Stereotypes career women face in the work place

Ever notice how women with successful careers are called “career women” and men of the same criteria are only regarded to as “men?”, today we will be shedding  some light on 5 stereotypes career women face in the work place. Wikipedia defines a career woman thus: “A career woman describes a woman whose main goal in life are to create a career for herself rather than creating a family.

These women can also be described as more interested in their career than in being married and having children.” This definition in itself is a testament of the stereotypes working women face from both the work place and from society, as it assumes that a woman cant have both a successful career and family. Its why a lot of interviews with top-tier successful women tend t0 have a question along the lines of “How have you been able to balance building your career and managing your family?” a question they never seem to bother to ask men who are successful in their careers.

Women are expected to be their child’s primary caregiver.

Even when some companies try to accommodate new mothers, they operate under the assumption that they will be the primary parent and need to slow down their careers. Ironically, men are not expected to slow down when their kids are young and often don’t get the time or flexibility that would allow them to help their wives.

Women are judged more harshly when voicing their opinions.

Strong, confident women risk coming across as selfish or domineering, when the same qualities are readily admired in a man. In the thread, a user named Becky Lee commented that “men are respected for being assertive and direct and persistent” and that women are often called nasty, derogatory terms for possessing the same traits.

Women are expected to have good soft skills.

Women are traditionally seen as being better at team-building and communication skills, which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but can lead to problems in the office. Giving irrelevant tasks to women assuming that they will be better at them than men, deprives women of the chance to improve relevant skills.

Women are judged more on their looks than men.

Women are held to higher beauty standards and judged more harshly for personal appearance mistakes. To meet these standards, they typically have to spend more time on their appearance than men. And even though most women have a long list of fashion and grooming responsibilities, men are fine as long as “they are clean, their clothes are clean and pressed, their hair is neat, and they wear deodorant.”

Women are still seen as secondary to their husbands.

Even though more women are emerging in society that are the financial breadwinners of the family, women still encounter casual situations where people would ask about their husband’s profession and assume that their own jobs were less important. Despite the women actually being the breadwinners.

Check out our all new episode on how women can break through the barriers of gender stereotypes in their career journey