Mobility of Women in Middle Management

The researcher's Project Demonstrating Excellence will be in the form of a dissertation. It is a case descriptive study of the progress of women into middle management positions.

History Prevalence and Characteristics

Many people assume that the history of women in the work force is a recent one. The fact is the vast majority of women have always worked. What has changed throughout history has been the location and the conditions of their labor. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, both men and women performed most jobs, with little distinction between men's and women's work (Fernandez, p. 67). No labor was too strenuous to exclude women and even children formed par

rically been borne by women and have made them "special." The first theory is called the humanist theory. This theory proposes that women, by virtue of their common humanity with men are entitled to all the same rights and privileges. They share with men a set of human rights which transcend biological, gender differences (Wollstonecraft 1967; Fuller, 1971). The second theory is more "woman-centered." It is the belief that women are very different than men. In the nineteenth century they were viewed as inherently more moral or spiritual, and in today's world, according to this theory they are looking after community welfare (Ryan, 1983; Smith-Rosenberg 1971). The same kind of argument that women had special insights and special needs, whose representation in the political scene would uplift public debate is the tradi-tional reason for giving women rights. Differences Between Attitudes and Actual Behavior Currently, research exploring attitudes toward women in the work place suggests that both women and men are expressing increasingly more equalitarian views concerning women and employ-ment. Occupational segregation however, continues with little change, and even when women do penetrate traditionally male professions, they a