The Gender Gap

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The Gender Gap

In thinking about the subject of equality between men and women, specifically in the workplace, I thought my dad would be the perfect person to interview about this issue. My dad has been a business man, climbing the corporate ladder for the past 25 years in a very competitive field. Because he has been at just about every level of the corporate ladder, I thought he may have some good insight on the topic. I was correct.

Below are my dad's responses to the two questions dealing with gender equity, or lack there of, in the workplace.

Does gender inequity still exist...if so, how?

I believe great strides have been made in closing the gender gap, with men and women being treated more equitably. With that said, I think women do still lag behind men in many cases. In the workplace, I believe that women's salaries have gotten closer to men's, but in general they are still behind. I do think women have broken through the "glass ceiling" in some companies and are reaching senior executive levels of organizations, but they are still the exception vs. the rule. More and more organizations are recruiting senior level women and promoting women to more senior levels but we have a long way to go to reach an equity level.

One of the things I've seen in my own business that I find interesting is that women still tend to follow their husbands in situations where a new job requires relocation more often than husbands following their wives to new jobs in new locations. I don't know if this is a function of men getting more opportunities than women, or that men still dominate the relationship, but I do see this phenomenon in the workplace.

In my own company, we have a 50/50 male/female employee ratio. Salaries of men and women are truly equitable. At the more senior levels of the organization, however, we still have a more male-dominated management team. It is changing over time, but still needs work to improve the male-to-female ratio.

It is also interesting to me that there have been few female presidential or even vice presidential candidates in the US. This further signifies to me that despite advances for women in our society, they still are not viewed the same as men. The same can be said for university presidents, hospital administrators and a variety of other senior level positions in a wide variety of organizations.

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