workplace can be improved to enhance the quality and quantity of relationships inside the office. In a short article, in a product review magazine, they discuss this Global Gender Intelligence Assessment tool which was created by QED Consulting and Barbara Annis & Associates to help embrace gender equality in?workplace communication. One thing the article mentions is that, “…the GGIA helps men and women to examine their blind spots and identify opportunities for improvement when it comes to gender and workplace communication. It allows organizations to build and sustain a culture of gender diversity, understanding, and inclusiveness, which in turn creates a competitive advantage over many other companies.” This tool would allow companies to see the mistakes that they are making with workplace communication amongst genders and enhance the operations of the company by eliminating the problems they have. By eliminating these issues it’ll make for better professional office conversations and an overall more comfortable place to work.In the final article I decided to use as part of my research, it shows how the issue of gender communication has negative effects on performance in the workplace of investments and mutual funds. The article discusses the results of a study called The Impact of Work Group Diversity on Performance: Large Sample Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry and presents how the teams within the office controlled by both genders were lower in performance than those just operated by men or women because of the communication gap between genders. In the article it states, “In an interview, Professor Ruenzi stressed that he and his fellow researchers did not think their findings were caused by any inherent differences in men's and women's abilities as managers. The researchers had found no detectable difference, on average, between funds run only by men and those managed only by women. Both types of single-sex teams outperformed funds run by teams containing both men and women, on average, regardless of the exact makeup of the mixed team. Professor Ruenzi said he thought the negative effect of gender diversity on fund performance could be traced in large part to the poorer communication that often exists in mixed teams. As a result, he said, the single-sex teams were more likely to operate more cohesively and effectively.” This proves that men and women are thought of as unequal because they find it hard to discuss their business in the workplace amongst each other so they won’t hurt one anotherThis topic of gender communication issues in the workplace is important because a lot of men and women are treated with unequal respect within the workplace and it makes it uncomfortable for them to work in such a setting. The gap of communication in the workplace among men and women causes negative performance in the outcome of work done by professionals in certain fields. Elimination of these gaps could be accomplished if more managers and CEO’s of companies decided to participate in Global Gender Intelligence Assessments or other tools of the sort. The articles presented above show examples of how individuals in certain professional settings have either discussed or corrected the issue of communication within their own workplace. From my own experience in internships and other jobs I have noticed that the gap is slowly being eliminated with women in higher positions of authority and power. When men have a tendency to listen to women higher than them they gain a sense of equality amongst one another improving the issue of gender communication within the workplace. ReferencesPaglia, C. (2013). 2013: The Year Men Became Obsolete?.?Time,?182(27), 26.Taranto, J. (2014). Church and State.?American Spectator,?47(6), 52-53.Daurella, S. (2013). Four Pillars I've Relied Upon as a Businesswoman.?Vital Speeches Of The Day,?79(10), 321-325.Assessing Gender Intelligence. (2013).?T+D,?67(4), 13.Ebron, A. (2007). Do we speak the same language?.?Working Mother,?30(9), 59-62.Hulbert, M. (2007). At Some Funds, a Gender Communication Gap.?New York Times. p. 5. ................
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