Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and private employer, has established a highly profitable business centered on a low-cost strategy that utilizes logistical efficiencies to create a competitive advantage. Yet, to maintain this low-cost strategy, Walmart has engaged in ethically questionable practices, including gender discrimination in promotion and pay. While the Supreme Court recently ruled against class certification of 1.5 million women in the Dukes v. Walmart case due to a lack of proof that Walmart operated under a “general policy of discrimination”, overwhelming evidence demonstrates that gender discrimination is a persistent problem rooted in the culture of Walmart, despite gender-neutral policies (Biskupic, 2011).
During the 1950’s and 60’s in northwest Arkansas, a surplus of unskilled labor existed due to “increasing mechanization of agricultural work”. Leveraging this pent up demand for employment, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, provided these agricultural men with prideful responsibilities as managers of his retail stores, while employing their wives and daughters as low wage clerks (Lichenstein, 2011). Forty to fifty years later, in an economy sagged by high unemployment, particularly among an unskilled, low educated workforce, the practice of promoting men to run stores while women are forced to settle for low wage labor remains prevalent at Walmart. In fact, statistical analysis from plaintiffs in the 2001 Dukes v. Walmart lawsuit showed that women comprised nearly 70% of hourly employees, but only 33% of management positions (Hymowitz, 2011). The overwhelming disparities between men and women in management relative to the proportion of those in hourly positions further cements the continual existence ...
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Walmart is one of the well-known children’s toy store in the United States and so, I decided to visit the store nearby my house on Davis Street in San Leandro. The store was pretty clean and less busy during the day. This Walmart is vastly huge; perhaps the reason they placed large department and gender signs over the aisles so these would help shoppers easily locate and get the items they are looking for. As a matter of fact, these department signs (e.g. Baby and Toys) and gender signs (e.g. Girls and Boys) helped me find the toy department quickly.
Female inequality in workplace is one of the harmful aspect that is afflicting the entire
Mallaby admits Wal-Mart can treat their employees and other retailers unfairly, but as a result everyone can share in the 50 billion in savings that American shoppers consume annually. The pay that employees get is the price they must pay for low priced merchandise. Because of the minimal pay to employees, Wal-Mart strengthens its’ consumer buying power. Giving the American shoppers the savings they need, Wal-Mart’s has ultimately been them successful. Wal-Mart has potentially wiped out the middle class as an employer, but the employees can now work and ...
In the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Dukes), the court found that there was a lack of significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination (Schipani, 2013). The plaintiffs needed commonality to establish uniformed disparity within the Wal-Mart organization, and statistical evidence was deemed unworthy of proving this commonality (Schipani, 2013). The numbers were astounding; seventy-two percent of the hourly workforce of Wal-Mart are women, yet only 10% are store managers, and a mere 4% of female Wal-Mart employees are district managers (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). The numbers seem to reflect a painfully obvious presence of discrimination, and with Wal-Mart’s market power within its industry, it can be frightening to evaluate the impact their practices have on the American employment culture.
Organizations and managing labor relations are two complex aspects of our daily functioning environment. Throughout the years it’s been evident that times have very much changed; in day to day life one can easily notice a rise in the number of women who have gotten to work, across divisions on a global scale. Yet despite their pursuit of high standards of education and occupational skills, they are still lagging behind in the corporate world, the reason being – discrimination. Discrimination against women at work has different aspects; unequal pay, undermined skill set, segregation in certain divisions and jobs, the work and home balance along with sexual harassment are just some of the issues at hand. Although in current times there are still cases of discrimination and unjust treatment towards women, the start to this begins many decades back.
My visit to Walmart required a camera and notebook, because this equipment is crucial for my way of doing, comparing, and understanding sociological theories. While I was walking between Walmart shelves, I noticed that every section was telling an interesting story about gender stereotyping in the United States. All products are shaped and customized to attract different profilea of the customers. The story about development, shape, and presentation of every product has important story which contributes to understanding of our socie...
Over 27,000 claims filed through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the fiscal year 2013, alleged sex-based discrimination (Sex-Based Charges). Most of these gender related accusations are gender discrimination. Stephanie Sipe and Donna K. Fisher, both professors at Georgia Southern University, and C. Douglas Jonson, a professor at Georgia Gwinnett University, state “Gender discrimination occurs when employers make decisions such as selection, evaluation, promotion, or reward allocation on the basis of an individual’s gender” (Sipe, Johnson, and Fisher 342). Most of the time gender discrimination is subjected towards women in the work field, where women are thought as being lower than males in the same organization. In today’s world, society has come a long way since the general stereotyping of men bringing home the bacon and the women staying home to cook it. Today, women are out in the workplace working alongside the opposite sex. Even though the general feminist stereotype has been extinguished, women are still not promoted as widely as men in the workplace. On the contrary to the first definition of gender discrimination, Julie Walters, an Oakland University professor, and Connie L. McNeely, a George Mason University professor, emphasizes that “even in the 21st century, women faculty members are generally paid less, promoted more slowly, receive fewer honors, and hold fewer leadership positions than their male counterparts, discrepancies that do not appear to be based on productivity or any other objective performance measures” (323). Sex discrimination is easily portrayed in all companies and can be slightly difficult to recognize, however, it still exists. The data shows that women in the workplace are discrimi...
Since the time women were eligible to be an employee of a workplace, they have become victims of discrimination. Discrimination is the practice of treating a person or group of people differently from other people (Webster, 2013). Thousands of women have suffered from discrimination in workplaces because they are pregnant, disabled, or of the opposite sex. It is crazy to think that someone would fire a woman because she became pregnant and needed to have some work adjustments ("Pregnancy and parenting,"). A woman goes through a lot to give birth to children, and men will never understand the complications a mother encounters during the pregnancy. Sadly, males think that pregnant women don’t make a working hand, which is totally wrong.
Women are not new to facing challenges and coming across barriers that limit or stall their progression within organizations and landing leadership opportunities. Women Rising explains to us how persistent gender bias often times disrupts the learning process at the heart of becoming a leader. The research shows that the process for women to be leaders is much more difficult than it is for men (Women Rising). The want and motivation to lead are attacked from the moment women realize that it is in them, due to these gender biases being in place. An example of a bias that is often noticed would be: behavior that is considered assertive in men will often times be perceived as an aggressive behavior in women, and thus denigrated rather than rewarded (Women Rising). In most cultures and societies, there are specific gender roles that are ascribed to either men or women. Men must be assertive, women must be submissive. Men must be decisive, women must be caring. These double binds are direct hinders to
This is not about being nasty or nice – it is entirely about being achievement oriented by focusing on performance and organizational goals. Being achievement oriented, leaders have to recognize that they have to be mindful of and accountable for the choices they make because they are setting the model of what’s appropriate and inappropriate. Words matter, they are as much a form of expression for leaders as they are to poets, singers, and writers. According to Posner and Kouzes(p. 59) to be a leader, you got to awaken to the fact that you don’t have to copy someone else or follow a script and you don’t have to wear someone else’s style. Currently, there are an increasing number of women who are in leadership roles in the workplaces. It is a generally accepted as true that woman are supposed to use feminine ways of doing leadership. However, this is not always true. In some cases, women also use masculine ways of leadership. In this paper, Miranda Priestly illustrates how a female leader breaks traditional gender stereotypes and uses masculine leadership style.
Although some of the worst employment discrimination was eliminated by the Civil Rights Act in 1964, many women continue to undergo unfair and unlawful discrimination in the workplace. Even though women have come a long way, they are still being discriminated against in certain fields of work. High-end jobs, most commonly large companies and medical fields, continue to discriminate against women even though they have the same job qualifications as men.
Employee stakeholders have another story. The discrimination lawsuits ranging from female employees not getting equal pay or equal positions, to disabled employees, class-action lawsuits stating that Wal-Mart doctors questionnaires to prevent disabled workers from applying, Wal-Mart does not rank very high with these employees. Lawsuits stemming from Wal-Mart’s failure to monitor labor conditions at oversea factories and hires illegal immigrants add to the rift in relations between the employees and the company. Wal-Mart continues to deny charges...
...2001). A discursive approach to understanding women leaders in working life. Journal of Business Ethics, 34(3/4), 255-267. Retrieved February 9, 2003, from Proquest database.
Schuh, S. C., Bark, A. S., Quaquebeke, N. V., Hossiep, R., Frieg, P., & Dick, R. V. (2014). Gender differences in leadership role occupancy: The mediating role of power motivation. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(3), 363-379. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1663-9.