Gender and Leadership Essays

Gender and Leadership Essays Gender and Leadership Essay Gender and Leadership Essay Regarding Gender and Leadership: Why do you think that some multinationals nevertheless tend not to give serious consideration to female candidates for managerial positions In, for example, the Middle East? and post your discussion to this thread- Module 5. Read the answers posted by others. Leadership styles differ from one region to another. Living In India I know that there are more gender biasness In a business situation there as opposed to Canada. You will see gender biasness in a lot of developing and emerging economies. Being from an Asian aground, I know in our culture, the society restricts and tells you that there are certain Jobs for women and certain Jobs for men. For example, most parents in the Asian culture will not be supporting of their daughter going into an army because that is not a Job for a girl to do. There is even a great animation movie called Manual that portrays the gender discrimination, although things are a bit more liberal now. Additionally, in a situation where there are male and female candidates for a managerial position In for example, Canada or United States then chances are that omen and men will be given equal consideration based on their education and experience because thats the societal norm and the law, obviously keeping In mind the Industry. There are certain Industries that men do well In and certain Industries that women do better In. For example, we have more male engineers than female engineers in Canada(Hang, D. 2013. However, if we stick with the example of Middle Eastern countries, we know that it is mostly a very male dominated society and they have a very patriarchal society. The gender norm constraints are strict, and he social and cultural norms highly dictate the dos and dont of everyday conduct. They reflect elements of a patriarchal society in which men and women are partners but with different roles. (World Bank. 2013). Mens role is to be the bread winner in the family and the wom en are supposed to stay home to do a good Job and take care of the family. This Is evident in the various statistics. : One of the facts are that only one In four women In MEAN(Middle Eastern and Northern Africa) are employed or looking for work, which Is half the global rate. For young women rates of unemployment are as high as 40 percent(Hole, A. 2013. ). In spite of measures being taken to reduce the gender inequality gap, especially gender inequality in terms of education has largely been eliminated over the years, however, the gaps in employment rate are still very high. In Saudi Arabia, for example, Saudi women accounted for less than 1 percent of the private-sector workforce in 2009. Women from Qatar made up 2. Percent of that countrys workforce, public and private, in 2008. (Acquire, D. Et al. 2011 . ) The major reason for his is the societal norms and gender discrimination can be caused because all Arab countries have in place family laws also known as personal status codes that confer upon women the status of dependent and minor with respect to marriage, divorce, child custody, and Inheri tance. Because of these family laws, states that have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women have done so with significant reservations. Although the sexual division of the Arab countries. Women remain associated primarily with their family roles, and a mind of patriarchal gender contract prevails across the region (Monogram, V. 2004. ). Of course, the degree of inequality differs to some extent in different regions. Women are sometimes considered legal minors who require permission from their male relatives in order to travel, work. There are less women executives and entrepreneurs in the middle eastern countries also because of this requirement for permission to travel can be considered as a hurdle that alters their ability to conduct any business efficiently and is a barrier to their mobility(World Bank. 13) something that is critical in todays business world. In terms of leadership style, under ICC countries(Gulf cooperation council), if we take Saudi Arabia as an example, they score 60(The Hefted Centre: Saudi Arabia) on the masculinity and femininity dimension indicating a high score, and therefore are a masculine society where focus is on the task and leads on t he basis of masculine leadership style. In other words, a transactional leadership style which is the opposite of a transformational leadership style that is typically associated with the elation-oriented behavior. This relation-oriented behavior is further associated with the feminine leadership style that focuses on the welfare of others, democratic and relationships focused. Women are generally stereotyped to have feminine leadership style leading to gender stereotypes by the sub-ordinates. This could be another one of the reasons why in middle eastern countries women are not given serious consideration for managerial positions because they think that women will not have the appropriate masculine leadership style that is required. Additionally, n a study conducted in Prince Sultan University, it was found that there was a bias in male Saudi students who thought that men had more leadership skills and abilities than women. Not surprisingly, women agreed that men had more leadership skills, qualities and behavior as well. (International conference. 2009. ) This cultural norm also allows multinationals to discriminate against female candidates because if both majority of women and men agree that men have better leadership qualities, chances are male candidates will get preference over female candidates. Moreover, s mentioned above that Middle Eastern countries run on a male dominated society, it was evident through research that most men were not willing to give up the idea of them being in charge. To add to that point, even if there are other countries amongst the middle eastern countries that do have feminine style of leadership under Greet Hypotheses masculine dimension, having a woman leader in a company is rare and typically a woman is only allowed to work if she can handle both family and work, family being the priority. References Hang, D. (2013, December 18).