Responses to the Experienced Gendered Work Place Norms

Topic: 
How have you experienced gendered work place norms?
How will you navigate these gendered norms/try to change them in your adult working life?
My response: How have you experienced gendered work place norms?
Gendered work place norms are a common occurrence within the contemporary society. The grounds to present such an argument are in the case that most people would want to create a barrier between men and women in the workplace environment. For instance, there is group of people that believe in the existence of the gender gap. A practical example is the case that an individual is judged based on their gender status rather than their competency or skills presented. Particularly, the case that a given person is judged based on their gender status. More specifically, a woman may miss the employment opportunity in the case that the employer wanted to employ men rather than women. A good point to note, many people would want to have the male dominance as compared to women within the professional environment. Such an argument develops from a professional point of view and firsthand experience. Notably, the first hand experience is the case of working within a professional environment where women are segregated on the basis of gender discrimination.
How will you navigate these gendered norms/try to change them in your adult working life?
Gender norms are complicated societal matter if viewed from another perspective or angle. Given such reasoning, it is important to point out that specific behavior or individual character would challenge such reasoning. For example, one would challenge such a problem by increasing awareness or campaigns against such approaches. Importantly, there is need to increase employment opportunities for the women. More specifically, creating more leadership roles for the women would grant them the opportunity to address controversial topics within the society. As such, there would be a gender balance between men and women.
Students response: I have experienced gender workplace norms, but not in a typical way. I am an actress, so my career path has different workplace norms than most office jobs or other occupations. One norm I have encountered is differences between males and females in the level of difficulty to book a job. There are fewer men in acting than there are women, because acting is considered to be a primarily female occupation. Men are sometimes judged as homosexual if they choose an career path in the entertainment industry, especially in the musical theatre route. Also, acting does not provide a steady income, because you never know when you will book your next job and how long that job will be. To give an example, there are over 300,000 actors/actresses in Los Angeles, CA. Of those, 100,000 are SAG. Of those 100,000 SAG actors/actresses, only 1-2% are working constantly, earning a steady income. Because of the unsteadiness, men are more scared to pursue this career because they do not think that they will be successful enough to make enough money to support a family (which is an example of a masculine characteristic that has been engrained in male’s minds: be the breadwinner). With all of this in mind, when men begin their acting careers, they immediately step onto the glass escalator; it is much easier for men to become successful and book jobs than it is for women, because there are fewer male actors in the profession. In Questioning Gender: A Sociological Exploration, Robyn Ryle explains the glass escalator, saying, “The glass escalator identified by Williams describes the experiences of men when they enter occupations that are pre-dominantly held by women…men in female occupations face little job discrimination when it comes to their hiring, and they often enjoy a preference based on their gender” (Ryle, Robyn, 371). Men can sometimes come in with little-to-no experience and book a job quicker than a woman who has been training for years. This advantage is true across all ages as well- from children to teenagers, to grown adults, the gender advantage for men in acting is prevalent. The TV/Film industry is very competitive, but even more so for women because there are more of them. Men usually get more auditions, more bookings, and more opportunities than women. In the first discussion for this class, I talked about the dominance of male leads in film/television. This is another workplace norm in Hollywood- female characters are typically subordinate and not as powerful as their male counterparts.
I will navigate the male-actor preference simply by not giving up. To be honest, this career is hard on every actor, despite gender, so I cannot completely discount the struggle that men go through. However, women have less of a probability of becoming successful in this industry. I will continue to work hard, and not sit around an wait for opportunities to come my way. I will be proactive and control what I can control, which includes the quality of my acting and my marketing. I have to have confidence, and know that I will be successful, it just may not come at the same rate as my male actor counterparts. My boyfriend is an actor as well, more successful than I, so I am already experiencing the different rates of success. He admits that I work harder than he does, and I do because I have too in order to achieve my dreams. As far as the little-to-no female empowerment in Hollywood, I will navigate this gender norm by choosing roles carefully; I will accept a job where the character has a redeeming quality or power that is empowering to women. There are also some famous actresses who have taken matters into their own hands. For example, Reese Witherspoon started her own production company to produce films that have women as the lead and are empowering characters. I would love to get involved in a project like that!
What you do: read the topic, then my response, then my classmates. Then response to my classmates response by telling what you agree/disagree, like/dislike, etc, but all while keeping in mind of my response.