Should women be promoted to top jobs in business and politics before men?
Gender inequality is a major problem in business and politics. Eespecially, only 8% of management posts is occupied by women in Japan in 2021. It has been required for us to achieve gender equality by the government and companies. Men-dominated society and company are not acceptable according to our values and also noncompetitive because the lack of diversity should inhibit them from giving valuable and useful services. Is enough being done to resolve the problem, however?
Not a few people think that men are more competent even now. It is thought that Women should do household chores and look after their children instead of working and managing and that they wouldn't work as much and productively as men. Additionally, it has been thought that women quit their job after their marriage and childbirth while men continue to work and it's better for companies to get people who work longer in companies for the benefit of the companies. Besides, we may not need to pay attention to biological sex because we now understand biological sex doesn’t always match gender identity. By the way, why don’t we take care about the equality of gender particularly in managing posts? We adopt meritocracy or performance-based pay systems according to the principle of survival in the society of capitalism. I agree that it’s wrong that competent women are put in lower posts unreasonably, but it’s not the matter of society, it's the matter of a private company. If a company is wrong and noncompetitive, it will easily fall down. That’s it. There is nothing left to be done by societies and governments. Historically, to be sure, women have had difficulty in getting their job and working in male-dominated workplaces, we have to change this for women. However, we have to be careful of the aim to achieve gender equality in name only and keep on embracing the value of equality in gender blindly. Also, I agree that people should not be evaluated on gender but on their ability or their fit. This must be the reason we want women to promote before men, because competent women are forced to stay in low position by incompetent men. Nevertheless, is that true? If it’s true, do we have to ignore the contradiction that women are promoted because of her sex(even though a woman is surely competent) when we make women promote before men. I don’t think men are more competent than women, however men and women may have different fitness and aptitude. Over 90% of nurse jobs are occupied with women in Japan. But it is not so much criticized. Why is the inequality of gender only in managing posts severely criticized? Because of their power, high wages or high influences? If men are suitable to be a leader (in terms of just an aptitude), forcing business and politics to have women in managing posts is not a good thing. Instead, we should think about how we redistribute to employees or women the money and the power which men in top jobs have had for a long years.
There is no doubt that men tend to work longer than women. However, we shouldn't decide who to be promoted based on the period that they work for because it isn't always true that people who work longer in companies are more competent. Sometimes they might be bound by prejudice and struggle to broaden their perspectives. If we get women promoted, more women can be involved in discussing important topics for companies or societies. If we discuss them among people from various backgrounds, we can broaden our perspectives. That must benefit the whole of society. Added to that, the gender gap problem should be tackled in terms of fairness. We can not overlook anything against the values if we embrace fundamental human rights in the modern society like equality, freedom and fairness. Moreover, women are forced to focus on household chores because of tradition, not their will. If men commit to household chores more, women can work more. Consequently, women's productivity will be as high as men. Likewise, men are forced to work for a long time, hence the high percentage of health problems caused by overwork. In fact, the average working time among Japanese men is the longest in the world. On the other hand, some women want to work more and take part in managing positions and some men want to leave work earlier and be engaged in household chores, but they can't do that because of traditional sexual role. If we tackle this problem, it means that we can achieve a fair society where individuals can show their maximum abilities.
In today's society, it's difficult to change the tradition, which is to encourage women to do household chores and men to work hard. For this reason, the government should recommend the companies to take affirmative actions. Once they get women promoted to top positions, they notice how much this will benefit them and they might start considering hiring more women in the management posts. That way, as many women as men will be in the management positions. Although men can take childcare leave, the percentage of that is still low. Men aren't expected to take care of their children and men feel guilty about taking childcare leave. In conclusion, the responsibility for the inequality should be left to the government as well, and we might have to think why the gender equality should be achieved particularly in managing posts.
Fairness is so important. It is easy to regard women just as short-time worker, but it may be a time to achieve the fairness and cooperate. Just depending on market principle, it is difficult to improve. Governments are required to do something for it.
ReplyDeleteIt may be off the point and my prejudice, but it seems that female students are more active than male ones. As far as I know, the percentage of female students is almost 80% or over who join volunteer activities in my educational NPO. They are also eager to change the world and join the activities. However, when they go into business, they receive less opportunities to promote or have the power to make an impact. Don't the current situations spoil their eagerness?
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