Blog #25

Sexualized behavior can be used as a weapon in the workplace. Society and media as whole generally perceive males and females in different roles. Males are masculine, strong and sometimes aggressive individuals. Women can be seen as more feminine, passive, weak at times, and sexual. Men play baseball, football, and other sports. While women were brought up dancing, taking ballet, and playing with baby dolls. Keep in mind these are general statements, but for the most part many of our children in society today are molded from birth to fit the stereotypical gender norms. In Holly English book males look at female sexuality as a distraction. These women are often times thought of as inferior to their male counterparts and are seldom taken seriously. When men see a sexy attractive female that also excels in her work, in this particular case law, men tend to see women differently. Women in a sense can parlay their beauty along with their success to gain superior recognition from their male counterparts. This may help women in some ways but I believe it hinders them more than helps them. I believe that using sex as a weapon in the workplace can actually devalue the perception of women. It is still said that women have a long way to go in terms of gaining gender equity in the workplace. In fact both men and women in the field alike feel that though we have made some progress in the means to gender equity much more is still needed. What can we do to shorten the gap of fender equity? I think education and self awareness is the key. If we are aware of issues of gender inequality in the workplace we can strive to fix them. We need to be aware of the issue that way we can fix it. Hopefully more individuals can strive to improve this issue that plagues our legal workforce today.