Background information
This auto ethnographic is based on a typical self-reflection of my own and explores my personal experience connecting the respective autobiographical information to cultural acts like the use of communication styles and tools, the sexual division of labor, attributes of leadership, and equations between productivity and hours worked. It looks at how this culture diversification shapes different forms of norms and events.
My current and projected career
Looking at my personal life, I am currently working as a personal assistant. This job involves assisting in personal tasks or business. Part of my job is to assist in the management of a business by scheduling meetings, daily management of the business enterprise, note taking, and correspondence. This is a job that has a wide range of responsibilities and requires commitment and sacrifice of an individual for them to deliver. This is because it might also involve working specifically for people who are disabled. This profession, therefore, needs some level of a calling for one to handle. Being a personal assistant may require some level of perseverance because there is the likelihood of having rowdy bosses who are out to frustrate their personal assistants. I am fully compensated in my career as a personal assistant. My projected career is to work in the sales department for my father’s meat distribution company, which is fully compensated. This would enable me to be close to the family business and ensure that my dad has someone to trust in his enterprise. I intend to work effectively in the sales department and improve the market system for the distribution company in order to improve the profit margin in the company within a targeted limit of time.
Personal experience in social life
My personal experiences in life have made me interact with different forms of social and cultural shapes and norms across the world. I had a greater exploration of the issue of sexual division of labor after working and interacting with women in different settings of job decryptions. Women have a general notion of looking at their personality and role as the providers and, therefore, completely rely on themselves. They have ability and power of pressing consistent demands in unions, associations, and groups. They have discovered that in most cases they are always overlooked and denied a lot of chances by offering them to men. They are often thought of as the weaker sex and cannot perform other duties that men can effectively do.
Having the knowledge of how they are looked down upon, my personal interaction with women has made me realize that they have discovered the power contained in team work. They attack their problems by coming together and by doing this, their voices become more louder, stronger, and clearer, so that the complain they can be heard in unison. Women have realized their potential and also take care of their weaknesses. Their consistent exertion of pressures by pressing demands has led to employers offering women new opportunities in companies. This is done as a way of driving a wedge into the growing movement of women and also as a legitimate respond to their cries. Currently, a lot of women have taken bigger positions of managerial level, a situation that still imposes unanswered questions to some men who still think women are not fit for such positions.
Men and women
My personal experience has made me discover some issues that affect both men and women at work place and other social settings. Men and different have different roles to play in their respective jobs. Consequences of gender inequality are clearly seen as explanations of segregation of sex for paid labor still remain incomplete. There is a big difference in the occupational distribution of women and men, hence a huge gender gap in the wages observed. The main question asked by many is that, why is the occupational difference and gender gap so obvious at any company setting?
The minds of people across the world are set to associate men and women with specific roles in an organization of play. This is something that has been incorporated in the human mind over time due to cultural beliefs and practices. Women have been always looked upon as the helpers of men from the olden days and this tradition has been gradually inculcated in the minds of people. This, therefore, extends to the working environment where women are obviously thought to take positions that are junior to men. An example is where women are thought to positions of the secretary. Any manager would want to hire a lady as his or her secretary because the position is thought to be handled by women alone. Gender inequality, therefore, continues to persist right from home and to the work place.
Women have an extra role to play apart from work. They have a responsibility of handling a family, being a wife and a mother at the same time. This is an extra burden on their career they have to cope with. Apart from the financial responsibility, men have less family responsibilities as compared to women. This is a cultural way of life that is set on people’s minds and is extremely hard to change. Women are given hard tasks to handle not because it is their responsibility, but it is the mindset that people have that women are meant to multitask.
Unpaid work
Another experience in my life and career is the issue of unpaid work. This is a factor that has been given a lot of attention right from the early centuries. Most economists at the work place will always equate the amount of work done with the paid labor. It would be a big loss for any economist I encountered in my lifetime to pay labor that is idle. This means that people get paid yet their service does not have any positive impact on the economy of the respective country. It is estimated from the studies of the United Nations that the time of unpaid work averagely amounts to hours in a week that compares to hours that are worked in the paid employment. The evident burden that is seen of paid and unpaid hours of working is equally shared between the men and women who actively participate in the working process. This in the end leads to men receiving the lion’s share, a situation that eventually displays gender discrimination.
CONCLUSION
My personal experience has involved men and women including my career. Gender discrimination has been consistent, a factor that has always favored men over women. Men should step up and realize that women are part of them. They should offer support and be on the front line to cub the issue of gender discrimination.
