You learn several interesting things when studying the present business environment and the implications of this. And when I was doing this I stumbled upon a term called "the gender contract" which I find very interesting. The gender contract is first of all not an actual document, notihng tangiable, but instead something intangiable and measurable. The gender contract states that men exists to protact women, and women exists to serve men.

So how can we see this in the business world, that's it isn't just me bullshitting?
We can first of all see this in the gender patterns that are very apparent, which is the division of work. As how the military, firefighters and police are dominated by men, which are "protective" jobs, while we find much larger proportions of females at occupations like being a nurse. This have also to do with the homosocial reproduction (which claims that male bosses wants male bosses to take their place when they quit and same such), and some other reasons why females don't have many top positions, but this have to do with segregation, not the gender contracts, so I will not speak of this until later.

This gender contract works nicely at home, with a marrige couple. It is a bit, well, traditionally thinking and I think it seems somewhat old-fashioned, but nonetheless. But in the labor market, this is a serious trouble, since it doesn't allow women to climb the hierarchy. This is one of the reasons we find more women in the public sector, where wages (rewards in formal terms) are lower. But because of the lower rewards men prefer to search themselves into the private, more well-payed, sector. This creates an opening for women to enter a tad higher hierarchy levels in the public sector, but the top management is still men. The conclusion can be that women are structurally subordinated men!

This is not just something existing in pre-time. Think of a male boss. Pause and just think of some good adjectives. Did the words dependable, stable or something like that come to mind? Think of a female boss. Is the thought more negative? Even in this "enlighted" generation we tend to think way more negative about women.

And when we try to break the gender system, assume I guy buys and wears a dress, the societly will restore order in one or both of two ways: claim it as wrong
"A guy in a dress is just wrong, shape up dude!"
or claim it to be an expection
"He's just that wierd kid."

So what can we do affect the gender contract? Be a femenist maybe? No, a femeist isn't just some crazy lady who don't shave her legs. It is a person thinks men and women should have the same wages, if they do the same work. This should also mean that women should be delegated the same work as men, not less complicated work. The rewards should be equal because of what you do, not what you are!

//Thought and knowledge from an International Management student