SYSTEMS APPROACH TO PROBLEMS OF WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT
According to Vecchio (1991), female managers often experience a number of gender-based career problems. The most frequently occurring problems are said to be: (1) low or unequal salaries; (2) restriction of upward mobility; (3) lack of mentoring; (4) difficulty meeting rigid work schedules due to the need to fulfill family roles; and (5) sexual harassment.
The most common means of assisting women to meet sex-based difficulties involving their work and careers has been the affirmative action program. Badgett (1995) defines such programs as responses to legal mandates proscribing that ethnic, racial, and gender utilization in a given organization be representative of the general labor market.
For example, if a given group is found to be under-utilized, an organization would, under affirmative action provisions, establish goals and timetables for the selection, promotion, and training of members of the under-utilized groups. Further, the employer would compile evidence that the company has made a "good-faith effort," to achieve the goals laid out in the affirmative action program.
However, recent Supreme Court Decisions have struck down affirmative action programs on the grounds that, as currently developed, they are themselves discriminatory in that they tend to have been designed to select certain individuals solely on the basis of race or gender with very few other considerations such as prior work history, socioeconomic status, credentials and schooling, etc. (see: The Economist, March 30, 1996).
Nor is the United States alone in its judgement of the discriminatory nature of many if not most affirmative action programs. According to Overell (1995), the European Court of Justice has ruled that the use of gender-based quotas is sex discrimination against men and is, therefore, unlawful under the equal treatment directive. Overell states that:
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