Women fce greter chllenges thn men in their ttempts to climb to the Essay

Women fce greter chllenges thn men in their ttempts to climb to the top of the corporte ldder - Essay Example More recently, however, there hs been n influx of women into non-trditionl, higher sttus occuptions, nd it ppers tht trditionl ptterns of occuptionl segregtion my be slowly chnging. It is considered, tht women fce greter chllenge thn men in their ttempts to climb top of the corporte ldder. This suggestion hs been mde due to historicl chnges tht took plce in the distribution of gender workforce nd will be discussed lter in this pper. lthough women nd men hve lwys engged in purposeful ctivity, the set of ctivities tht mny people consider work or employment is not lwys cler. Historiclly, men nd women worked side by side together in the fields. Tody, however, distinction is mde between pid, public work externl to the fmily nd unpid, privte work in the home. Ech of these spheres of work hs come to be sex-typed, with pid work being viewed by mny s the domin of mles nd unpid work in the home the domin of femles. These perceptions re chnging but re still deep-seted in mny respects. Historiclly, men nd women hve hd very different experiences of work. Men hve either secured goods or worked externl to the fmily unit, wheres women often hve worked more integrlly s prt of tht unit. Beginning with industriliztion nd continuing to the workplce tody, men's nd women's experiences of work hve vried significntly, lrgely due to the continuing sex segregtion of occuptions. However, with the onset of two world wrs, both Blck nd White women stedily incresed their numbers in the externl, pid workforce. During the 1990s, the mjority of both men nd women, Blck nd White, were employed outside of the fmily unit. The reltions between men nd women - sometimes chrcterised s "wr" - hve since been trnsformed. In the City of London tody, for exmple, some highly pid expectnt mothers ttempt to time their bonus pyments so tht they fll within the reference period used to clculte mternity py entitlements. If they mnge to win bonus between 18 nd 26 weeks before their expected birth dte, they cn receive mternity py mounting to much more thn they ern normlly - nd with the pprovl of the Inlnd Revenue. How much of this chnge is due to the lw, nd how much would hve hppened nywy becuse of economic nd lbour mrket pressures It is, s lwys, difficult to sy. Yet most commenttors rgue the SD hs hd significnt impct on British working culture. "Tody, it is unusul for women to be discriminted ginst directly becuse they re women, which is wht used to hppen," sys Michel Rubenstein, the founder of Equl Opportunities Review, specilist journl. "The discrimintion tht tkes plce now is mostly round women's fmily roles nd resentment of the disruption it cuses." (Overell, 2006). Jmes Cox, n employment prtner t shurst, n interntionl lw firm, sys: "The City [of London] is the lst bstion of old-style employment prctices, where the focus is on working hrd nd ceding your life to your employer nd clients. "But in the lst few yers it hs been hit relly hrd by women tking [employers to] tribunls nd sometimes wlking wy with multimillion-pound compenstion pyments. It is those cses of the lte 1990s, directly due to the SD, tht hve forced the City to chnge its wys." (Overell, 2006). It is only in very recent yers tht there hs been notble rise in the number of people (mostly women) using sex equlity lw to chllenge employers. In 1998-99, 6,200 women took their employers to tribunl; by 2003-4 the figure hd risen to 17,000 people