Gender Bias: Perceptions and Reality

(Organization Behaviour - OB1)

Submitted To :
Prof. Pawan K. Singh

Submitted By :
Ankit Kalra (11) Umesh Chopra (65)

Gender Bias: Perceptions and Reality

This report will focus on the problems and prospects for organization behavioral theory of gender bias. The number of women in the workforce has steadily increased in the past few years but the perception has not changed a lot. We examine the various gender perceptions in the light of Gilligans Concept of Voice theory and The Bem scale. We support our analysis from the feedback and survey of professionals from various industries.

Conceptual Framework
Our report is concerned with moral themes that are likelier to engage both sexes alike. To support our survey and analysis, we use the Gilligans Concept of Voice and The Bem Scale.

Gilligans Concept of Voice

How do we understand Gilligans claims?
Four possible positions:

Separate but equal Superiority thesis Integrationist thesis Diversity thesis

The Separate but Equal Thesis Men and women have different but equally valuable moral voices Criticisms:
o o o o

Reinforces traditional stereotypes Hard to retain the ...but equal part Suggests that men and women have nothing to learn from one another, since each has its own exclusive moral voice Devalues men with a female voice and women with a male voice

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The Superiority Thesis Womens moral voices are superior Criticisms

o o o

Inversion of traditional claims of male superiority Exclusionary Demands that one side of the comparison be the loser

The Integrationist Thesis Only one moral voice, same for both men and women Morality is androgynous Criticisms
o o

Loses richness of diversity Tends to be assimilationist in practice, reducing other voices to the voice of the powerful majority

The Diversity Thesis Suggests that there are different moral voices Sees this as a source of richness and growth in the moral life External diversity Different individuals have different, sex-based moral voices Internal diversity Each of us has both masculine and feminine moral voices within us Minimizes gender stereotyping

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The Bem Scale

Figure 1 The BEM scale : Physcological Androgyny

In Sandra Bems conceptualization of gender, an increase in femininity is not bought at the price of a decrease in masculinity and vice versa

Conclusion

Thinking about gender in Bems framework allows us to to appreciate both the feminine and the masculine moral voices within each of us and to avoid traditional stereotypes.

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Review of Literature
In one of the research (Fisher et al), over 80 students were interviewed using the early Margolis/Fisher interview protocol as much as possible, and over 100 student surveys were carried out, including discussions with faculty and administrators. Randomly selected cohorts of interviews and surveys were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. It was found that as the environment has become more balanced, the culture of computing has evolved revealing a similar spectrum of attitudes towards computer science among women, and among men, rather than a gender divide. The findings (Frieze et al) suggest that some men and women love programming and some dont, some men and women love applications, some dont, and most men and women show elements of both. The illustration of this shift is further enhanced by pointing to some post-1999 specific changes, including confidence levels, perspectives on programming, and students sense of fitting in.

Confidence levels:
In various studies it was found that while men were still reporting higher confidence levels than women, most women in student cohorts reported an increase in their confidence levels. The confidence gap had narrowed significantly. Students, men and women, stated that although their confidence increased overall, levels varied greatly over the years. Lunderberg through various studies concluded that culture influenced confidence to a much greater extent than did gender [Lunderberg et al]

Attitude towards programming:

A randomly selected cohort of 20 men (seniors) and 20 women (seniors) were found to show almost identical results, with 18 men and 18 women declaring they liked programming. This led us to investigate further and look at the correlation between confidence and programming skills.

Confidence and Programming:

When this same cohort was asked if they had the skills for good programming, women and men reported a set of similar skill factors and similar levels of confidence in these skills. 19 women and 18 men claimed a strong sense of confidence in their programming skills. (See Figure 2)

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Figure 2:Females and Males confidence in programing

These findings suggest that any gender divide in how students relate to Computing Skills, particularly with respect to programming vs. applications, is not a product of gender but rather a product of micro-cultural and environmental conditions.

Sense of fitting in:

Interestingly, Men are found to be more academically and technically sound in their work according to this study but females score level over men in their sense of socializing.

Figure 3: Females and Males' sense of fitting in

Conclusion from this study

These findings suggest that gender divide as perceived between female and male students arise due to social and cultural conditions and not due to gender differences.

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Another study was conducted to know the skill differences of male and female students in a specific domain area. Internet and computer domain was chosen as the survey area. Results from this literature survey Means, standard deviations and OneWay ANOVA F-ratios of skill levels are shown for females and males in each of the four ICT skill domains in Table 1. There were no significant differences between male and females students in three domainsApplications, Internet and Research. However, significant male/female differences exist for the Basic Computing domain. Male students rated themselves as more skilled in this domain (x =4.3) than female students ( x =3.9). One-Way ANOVA was conducted to determine which of the specific Basic Computing domain skills showed gender differences. The results are shown in Table 2. Specifically, the key significant differences are in the areas of installing and removing programs and in copying, moving and deleting files. Male students rated themselves as more skilled at installing programs than female students (x =4.4 vs. x =3.8), more skilled at removing programs than female students (x =4.3 vs. x =3.8), and more skilled at moving and deleting files (x =4.3 vs. x =3.7).

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Although the Internet domain was not significant it had a low enough significance value (p 0.105) that further investigation was warranted, so a OneWay ANOVA was performed to determine if any skills showed gender differences. The results are shown in Table 3. Specific gender differences exist with regards to downloading files and adding bookmarks. Male students rated themselves as more skilled at downloading a file from the Internet than female students (x =4.4 vs. x =4.1) as well as more skilled at adding bookmarks to a browser than female students (x =4.0 vs. x =3.6) Chi-Square analysis was used to determine if there were gender differences in access to computers. Female students reported significantly less access to a computer than males (2 =7.302, p = 0.007). Only 89.0% of the female students had access to a computer while 96.9% of the male students had access to a computer.

Figure 4 Gender perception (Madigan et al)

One-Way ANOVA F-ratios were computed between the ten chosen skills from the research assignment from the First-Year Seminar course and the original ICT survey. There was a significant difference in the mean scores between first-year students completing the assignment (x =6.43, SD=2.10) and students rating of perceived skill as determined from the ICT survey (x =8.22, SD=2.22) (F= 8.243, p 0.005). In other words, students are actually less skilled Organization Behavior OB1 | IIM Raipur Page 7

than they perceive. There was no significant difference between male and female participants (F = 0.689, p 0.407). Given the small non-representative sample of volunteers, further research correlating ICT skills with perceived skills is needed. However, these preliminary results are strongly suggestive that both men and women have a greater degree of confidence in their ICT skills than their performance indicates.

Software Industry
The culture inspired by agile software development methods [Frieze et al] enables women to gain new and better positions in the high-tech industry in general, and in software development teams, in particular. During the 1990s, the agile approach towards software development started to emerge in response to problems in the software industry. Specifically, the agile software development approach, composed of several methods, formalizes software development frameworks which aim at overcoming characteristic problems of software projects

Based on these analysis and additional findings, it is suggested that the agile software method reflects a women-fit industry.

Power of women as perceived by HR managers

Womens style of management is based on sharing power, on inclusion, consultation, consensus, and collaboration. Women work interactively and swap information more freely than men do. Women managers encourage their employees by listening to, supporting, and encouraging them. [Fisher et al] Recent research indicates womens management style, which is centered on communication and building positive relationships, is well suited to the leadership paradigm of the 90s [Peters et al]

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Performance related issues

Gender Perception (Madigan et al)

Figure 5 : Gender differences in performance depending on whether learning group is single sex or mixed sex

Another strength of G&C is that Cooper and Weaver include many charts and figures to explain the results of their multiple studies. For example, figure shows the gender differences in girls and boys performance depending on whether the learning group is single sex or mixed sex. The figure shows the dramatic decline in girls performance in mixed sex learning in contrast to an increase in boys performance in mixed sex environments, while both girls and boys perform at near the same level in single sex learning environments.

Attributes related to men and women

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Own Field Survey

Survey:
A field survey was conducted to judge the role of gender in various organizational activities. A questionnaire and feedback was prepared to know the role gender plays in selecting a professional team. Important components kept in mind while selecting a professional team as perceived by many were: 1) Ability 2) Experience 3) Creativity 4) Gender 5) Sociability These parameters were part of the survey questionnaire. After this survey was conducted, we inferred that gender does not play a major role in the selection of a professional team. It implies that other factors like Ability, Experience, creativity and Sociability supersedes the role of Gender.

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Although gender is not an important part of a team selection but whenever it comes to practically choosing a team, gender plays a vital role in it.

Feedback:
We conducted an online feedback survey of people from various professions and got their comments on the role gender plays in professional team formation. We analyzed their feedback on the basis of Gilligans Concept of Voice Sample Size: 17 people (10 males and 7 females) from the profession of Engineers, Bank Managers, Lawyers, Teachers, Businessmen.
Sno 1 Profession HR Recruiting Head Views A mixed gender group may start late depending on the behavior of one sex to that to the opposite one. Since being in a strictly professional setting any waywardness will be extremely minimized, a sense of distance does creep in sometime. But that depends on the individual as to how he/she perceives the opposite sex. If everybody in the team is a socially outward person then it doesn't matter whether he/she works in a mixed gender group or not. A mixed gender group provides various angles to look at a problem. Females score on the point of binding each other and taking the whole group Conclusion

Integrationist Thesis

Project Lead

Superiority Thesis

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along 3 Sales Executive The same gender group will lead to more compatibility .also it would be much more easy to start it will take less time to adjust. The mixed gender group will be preferable since both sexes have some specialized area of performance. The group can reach to a much higher level if both perform in a team As a group, same gender group adjusts themselves to work effectively. Their performance tends to rise as there are no initial hiccups due to the members compatibility factor. Initially it may take some time for the members to get adjusted but in due course of time it is a much better and successful option. There are some areas in which women are proficient and some where men score a point over women. In a sales executive job, women are seen as more innovative in their sales technique while men are seen to perform better in advertising of a product. So for selling a product, a team needs to comprise of appropriate male-female ratio so that each other work complement them well. Our bank maintains a specific gender ratio. We feel that men and women have different areas of work levels. In teaching profession, school education is largely considered to be a women oriented domain because women tend to intermingle with students very effectively and the students also tend to open up in front of female teachers. So, an all female group is more effective. The sexes are not the same, but there is no issue of equality involved because the sexes have both strong and weak points in different areas. Men are more aggressive, prone to anger, more adventurous, have better visuo-spatial skills and are slightly smarter. Women are more passive, conservative, empathetic, caring and take a more subjective view of life. Men come off as smarter, more intelligent and in control than women. Women are morally superior to men, because it is the male drive towards crime and aggression that is the fault of most social problems and wars. Feminism does have legitimate claims, but it is dead wrong by postulating that "society" forces Separate but Equal Thesis Diversity Thesis

IT professional

Recruitment head

Separate but Equal Thesis

Sales Manager

Diversity Thesis

Bank Manager

Separate but Equal Thesis Superiority Thesis

Vice Principal of a school

Legal Advisor

Separate but Equal Thesis

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10

Project Lead

11 12

Administrative Officer Technical Head

males and females to act certain ways when these are dictated by simple biological function. Feminists should make their case by appealing to senses of morals and honor towards females rather than making dictates based on faulty scientific theory. The same gender group will provide a sense of oneness. An all male-female group provides what may be termed as instant cohesiveness and bonding. early stages will require less effort to gel together Administration work is male dominated. Mixed gender group does have its advantages. Better brainstorming does occur because males and females do think in different perspectives to the same problem. It doesnt matter whether its an all male or all female or mixed group. A group is always evaluated on its effectiveness rather than gender diversity of the group Both male and females have their own set of qualities and the group should have the right mix of those qualities to be a successful one. Females due to their socializing power are more hospitable so they are in great demand then males The quality of both sexes is not the same, but they are incomparable because both have different levels of excellence in the different areas of work. So emotional quotient and potential of both males and females needs to be trapped to gain sustainable growth. If we have the option then we must go for a mixed in order to make the most of the moral values of both the genders.

Separate but Equal Thesis

Superiority Thesis Diversity Thesis

13

Professor

Integrationist Thesis

14

Sales Manager

Diversity Thesis

15

Airline Industry

Superiority Thesis Diversity Thesis

16

PRO

17

Businessman

Diversity Thesis

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CONCLUSION

Figure 6 : Classification in light of Gilligan's concept of voice

Separate but Equal Thesis & Diversity Thesis strongly support the fact that it is essential to have a mixed gender group to gain better performance. Men and Women have different moral values which can complement each other to bring out the best performance from the group. Superiority Thesis & Integrationalist Thesis suggests that single gender group performs better. It emphasizes that some works are completely gender dependent. Through our survey, we find that views of most of the professionals are governed by Separate but Equal Thesis (29%) and Diversity Thesis (35%) as compared to the superiority Thesis (24%) and Integrationalist Thesis (12%) i.e. they strongly feel that performance of mixed gender group is higher than same gender group.

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References
1) Frieze C , Hazzan O , Blum L , Dias M.B (2006). Culture and Environment as Determinants of Womens Participation in Computing. Proceeding SIGCSE '06 Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education 2) Gallivan M.J, Fich R.B (2006). Examining the Relationship between Gender and the Research Productivity. SIGMIS CPR '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research 3) Madigan E.M , Goodfellow M , Stone J.A (2007). Gender, Perceptions, and Reality. SIGCSE '07 Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education 4) Lundeberg, M.A., Fox, P.W., Brown, A.C. & Elbedour, S. (2000).Cultural influences on confidence: Country and gender. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92(1), 152-159. 5) Fisher, H. (1999). - The Natural Talents of Women and How They are Changing the World. Ballantine Books, NY. 6) Peters, H. (2003). Risk, rescue and righteousness: How women prevent themselves from breaking through the glass ceiling, Hagberg Consulting Group. 7) Mats Alvesson(2010). -Gender and Organization : Towards a Differentiated Understanding

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