If an organisation expresses a gender regime, which systematically devalues everything connected with the female, the organisation can never become democratic, whatever affirmative action it may introduce, and whatever equal opportunity legislation may be promulgated (Gherardi, 1995). Most of us believe in the autonomy of the individuals and his or her rights to equality, freedom of choice and personal self-fulfillment.We live in what we call a democracy and would like to believe our organisations treat the individuals who live and work in them with fairness and respect. But those who work in organisations are not all equal or enlightened and there are formidable barriers, particularly toward women, preventing their advancement and creating hurdles in order to have them slipped before they climb over the organisation’s success ladder.
Many organisations are dominated by gender related values that bias organisation life in favour of one sex over another.Thus, organisations often segment opportunity, structures, and job markets in ways that enable men to achieve position of prestige and power more early than women, often operate in ways that produce gender related biases in the way organisation reality is created and sustained in a day to day basis. This is most obvious in the situation of open discrimination and the various forms of sexual harassment that often pervade the culture of the organisation in a way that it is much less visible (Morgan, 1986).This case study shows a gender blind organisation, which portrayed gender sensitivities, a culture of male dominancy and poor leadership with inadequate communication channels. The culture of this organisation ignores a woman’s identity and experience, and does not give opportunities for career progression. This blindness grew out of an illusion that every one is male. The organisation exhibited favoritism towards the male side of the firm with little consideration towards the female side.
The culture adopted has influenced the way of thinking of management and the male side of the firm, in such a way that they see themselves rather more influential in the company and this sense of powerfulness has obstructed the growth of women. The Case study Analysis: Within the framework of Jersey Packers1 case study, one can perceive that the structure of the workplace makes it difficult for women to compete on equal terms with men. There was an absence of women representation, particularly in the higher level of management.This is an organisation where gender balance is not a concern for the employers as well as employees. An organisation whose practices is not gender neutral, but have largely been designed by men, for men, with organisational cultures which value masculine over feminine work styles. There was lack of support from superiors to closely examine the chaotic situation and take adequate corrective measures to develop a policy in which women are accepted, respected and are provided ample opportunities to work in friendly environment workplace.
There are evidences of negative stereotyping about women’s abilities and career commitment, poor understandings of the challenges women face at the workplace, lack of advisors for women (“mentoring”), exclusion of women from communication networks, and limited opportunities for career development. There has been less likely of any sort of gender integration and the degree of management support, encouragement and motivation are not evidently noticeable. There is a gender gap in the management of the organisation as the cultural perspective of the organisation creates different patterns of values and norms for men and women.This differential has led the organisation towards a culture, which associates each sex with specific attributes, qualities and symbols, of male dominancy in which people behaved differently towards women. This dominant culture is, indeed, constructed by the influential people of the organisation where there were little efforts to give both sexes same identity and sense of belongings and there have been little efforts to diversify and institutionalize the culture of the organization. The prevailing work ethics are obviously inefficient towards women and the treatment towards women seemingly unfavorable.The organisation’s top management did not encourage Cindy Wanstall to take on more challenging roles and responsibilities. Their leadership practice was poor as well.
They could not control the attitudes of her supervisor and other employees towards her. Generally, the behavior of management and senior managers did not encourage treating women equally. There were no efforts for encouragement, support and career development from her superiors. There was also a lack of social support from people at work.There were blockages in communication, lack of appreciation of the need to communicate and lack of skill in overcoming the many formidable barriers to communication. Also, the appraisal mechanism employed to gauge employees’ performance was not clear.
Management also did not make any concrete attempt to value their commitment. In addition, the idea of improving quality, the institutionalized passivity, performing routine and passive jobs were other concerns where the management were reluctant to look at them closely and to formulate sound strategies to tackle.Cindy Wanstall was prepared to work hard for her place in the organisation despite the initial fear imbedded in her by the Marketing Manager, John Ransom, during her induction. He told her that she should not expect to be treated sympathetically for being a woman. He even notified her that he would not be available to give her any form of support, as he would be too busy to supervising the brand managers.
From the onset, Ransom had blocked any form of communication channel that Wanstall might have found useful during her tenure at the company.He had created a culture that lacks trust and does not encourage cooperation. Despite all the barriers created, she still wanted to make obvious contributions to the firm, prove to be the first woman to break into that male-dominant firm, and obtain higher position in the organisational hierarchy (See Appendix 1).
Despite all her performance, her efforts were frustrated. Her immediate superior presenting an unbiased free performance review unfairly judged her performance. This clarified that the management of Jersey Packer does not promote equal opportunity rights on sex basis.Wanstall knew that her performance review was unfair but she managed to convince to some extent her line manager that his appraisal was unjustifiably done. The exclusion, alienation and prejudice Wanstall experienced from both the males at work and corporate policies resulted in her feeling totally isolated, undervalued and demotivated.
Her only coping mechanism was to quit the job. Thus, the protective male rituals had satisfactorily continued to perform their original function, in providing an exclusive ‘haven’ for men.