WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR

           My university’s Campus Activities (SDCA) Office has a back wall that holds twenty-two small black buckets hanging on 
clear corkboard pushpins. The front of each pail dons every office employee’s name on colored paper, and to the left the name
is each person’s “Top Five” Gallup StrengthsQuest Strengths. On the counter below, neatly stacked quarter sheets of paper 
have pictures of raindrops. This initiative, “A Drop in Your Bucket,” encourages employees to recognize each other’s good 
deeds once a week, and to somehow incorporate that person’s strengths into the complement. SDCA is known for hiring 
leaders, and among these leaders are males and females who interact with each other on a daily basis and feel competent, 
confident, and comfortable around each other. Office employees seem to model gender equality when working with 
co-workers directly, but when outsiders intrude, gender roles become prevalent through the interactions with people not in 
the community.

            SDCA is filled with a diverse range of personalities, but common themes among all employees are that each 
person is a strong personality who is hard working, motivated, and interested in leadership in some capacity. With this
office hosting the leadership initiatives, it seems natural that these employees have secured ideas of what drive, 
resourcefulness, adaptability, direction, organization, and detail are. Each person strives to accomplish even the most
ridiculous task, like starting a new project fifteen minutes before clocking out of his or her shift. There seems to be an 
understanding between everyone – the office must look calm on the outside, even while chaos and crisis ensues each
day, similar to a duck that paddles to stay afloat in a calm river. However, when outside factors begin to interact with 
this community, the way team works together and treats its counterparts changes course and in an effort to keep up 
professional and calm appearances, the changes appear to be swept under the rug. 

            SDCA also specializes in working with students, faculty and student organizations. Campus Activities Assistants have the
first interactions with those seeking help upon their entry to the office. From these interactions the idea of gender roles in the
office stems. While subtle, they are there. For example, when observing the office one afternoon, I noticed that four students in
a row hurriedly speed walked to the front desk, and every one of them turned to the male student (employee #1) for the 
answers they needed. Beside the male student was a woman (employee #2) who had more experience in the office, and knew 
the answer. Each time employee #2 tried to help the student in need, he or she shut employee #2 down before turning back to
employee #1. Employee #1 turned to employee #2 every time to get the answer from her, and encouraged her to share the 
answer, but employee #2 only reported back to employee #1 before he would then turn back to the office’s guest and repeat 
​what employee #2 just said. 

           In an office so focused on leadership and leadership development, which preaches empowerment, teamwork and social
change, it seemed interesting that within office employee interaction, there was a sense acceptance and comfortability, but the
minute an outsider entered the environment, it became appropriate for the woman to be mildly belittled. While this was not 
the case every time, it occurred in the presence of a male employee. When females worked the front desk, students and faculty
engaged with the student on the right more than the left, and were not belittled by women, but experienced resistance from 
men when the men were told they could not enter the back of the office without an appointment because all professional staff
were busy.

           The sense of entitlement, or in some cases aggression, that comes from some of the male students who come into the 
office could be more complex than just being arrogant. It could be rooted in gender roles taught to children over their course
of their lives.  Parents tend to, “prefer that their children adhere to traditional sex roles and are concerned when they do not”
(Martin 151).  From the time a child is born, gender roles are forced upon them through a hospital’s need to place a young male
infant in a blue blanket, while a female baby is wrapped into a pink blanket (Witt). As young children travel through their
educational journeys, the socialization of gender roles contributes to popularity and status among their peers, in addition to
the segregation of the sexes. Feminine girls are supposed to be non-confrontational with friends and instead dramatic by
talking about others, mindful of others before themselves, and aspire to marriage and children. Masculine boys are
encouraged to be rough in sports, unemotional, and dominant between their male and female counterparts.  In the workforce,
female traits are considered to be facilitative, supportive, indirect, people-oriented, collaborative, and weaker than males.
Masculine traits are seen as competitive, confrontational, direct, autonomous, outcome-oriented, and stronger than females
​(Holmes).

            While treating women poorly is still not acceptable, “cross-sex behavior in boys generally is viewed more negatively than
cross-sex behavior in girls,” girls are believed to, “eventually ‘grow out’ of their cross-sex behavior,” and “more boys than girls 
are referred to clinics for cross-sex behavior patterns,” so when young men act more hardheaded or aggressive, putting their 
behavior into context helps society understand why they may partake in the mannerisms they do (Martin 152).

            The challenges American society must overcome include acknowledging that the disparities between men and women 
exist, and actually working towards gender parity. Women are not socially, politically or economically equal to men, especially 
in the workplace where women earn 79% of what men make, face sexual harassment and are underrepresented in high level 
corporate positions. That being said, progress towards gender equality has been made over the last century with women 
earning the right to vote and two waves of feminism, but the country’s (and world’s) women are far from actually being equal 
to their male counterparts.