Priya Gandhi

Barbara Presnell
20 March 2017
UWRT 1104
Evaluated Works Cited: Why Are Certain Genders Valued More Than Others in the Work
Environment?

Smith, Raymond Arthur, and Bridget Marie Greene. Gender Inequality in the Workplace. Rep.

New York: Columbia U, 2015. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. Columbia

University Libraries, 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

<https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac:190361>.

The report Gender Inequality in the Workplace, written by Bridget Greene and
Raymond Smith, expressed views on gender inequality and how it has changed over the years.
The article mainly explained how only females face discrimination in the professional world and
how the forms of discrimination are an exclusion from specific industries and lower pay for
hours worked. Throughout the article there were numerous references to historical events
leading up to how women have rights. Historical events such as the ratification of the 19th
amendment granting voting rights for women, the Equal Rights Amendment protecting
individuals from gender-based discrimination, and the Paycheck Fairness Act eliminating gender
as a scale for wages. These events obviously do not eliminate gender inequality; however, they
all have developed certain improvements to gender-based discriminations. What I appreciated
within this written report was how both authors talked about how there are issues with genders in
the workplace, but they backed up their viewpoints with both statistics and historical evidence
rather than only stating their opinions.

The title of the report itself can show how relevant the report is to my topic. What I liked
about this source is how it not only gave factual statistics of gender bias within the work
environment, but how it also states what historical events have led up to this era of gender
inequality. These historical events showed what has improved within the workplace and what
still needs to be improved. This source gives me another viewpoint on how I can pursue my
topic.

Due to the document having historic information to back up its topic and a work cited
page to support the report, this source is considered valid. Not to mention the report, written by
students, was released by the well-known university, Columbia on their Center for Digital
Research and Scholarship page.
Henley, Daniel . Gender Bias in the Workplace. Thesis. Eastern Michigan University, 2014.

N.p.: Eastern Michigan U, 2014. Digital Commons at EMU. Eastern Michigan

University, 15 Aug. 2015. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.

<http://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1408&context=honors>.

For his thesis at Eastern Michigan, Daniel Henley conducted an experiment displaying
how gender discrimination remains a worrying issue in the work environment. In the beginning
of his experiment Henley talks about how he must explain what kind of issues contribute to
gender inequality. He gave two different examples of factors influencing gender inequality. They
were salary wages and political ideology. The experiment itself is conducted to show the
difference in participants and who they would hire based on their political ideology. The
hypothesis is when compared to liberals, conservatives would be less likely to hire men and
women for gender atypical positions than gender stereotypical positions. The experiment itself
starts off with participants reading through four difference applicant transcripts. After scanning
through all four applicant transcripts, the participants look through the applicants hire ability.
Then, each participants political ideology is examined. On the contrary, the results to the
experiment were opposed to the hypothesis. Basically, the results showed conservatives were
not significantly more or less likely to hire men and women for more gender traditional
occupations than liberals. The ability to be hired was not affected by how conservative or liberal
your employer is. I found this experiment very fascinating because its data is distinctly different
to what most articles state about gender inequality.

This experiment and thesis relates to my inquiry project because it displays if gender is
an issue in the hiring process through political ideology. I think this is my best source thus far
with my research. I believe this is my best source because it has a viewpoint contrary to all of my
sources. Not to mention this source is unique by it conducting an experiment within a thesis. I
also think this is a strong source because the results of this experiment differ from all my other
sources as well. I could tell in the beginning of Henleys thesis he believed gender inequality in
the workplace, especially in the hiring process, is an apparent issue. It was interesting to see his
own views changed towards the end of his thesis.

What makes this source credible is it is a students thesis published by Eastern Michigan
University. I was suspicious about the source when I first pressed on the link, because I knew the
thesis was written by a student. However, due to the experiment having many citations at the end
of the thesis and factual evidence supporting its argument I decided it was credible.
Miller, Claire Cain. "More Men Are Taking Women's Jobs." New York Times [New York] 19

Mar. 2017, C: Living sec.: C07. Newsbank. Westerly Sun, The (RI), 19 Mar. 2017. Web.

22 Mar. 2017.

<http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/163397206F708418?p=WORLD

NEWS>.

In this newspaper article, the viewpoint of gender inequality has an interesting twist to
the typical beliefs. This article takes gender inequality to a whole new level, instead of women
being unable to obtain high-status jobs men are unable to. The newspaper article talks about
how women are now taking higher status jobs in the medical and law field. Therefore, men are
beginning to acquire lower-status jobs that women mostly did. For example, jobs like teachers,
retail cashiers, librarians, baby sitters, and hair dressers. The article also mentions being either
Hispanic, less educated, or poor is already another disadvantage to getting jobs. Let alone gender
itself, the article was trying to convey job opportunities can be based on race and class as well.
According to Miller, studies have found the fastest growing jobs are taken over by women, and
the job occupations which are decreasing in size are populated by men. I liked how Miller stated
in the article how women are starting to get more higher-status jobs, however, she stated those
women are usually white, educated, native-born, and married. Towards the end of the newspaper
article Leslie McCall, the associate director of the Stone Center on Socioeconomic Inequality at
CUNY, talks about how in order to improve jobs policymakers should not be focused on gender
or race, but on general working conditions at the bottom of the income ladder. By this I think
she means there is a bigger problem in occupations. Not a problem gender, but with wages and
employment support.

This newspaper article is relevant to my topic because it displays gender inequality

within the workplace. What made this newspaper article so fascinating was how it had a different
viewpoint than the rest of my other sources. It talked about how men are being affected more
than women. The article did not acknowledge the difference between men and women in wages
or benefits, but how women are getting more high-status jobs. This makes this source more
unique compared to the rest.

This source is credible because it was published by a writer in the New York Times. Clair
Cain Miller, according to the New York Times, is a correspondent for the New York Times,
where she writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot, a Times site for
analysis of policy and economics. Most articles in the New York Times are reviewed by multiple
people many times, which make their sources usually credible. I believe the idea of bigger
brands who publish pieces must have credible information, otherwise they can be sued for
displaying misleading information. No company would want to go through with law suits, so I
chose to believe this source is credible because of where it came from.
.

Stamarski, Cailin Susan, and Hing, Leanne Son. "Gender inequalities in the workplace: the

effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers'

sexism." Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers Media S.A., 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Mar.

2017. <http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01400/full>.

In this website article the idea of gender inequality is discussed. The beginning of the
article states how the idea of gender discrimination is a complex phenomenon which can be
presented in almost any type of scenario, especially in the workplace. In the most gender neutral
and open-minded jobs, like human resource practices, a great amount of gender inequality can be
endorsed. This idea is scary because in human resource practices they can affect hiring, pay, and
even the promotion of women. They stated in their article that the human resource department
believe they, we propose a model of gender discrimination in HR that emphasizes the reciprocal
nature of gender inequalities within organizations. We suggest that gender discrimination in HR-
related decision-making and in the enactment of HR practices stems from gender inequalities in
broader organizational structures, processes, and practices. This means, within the human
resource department, the idea of gender inequality can derive from the mindset of the company,
their bosses, the companys strategies and structure. Basically, gender inequality derives from
everyone but from the human resource department. These practices of gender inequality within
the human resource department can affect all employees in any company, making the workplace
a hostile environment. The article oddly sums itself up by stating if the organizations leaders can
become more open-minded this can open doors for not only individuals, but the company as
well. I was disappointed with how the article ended, because I thought the authors would agree
gender inequality can come from human resources as well. However, the author agreed with the
one blatantly made statement by the human resource department stated above.

This article is related to my main inquiry question of why are certain genders valued
more than others in the work environment, because it goes into depth of how gender bias is
performed within the workplace. I do not believe this my best source, only because of how
repetitive the information within the article is. However, it is interesting to see how the human
resource department can be seen a major cause of the issue.

This source is credible because of how many sources the article uses. The article itself is
extremely long, however, the works cited section of the article is almost double the size. There
are at least 100 sources listed at the end. Also, Leanne Son Hing is the associate chair in the
department of psychology at the University of Guelph.
Why Cant a Women Succeed Like a Man?. A BBC Production, 20 Nov. 2014. Web. 20 Mar.

2017. <http://fod.infobase.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=41291>.

In this Film called, Why Cant a Women Succeed Like a Man?--part of the series The
Trouble with Working Women: An Inquiry into Inequality Between the Sexes--the documentary
displays how women have not been able to succeed in the work environment compared to how
men have succeeded. I enjoyed how this documentary was very blunt and did went straight to the
point to discuss what is occurring in the workplace. The objective of this documentary was to get
the point of women having it all across. In the description of the movie it states, the central
issue is whether, practically speaking, women can, should, or even desire to have it all by
pursuing a career and raising a family. Most women cannot or do I not believe they can raise a
family and have a career. Later on in the documentary it goes more into depth with the having it
all idea. It gets into detail with maternity leave, competitiveness, how women should be married
before obtaining a high-status job and how women are expected to be the more responsible one
in terms of taking over the household. All this information was pulled from data and just
interpreted through the program and executing the matters of sex discrimination on camera.

This documentary is very relevant to my topic because it talks about how women are
unable to be as successful as a man. The one thing I dislike about this source is how one-sided
the information is; however, out of all of my sources this is the only source with a strong one-
sided viewpoint. So it balances out. The film talks about why women are treated unfairly and
how the program wants to hear about different stories of women struggling.

This source is credible due to the documentary being released on a library web base.
Also, because it was produced by a somewhat well-known company. As I briefly stated before,
once a film is produced and publishes its piece with factual information, no one is able to go
back to change anything. Therefore, the data must credible or the film will be sued for
misleading information.