Gender Bias

Hi friends.. This post of mine is with reference to the Times Life article ‘When she’s the CEO’ on Sunday, January 18, 2009. A lot has been said and discussed about women breaking the glass ceiling especially after Chanda Kochhar taking over as the CEO of ICICI. After reading the article, a thought tickled my mind about women in HR. Being an HR student, I have developed a habit of looking at things with the HR perspective. Even if a friend of mine is having a glass of water, I tend to think whether he/she got it himself/herself or was it served; thus was manpower required or not!
The other day I was in a jeweler's shop with a friend of mine who has opted for marketing. While returning, I simply poured out a thought of mine that the owner should employ more individuals (part-time or full-time) due to the huge numbers visiting the shop each day. My friend started laughing. ‘I was thinking of what can be done to increase the brand perception of this shop’… typical MBAs!!

Well coming back to the point, the article left me with a thought of why more women opt for HR than men?
According to the Internet sources, historically, HR can trace its lineage to as far back as the late 19th century. All welfare workers were women, and it was their role to ensure that the women and girls in the workforce were taken care of. As more women entered the industry during the two world wars, the welfare worker’s role was expanded to include recruitment and training. The movement from welfare role to Personnel, and subsequently from Personnel to HR, took place in a mainly female context.

H.R in my opinion involves a lot of client servicing, wherein the clients are the employees of an organization. Women are more empathetic; they also adopt a more personal approach when it comes to work. They are more assertive and assertiveness is one quality that is required in HR. Moreover HR function is more subjective, and women have better emotional intelligence. This is not to say that they can't be as competitive or more competitive that men. However, H.R in the past has been almost synonymous with the female gender, this is changing albeit at a slow pace; after all habits (good or bad) are hard to break!

I dont know, but I believe, both MEN and WOMEN are equally capable...Male and Female both are equally good, equally capable, and will have the same time in a working day. Preference would be given to the person than the gender. The person who has good communication skills, lot of patience, listening capability, accumbency to respond to the situation is the right fit for the HR position.

Unfortunately for women however, whilst the figures suggest overwhelmingly that HR is a female profession, the men still seem to feature highly within two of the most important aspects of any role: promotion and salary range. As quoted in one of the HR sites, in middle management, the CIPD research suggests that an average salary for female HR’s is £41,000, whilst their male counterparts take home £49,000. And whilst the figures show an undeniable majority of women within the profession as a whole, CIPD research reveals that only 40% of HR Directors are women. It can therefore be argued that both men and women dominate the HR profession, albeit in different ways.
If greater equality within the industry is desired, it requires a huge up swell of men to join the profession at entry level, whilst at the opposite end of the career spectrum, more women need to be given the tools and responsibility to break through the glass ceiling that clearly exists.

I believe this is a nice topic to discuss and would want to see how other friends respond...