Q21) Why is gender a key issue in the study of business organization?

Before we go into discussing how gender is a key issue in studies of business

organization, let us first understand what does the word “Gender” actually refers to.

“Gender” refers to the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated

with one sex. For e.g. a typical individual who has a sex identified as MALE would
stereo-typically be assumed to have masculinity characteristics. Gender describes the
characteristics that a society or culture depicts as masculine or feminine. Sex is a more of
a scientific term that explains physical traits and biological facts an individual holds. In
general, Gender holds social implications to the environments where an individual is put
in. In social terms “gender role' refers to the characteristics and behaviours that different
cultures attribute to the sexes. What it means to be a 'real man' in any culture requires
male sex to have masculine characteristics and behaviours; this is likewise for the female
sex.
'Man' = male sex + masculine social role
(a 'real man', 'masculine' or 'manly')

'Woman' = female sex + feminine social role

(a 'real woman', 'feminine' or 'womanly')

The social implications is itself a key issue to the study of business organization as it is a
place where different individuals work together to shape the organization culture, labour
processes and many other business function present in the organization.

When we talk about business organization, we refer to a large group of individuals

working together to operate different organization aspects. Where one business functions
may require more masculine personality to perform a certain function of the organization,
another may require more feminine approach.

We see there are different requirements needed to operate in an organization and

therefore we should always bear in mind that no one particular gender is inferior to the
other in terms of employment. There is only job-sex typing discrimination prevalent even
in today modern context. This is inevitable because of the very nature of the job
requirements. Take for e.g. in a manufacturing organization, it is known that more
masculine characteristics people are needed to be employed to withstand the taxing
nature of the job however let’s not forget that there are also semi-skilled manufacturing
jobs that requires feminine characters to withstand the monotony nature of the job as
well.

When we study about gender, we are able to differentiate the difference advantages each
gender has and to put them to good use into specific business or job functions in an
organizations. This is one of the reasons why gender is a key issue in the study of
business organization, because it helps identify individual potential in value-adding to the
organization. To sum it up, in my personal opinion, all organization regardless of the
business nature should always have a balance of both genders so as to value add to the
right business functions where necessary and needed.