Author: Shan Zhong
Instructor: Jeni DiSalvo
Course: English 250
Date: Dec. 6th 2010

Gender Bias in Career

In ancient time, people always think that men are more powerful than women either in physical or mental, and women are reduced to men’s accessories. In most of the culture, men can used to have more than one woman as wife. They think they deserve it due to their power. Until now, people still have a psychological inertia, and they look down on women.

The physical differences between male and female is the mainly cause for the gender bias in career. Women have menstruation once a month. At that period, women get upset. “We know that during the menstruation cycle women have increased levels of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. The hormone estrogen is what affects mood. Estrogen is a "feel-good" hormone because of the way it affects the brain. This hormone gives increased levels of neurotransmitters to the brain. These chemicals include endorphins, enkephalins and serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that has a direct influence on emotions and appetite. The levels of these chemical spikes in preparation for pregnancy but decline when implantation does not occur. The loss of these chemicals causes mood changes, often referred to as Pre-Menstrual Syndrome, or PMS. Moods during the menstrual cycle can swing from elation to depression, and the ranges for each woman can be mild to severe. A condition known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, can happen when emotional and behavioral symptoms become intense. (How Does Menstruation Affect Mood?)” Some of these symptoms are rage, violence, sudden bursts of anger, severe depression and panic attacks. Any of these symptoms will affect their working. This is the most common reason for some company prefers hire a male instead of female. Another reason, as we all know, is somehow women will pregnant, during that time women need to have a maternity leave, which will interfere with business. The progress will be slow down. What else, as the company hires one more woman, they take one more potential risk; because when women take a night shift or are away from official business, they are easily got attacked. Although that probability is not high, but nobody wants to take more potential risk if they could avoid.

All of these problems cause by women’s physical figure will reduce the efficiency of the company. The enterprise pursuit the biggest profit after all, they will choose to avoid those problems as far as possible. Furthermore, there is no such a law stipulate a constant ratio between men and women in the company. Of course the enterprise will reduce the female employee as much as possible.