In line with this, we get KBS views on whether the <\/strong>gender gap still exists in the workplace?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018Yes is the short answer! In a Harvard Business Review article in 1990 called “Ways Women Lead”, Judy Rosener suggested that the ranks of 21st century leadership would\u00a0be dominated by women as they have the “natural” skill set necessary for future business success. Though this claim was supported at the time\u00a0by mainstream management writers such as Tom Peters, the business community did not appear to be persuaded given the low numbers of women in leadership positions throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s. However,\u00a0from 2008,\u00a0following the financial crisis, the situation appeared to change with\u00a0much\u00a0media hype claiming\u00a0that women were needed in leadership positions as they possessed the traits, skills and capabilities\u00a0 required\u00a0to “sort out” the financial mess their male colleagues had made.<\/p>\n Alas, here we are in 2016 and despite the championing of feminine leadership skills,\u00a0\u00a0women still lag behind men in terms of their occupation of senior leadership positions and thus the question of why women haven’t gained more from this juxtapositioning of \u00a0“feminine”\u00a0alongside “leadership” emerges. \u00a0While there is recognition of ongoing female disadvantage within organizations connected to\u00a0the incongruity between the characteristics usually ascribed to women and the characteristics typically ascribed to leaders (Eagly, 2014), the “solution” to this situation is located with individual women.<\/p>\n Books such as Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean-In” are advising women to overcome organizational gender bias by drawing on their own internal, psychological\u00a0resources so that they can devise personalized, individualized\u00a0“solutions” to the systemic disadvantages they may face. While such an approach may work for some individual women, it will not address in total the many manifestations of\u00a0gender disadvantage in organizations\u00a0and so we are unlikely to see a significant increase in the numbers of women in senior leadership positions in the near future.\u2019<\/p>\n KBS research student \u2013 Faleh Albouss, PhD \u2013 \u2018Perceived Barriers to Female Participation in Kuwait\u2019s Private Sector\u2019 <\/strong> KBS placement student (2015) \u2013 <\/strong>Angeliki Papageorgiou, BBA (Hons) Business Administration What do you think? Please share your point of view on this question on our KBS Facebook group<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"lewis_patricia\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kent-business-matters\/files\/2016\/03\/lewis_patricia.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0KBS academic \u2013 Dr Patricia Lewis, Reader in Management<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n\u2018The gender gap in the workplace has significantly declined since the 1960s; however, most women studies argue that occupational gender segregation and gender inequality remain as obvious features in industrialised and developing countries alike. Changes in education and family lifestyles facilitated horizontal segregation, leading to an attenuation of women\u2019s options in employment sectors. Vertical employment stratification shows how male workers maintain their traditional advantages by dominating high-status positions, so women have less success moving into non-manual labour. I believe that gender inequality in the workplace still largely exists, and significantly shapes women\u2019s career lives.\u2019<\/p>\n![\"Angeliki](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kent-business-matters\/files\/2016\/03\/Angeliki-Papageorgiou-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/strong>
\n<\/strong>\u2018There have been a lot of improvements to reduce the gender gap and enhance gender equality in the workplace. However, the gender gap still largely exists on a global scale. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2014, 60% of the gender gap for economic participation and opportunity has been closed as compared to 56% in 2006. Still, during my placement year I witnessed, to some extent, a gender gap within my everyday working environment. The percentage of male employees was significantly larger than that of female employees, which could have been due to the male-dominated industry I was working in.\u2019<\/p>\n