Page 196 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

7. GENDER DISCRIMINATION
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regularly associated with work overload in the occupational stress litera­
ture are likely to ensue (e.g., experienced stress, decreased performance,
decreased well-being). Studies of work overload that focus only on paid
work consistently report that men, on average, work longer hours and thus
are at greater risk of experiencing the strains of work overload. However,
when we take the broader perspective and recognize that an individual's
workload encompasses both paid and unpaid work, women appear to be
at increased risk of these consequences.
Rethinking "Work"
Work has traditionally been a male domain. Our definitions of what sort of
work is valuable, the relative importance of work and nonwork roles, the
sorts of behaviors that contribute to or detract from organizations, and so
forth, all reflect a male-oriented perspective. The assumption that super­
vising 10 subordinates is more valuable and more important than teaching
10 children (pay differentials for managers and teachers are substantial)
reflects the values of the dominant culture—in this case the male culture.
Our assumptions about what "work" means in our lives, how, when, and
where people should work, how organizations should be structured, and
how conflicts between work and nonwork roles should be juggled tend
to reflect and reinforce a particular perspective on the world that seems
more compatible with male sex roles than with female sex roles. On the
whole, the world of work seems friendlier and more comfortable to men
than to women, which should come as no surprise. Feminist scholars argue
that the world of work was designed by and for men, and that efforts to
improve the fit between people and work must not be limited to chang­
ing sex roles, but must also include a reconsideration of fundamental as­
sumptions that we make about work itself (Kessler-Harris, 1985; Lorber,
1986).

IMPLICATIONS OF AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH
TO WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION

In our discussion of workplace gender discrimination, we have attempted
to demonstrate that in order to understand women's and men's experi­
ences of work, one also must understand the context and developmental
processes outside of work that occur during the years prior to and follow­
ing the entrance into the workplace. Discrimination may reflect disparate
treatment between men and women or differential impact of decisions or
evaluations made within the workplace. Yet even when the same treatment