Many people feel that they are negotiating between different elements of their identity. In the workplace these elements may be features of the norm or something that is different. In circumstances where self identity varies from the norm it may be hard to negotiate.
Often times a norm is the white heterosexual male, as our text notes. This norm allows for little deviation. Often times people do not match up to at least one of those criteria of what is "normal". For me it is being female. In my current job I do not feel particularly different than the norm because a majority of the employees are female. In the job I hope to have in the future as a social worker there will be a majority of females. Though the social work field has more women in it, it reflects larger society in that more males still hold supervisory and management type positions. For me I consider this a disadvantage ,but one I am not sure how to change.
There are also other groups marginalized because they do not fit the mold. Often times people of color are discriminated against and again we see few people of color in positions of power. Our president is so astounding to Americans for this reason. Not only do people of color have a problem in the workplace ,but also in getting hired in the first place. For instance one MIT study conducted showed that names identified by a team of researchers as"African American" got fewer interviews than "white" names with the same qualifications. This goes to show that it isn't just within the organization ,but embedded in society.
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Based on the study done by MIT, do you think that more interviews would be given to “African Americans” if more “African Americans” were in hiring management positions? Does the study show what race or ethnicity the hiring manager was at the time the interviews were taking place? This would be interesting to know. This sometimes makes me wonder about the questions asked during the submittal of your resume and job application to a company’s human resource application via their website. For instance, most of the time your race, gender and ethnicity is optional for submittal during the job application process but sometimes it is required. However, the question is always asked. What I wonder is that even though the company claims that they are an equal opportunity company, could there actually be a screening process based on this information collected? You never know.
ReplyDeletehttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_2_48/ai_97873146/ heres a link to an article about it if you want to know about the specific study. I had a business teacher that talked about it in business ethics. Interesting to see the type of institutional racism going on. I have to say I was pretty oblivious so it was eye opening and gives me a better prospective. I always thought racist people were so few and far between.
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