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Men have power in organizations that women often lack. Male power is a feature of the society in which we live, as well as the organizations in which we work, and the interpersonal encounters that happen there. Owing to power relations that differentiate society at large, women's work experience is different from that of men.
During the last 20 years in Britain, the number of women employees has grown; there has been a 2.8 million fall in the number of men, and a two million rise in the number of women who work. You might think that, as more women have entered the labour force, they have gained more positions of power. But, as the numbers increase, the proportion of women in positions of power has decreased[1,2]. There was, for example, a drop of 3.5 per cent of women in senior management between 1975 and 1984. There are around three million managers in Britain, but only about one-fifth are women[3].
JOB SEGREGATION
Looking generally at men's and women's employment it is clear that there are enormous differences in the types of job which women and men do, the pay they receive, the hours they work, the skills they acquire and their patterns of employment. Women's work is almost always lower paid, lacks a craft tradition, has weaker trade union organization and is of unskilled status. The work is often deemed inferior because women do it. All these differences help to contribute towards women's lack of power in employment. Women are segregated into jobs that are sex-typed "women's jobs". Men's and women's jobs are "horizontally" segregated. Women most commonly work in different types of occupation. For example, where women predominate in occupations such as data preparation and as chambermaids, men are computer operators and kitchen porters. It is usually the case that male jobs are ranked higher than female jobs. There are clear distinctions between men's and women's work.
Men's and women's work is also differentiated by "vertical segregation". Men are usually working in higher grade occupations and women in lower grades. This happens even in occupations where women predominate, for example in nursing. In 1986 it was found that 9 per cent of nurses were men, but they held 45 per cent of the...