Defining Workplace Issues for Women

Although there are many women out there who are doing well in their career, there are also many who are still struggling to break the bonds of role stereotyping. Women all over the globe have been struggling to get out of the box only to find out that they still are stereotyped to some roles even in the workplace. More often than not, women workers are given task that are considered as "feminine" such as those that involves filing, paper works and the like. Seldom can you find women who are excelling in the areas that require highly analytical skills. Not that women are not highly analytical; on the contrary, studies have shown that women are just as competent as men when it comes to solving complex problems.

According to studies, women are simply not given enough opportunities in the workplace to demonstrate their skills. Although there are a lot of highly competent women in the workplace, most managerial and executive positions would still go to the men. Moreover, when a woman does excel in a certain field, which used to be dominated by men, she needs to prove herself as doubly reliable than her male counterparts. She has to work twice as hard as the men around her simply because she is a woman.

Although reforms are underway to correct the imbalance in terms of career opportunities between women and men, we still have a long way to go. According to the Department of Labor, women in the United States are usually concentrated on some roles supporting roles in the workplace. In a survey conducted by the Department of labor in 2004, there were about 2,570,000 who were working as secretaries while there are 842,000 women who were working as accountants and auditors. The ten leading positions held by women in the workplace today are secretaries and administrative assistants, Elementary and Middle school teachers, registered nurses, nursing, psychiatric and home health aids, cashiers, managers of office and administrative support, managers of retail sales workers, customer service representatives, bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks, and accountants and auditors. Judging by the way things are going today, it will still take several years before women would be truly accepted as equal to men in the workplace.