Gender

[鍵入公司名稱] | Different Management Styles Between Genders | [鍵入文件副標題] | | | [挑選日期] | [請在此處鍵入文件的摘要。摘要通常是文件內容的簡短綜覽。請在此處鍵入文件的摘要。摘要通常是文件內容的簡短綜覽。] | I. Introduction In the past centuries, the equal rights of being educated and acquiring knowledge have stimulated females to break the traditional stereotype of weak, fragile and indecisive images. Nowadays, many high-level positions are represented by women in different industries. However, females have not jumped out from the stereotype thoroughly, most of important jobs are mainly occupied by males. This situation may caused by the different nurturance ways of family or parents according to genders, and construct gender-personality by interacting with peers, also develop specific gender characteristic by Media and social expectation. The project aim is to research and deliberate how men and women thinking, acting and talking in different ways, then try to illustrate and compare the gender-traits applying to work, especially the different management styles between females and males. II. Body ＊Specific nurturance way from family and the influences Although here is an increasing acceptance of equality between men and women, they are still totally different in many ways (Connell, 2005). Basically, men are more powerful, stronger, taller and their speed of action is faster than women, however, women’s life expectation is longer than men (Miranda, 2011). There are not just physiological differences between genders, their psychological characteristics, talking, acting and thinking ways are also different. Generally speaking, women are more careful than usually careless men, men are aggressive while women are smooth, men are rational while women have stronger intuition. Furthermore, men have stronger aspirations for work, earning money and obtaining higher social status, while women are more focused on connecting relationships and paying more attention to family (Diamond M., 1993). How the differences developed and what are the influences' It is partly related to the way we grow up, the way we conduct our family life, the way parents raise children, the way we interact with our peers and the way men and women are labeled through social expectation. As people are born, they start identifying their specific sex and are taught to recognize their own gender role by family, especially by parents. Connell (2005) mentioned an example about “blue” and “pink” babies, which means people usually label babies by the pink (female) and blue (male) clothes according to genders. Male babies are expected to behave different from female babies – rougher and tougher, more demanding, aggressive and vigorous. By contrast, female babies are expected to be more passive and compliant, also prettier. As the babies grow older, they are dressed in specific clothes, given dolls and makeup to female babies while male babies are given toy cars and toy guns. Females would be told by their family to cook, to be good at human relationships, and to make themselves more attractive to appeal males. Males would be taught to run cars and solve mechanical problems, to compete with others in the market and earn a living, and to pursue females . ＊Construct personality by interacting with peers Besides family’s influences, school and peers are the other major elements to model men and women. Adolescence is an important period to shape human characteristics, it is a transitional time of developing physical and psychological human features (Connell, 2005). We spend most of time during teenage in school with classmates and friends rather than with family members, thus teachers and peers play a crucial role to affect us to identify our gender-strategy. It is interesting that we can discover, at school, teachers usually talk and act gentle to girls, while boys and girls do something which is prohibited, teachers intend to give more serious punishment to boys, even it should be regarded equal to girls. When teacher conduct activities in class, girls are more often assigned in teacher-controlled activities than boys, while boys are usually assigned in more aggressive activities, moreover, sometimes teacher separate boys and girls into two groups to do competitive activity, that enhance the sense of identify themselves differ from the other gender (Bradley, 2007). The development of gender characteristics is not only due to teachers, actually, peers are the major factor to shape genders’ features. The interaction between boys and girls are different, boys tend to play more competitive and active games with each other, fighting, chasing games; Girls usually play soft and static games, sometimes they just chat and share emotion with other girls. Not surprisingly, boys and girls sometimes play together, for instance, chasing game between two genders in teenage is very common, girls chasing boys, or boys chasing girls, they naturally separate themselves into two groups base on genders (Connell, 2005). This shows in adolescence period, teenagers already identify their own gender characters and interaction with peers according to their specific gender-strategy (Cohen-Kettenis P. T., 2001). ＊Media affect and social expectation Besides family influence and peer influence, the environment around us and mass media represent the social expectation of men and women. We are exposed to mass media every day, therefore we are easily influenced by media and society (Harriet B., 2007). Socialization is a term referring to the lifelong process of inheriting and learning norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society (Clausen John A., 1968). Through the media and socialization, we assume men should have instrumental characteristics, such as brave, strong, independent, rational, and aggressive characters to fight for survival or earning living; By contrast, women are regarded as possessing expressive characteristics, being gentle, sensitive, considerate, intuitive, timid and fragile images to suit the household and taking care of families (Diamond, M., 1995). Even though feminism has been rising since 1960, with females eager to pursue the equal power and social status as males, the environment and mass media still present gender- stereotype in news, drama and advertisement…etc (Gunter B., 1995). Thus, we are easily blinded to follow the media and learn the specific gender character that usually limit our view and put ourselves into gender- stereotype. Through an immense number of small interactions with family, school, peer group and mass media, these agencies conveyed to the girl or the boy what were the social ‘norms’ or expectations for her or his behavior (Connell, 2005). With the mixture of influences, most children would learn gender- appropriate behavior when they grew up. Furthermore, they would act and talk based on their gender roles automatically, and situated themselves as the kind of people they were expected to be. However, even though there are many differences between genders, they are relative differences, not absolute differences ＊The management style of men Because of the way men grow up and are socialized, they tend to show characteristics which conform to social expectation. At work, generally speaking, men like to dominate things and grasp power to firm their leadership, for example, when men speaking or arguing, the way they express their opinions usually directly and straight, they are eager to get attention from others, intend to make other people comply with their own opinions or decisions. According to the facts, men is more task-oriented, which means they like to lead other people and solve problems then complete jobs, they care more about the result than the process (Wood W., et.al, 1997). Besides, male managers are usually have a great view of future, which means they take the prospects of the company or organization as prior considerations, they are good at planning and organize undertakings. Furthermore, male managers have stronger ambitious in earning profits, winning projects and competitions. Since leadership has traditionally been studied using masculine norms as the standards for behaviors, men’s characteristics in management usually are regard as a qualified manager should have (Alvesson and Due, 2009). ＊The management style of women Considering the social expectation of women and the specific nurture way for females, women at work are usually described passive, indecisive and conservative. With the strong focus on stereotyping and its effect on women’s behaviors, there are a lot of doubts how can women be successful managers' Or speaking more directly, are females capable leaders (Bradley, 1999) However, women are good at building interpersonal relationship and more willing to take others’ opinions and thoughts, therefore, employees working under a female manager usually be trusted and having more latitude to express themselves and more power to deduct their works. The circumstances open the possibilities for companies or organizations, to enable companies or organizations to develop by every workers expectations and prospects, rather than just follow few managers’ or leaders’ decisions. Furthermore, female managers usually care about their workers feeling and show consideration for them, female leaders can use their good communication skills to encourage employees and make workplace more friendly. With the warm of women leaders, it will accelerate employees’ aspiration to work and level up the efficiency (Jenkins, S. R., 2000). Overall, women’s management style usually can be regarded containing four elements: interactive leadership – good relationship with workers, holistic thinking – willing to respect or accept others’ opinions, nurturing approach – dedicate on educating employees and their progress, the web of inclusion – focus on the benefits and connections of whole organization (Alvesson and Due, 2009). ＊Current workplaces and the different management styles between genders In past centuries, most environment and society usually consider women work at home, since feminism has raised in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women have become conscious of their right to be educated, to work, and to express and present themselves to public, meanwhile, seeking to establish equal opportunities in education and employment. Nowadays, many high-level positions are represented by women, such as university presidents, police chief constables, and senior managers (Bradley, 1999). However, social norms usually define and monitor competent managers or leaders according to male characteristics, such as strong, decisive and aggressive, which are partly opposite to female characteristics. According to the effect, many social important jobs have traditionally assigned to men, management and leadership are regularly viewed as constructed by masculine terms in many companies and organizations, making it difficult for women manager to balance between being seen as a capable managers or leaders and not to be regarded as breaking social gender expectations. Therefore, a lot of research pointed out “Glass Ceiling” has become invisible barriers while women struggling to acquire higher positions. Cotter et al, (2001) defined the terms glass ceiling refers to “the seen, yet unbreakable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements.” Alvesson and Due (2009) claimed that even though the United States has been considered the most equal and female-friendly environment at workplaces in the world, few women reached the top jobs. For instance, in USA, even nearly 50 percent managers are women, but they mainly occupied lower or middle managerial levels, only 2 percent of 500 corporations CEOs are female. This result shows although more and more women represent management jobs, the effect of glass ceiling and gender segregation in organizations is still exist (Alvesson and Due, 2009). There are some doubts and critics about women to be managers or leaders could result lacking of efficiency because of indecisive, profit-decreasing consequence because of conservative. Nevertheless, Labaton (2008) in The New York Times mentioned that Economic Crisis started from 2007 has impacted the bank’s financial structure and the world’s economy system severely. It is interesting that economists found those companies or organizations lead by women or have more female managers bore considerably less loss than those companies lead by men or mainly male-decisions. With careful, considerate and conservative traits of women, it can save companies from risky environment and decrease losing money of corporations. Besides, psychologists and an economist McKinnon (2005) conducted a research for testing the level of analysis thinking, creativity and intelligent quality, the result showed men who possessed more female characteristics got higher scores than other males; By contrary, women who got higher scores mostly with more male characteristics than the other women. The outcome reflected men and women who are smarter and more intelligent have different view than their own genders. That meant only those who could break the traditional gender stereotype and develop different view from another gender would become more successful and adequate managers. Thus, to define competent leaders’ characteristics should have and combine both female and male styles of management. III. Conclusion Reference 1. R. W. Connell (2005) - Gender 2. Hitti, Miranda (2011). "U.S. Life Expectancy Best Ever, Says CDC". eMedicine. 3. Diamond, M. (1993). Some Genetic Considerations in the Development of Sexual Orientation. The Development of Sex Differences and Similarities in Behaviour. M. Haug, R. E. Whalen, C. Aron and K. L. Olsen. Dordrecht/Boston/London, Kluwer Academic Publishers. 73: 291-309. 4. Harriet Bradley (2007) – Gender 5. Cohen-Kettenis, P. T. (2001). "Gender Identity Disorder in DSM." Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 40(4): 391. 6. Clausen, John A. (ed.) (1968) Socialization and Society, Boston: Little Brown and Company. p5 7. Diamond, M. (1995). Biological Aspects of Sexual Orientation and Identity. The Psychology of Sexual Orientation, Behavior and Identity: A Handbook. L. Diamant and R. McAnulty. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press: 45-80. 8. Gunter, B. (1995). Television and gender representation. London: John Libbey. 9. Wood, W., Christensen, P. N., Hebl, M., & Rothgerber, H. (1997). Conformity to sex-typed norms, affect, and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 523-535. 10. Mats Alvesson and Yvonne Due (2009) – Understanding Gender and Organizations 11. Harriet Bradley (1999) – Gender and Power in the Workplace. 12. Jenkins, S. R. (2000). Defining gender, relationships, and power (Introduction to the special issue). Sex Roles, 42, 467–494. 13. Cotter, David A., Joan M. Hermsen, Seth Ovadia, and Reece Vanneman (2001). The glass ceiling effect. Social Forces, Vol. 80 No. 2, pp. 655–81. 14. "The Day the S.E.C. Changed the Game" Report by Stephen Labaton Produced by Amy O'Leary in The New York Times: September 28 2008 15. Ronald I. Mckinnon， “Trapped by the International Dollar Standard”, Journal of Policy Modeling, June 2005.