Men and Women Perception to the World (Essay Sample)

Andrew Aldrich
Paper 2
03/15/2015
Just a Tech, Just a Woman
Men and women perceive the world differently. They communicate in distinct manners, have different perceptions of the same experience and view the world through dissimilar eyes. Though these barriers do not have to serve as barriers to effective communication, they can be an asset for successful workplace communication. In the workplace communication is the root of many genders related workplace differences. Because of these differences, the communication styles of the opposite sex can sometimes be misinterpreted, which build disputes and misunderstandings within the work environment. Each gender is a culture unto itself, one that result with certain norms and standards that can be misunderstood by those of the opposite sex. Gender barriers enhance common knowledge and tools for best practices in the workplace. Nevertheless, men are seen to dominate communication in the workplace.
In the medical field, veterinarian practices are the last to progress in that regard and so many female veterinarians face a lot of sexism during their careers. I, personally, have had years of experience working as a vet technician in a small business and during that time I have seen display after display of the differing attitudes that customers and veterinarians have towards women in the field. I have worked at the same practice for five years, and while I was confused at first due to my inexperience in the field, I learned that communicative dynamic at this practice was strictly to dominate women's voices. The practice itself is a privately-owned, low cost vaccination service that uses a mobile hospital unit and drives to different locations up and down the state. To protect the identity of the said business and those who work there, in this paper the practice will be referred to as ‘Vets4Less’ and the leading veterinarian shall be known under the name of Dr. Godfrey: a highly conservative man from Salt Lake City, Utah.
Men’s brain depends on visual or auditory regions to feed written or verbal stimulus in the brain’s language center. This is natural variation between male and female in processing information, coupled with stereotypes and cultural perceptions, which explains the reasons for workplace communication barriers between male and female (Tremmel,15). For example, in the beginning of 2010, Dr. Godfrey became an acquaintance and Vets4Less, making a minimal impact in the low cost vaccination industry. Having locations only in Seabring, FL, I spoke to him about the possibility of expansion and so we worked out a deal. I spent my college savings and purchased the rights to the company from him in order to prove my commitment and take over the marketing aspect, while he would continue to work as the head veterinarian and handle the legalities of our services. Other financial aspects of this deal are private and irrelevant to this topic, but one of the fine prints in this arrangement was that he was more qualified to determine a well-equipped staff than I was and so a team was quickly solidified. Through this, it is clear that men tend to issue directives and dominate women opinions. According to Rawluszko, M (2009) assertiveness is one of the distinction between men and women, whereby women tend to issue requests while men tend to issue instructions. For this reason, women come off as weak and men usually give out more strength.
Through the entire vet technician practice, the practice depended on the location, size and the customer based expectations, most days consisted of a 3-4 person team that was handpicked by Dr. Godfrey. All the directives were issued by Dr. Godfrey and nobody would go against his instructions. Every individual had his or her obligation whereby when one was needed to tech, another was required to handle the paperwork for the day. At this time the staff team comprising of 3-4 persons excluding Dr. Godfrey or myself were all female and will be referred to as: Dr. Scholtz, Rachel, and Bernice.
Rachel was a very experienced vet-technician who was also bilingual, but she unfortunately had a crippling accident and could rarely find someone who could hire her because there were days where she wouldn’t be able to give notice before calling in sick. Rachel had also faced a lot of oppression in her life by identifying as a masculine lesbian in an ethnic minority.
Bernice had not been in the industry for decades, but she had extensive skill, experience and still had her original degree in vet technician. She had previously identified as having a liberal mindset, but during her personal and romantic relationship with Dr. Godfrey, she had changed her stance to a much more conservative point of view.
Lastly, Dr. Sholtz was our on-call veterinarian who was responsible for certain locations in Dr. Godfrey’s absence. Dr. Sholtz had also faced a lot of oppression during her life by identifying as a masculine lesbian in bi-racial relationship.
Effective communication in business is extremely imperative when it comes to the success of that business. Every aspect of an enterprise needs communication. It may have started out with one style such as the scientific management style to the human approach style. For example, during the initial years of the vet technician practice, I had less experience in this field and I had to rely on Dr. Godfrey’s leadership far more than I should have, which gave him a very high sense of superiority. His treatments of animals and of customers were exemplary, but his interpersonal communication and professional management skills were severely lacking. As the business started to grow, stress within the teams grew much higher as well and so did the amount of time spent together. Within two years, our territory expanded to cover from Central Florida, all the way to Key West. Due to the increased, a weekend vaccination unit that required about 10 hours a day developed into a daily unit and some of which would require 14.5 hour days spent together. Nevertheless, what was the most common misconception about this service is that the veterinarian has the same if not higher amount of responsibility than they would if they were practicing in a traditional animal hospital because of the lack of other veterinarians and resources.
While it is true that a veterinarian has to stay aware while vaccinating animals in case there is a reaction, responsibilities become more equalized when practice has serviced as limited as standardized vaccinations and minor surgeries such as dental cleaning, spays, neuters and so on. Moreover, Vet techs have the ability to perform those same minor surgeries, though usually they just assist, as well as holding all the responsibility for preparing the surgery. The same methodology is applied while vaccinating. To further explain, the vet techs always have the responsibility of drawing the vaccine, handling the paperwork, and sometimes administering the vaccine, while the veterinarian is there to make sure it goes smoothly and legally. This information is being furnished to further build the picture of the responsibilities these female staff members held, while Dr. Godfrey sometimes held only some of the same responsibilities. But lacked interpersonal communication skills and tools to promote the functionality of the practice. As a result, most of the staffs and customers left confused and irritated by him.
Most women in the management encounter some challenges negotiating disagreeing role expectations at work. Hindrance to organizational advancement, especially male stereotyping and preconceptions about women’s roles and capabilities underscores the gendered nature of organizational life (Diane, 161). For example, as the veterinarian business expanded, tension arose because male stereotyping. Dr. Godfrey’s considerable disrespect towards his staff members grew and he refused to acknowledge it as a team environment. Rather, he continued to assert himself as the head veterinarian, which started to cause a large rift and the eventual termination of Dr. Scholtz. While Rachel and Bernice stayed silent in regards to their oppression, Dr. Scholtz had the same medical knowledge and training as Dr. Godfrey and so was entitled to feeling a slightly heightened position in the hierarchal order, (above Rachel or Bernice.) Furthermore, during a conversation with a customer, she discussed that and when news of this came back to Dr. Godfrey, his outrage was largely exaggerated and the two had an extremely vocal and unprofessional argument during working hours. When I discussed the situation with Dr. Godfrey, he expressed that he terminated her employment, not for her actions, but because of the sheer blatancy of her words.
Fortunately, Dr. Sholtz had clearly overstepped her bounds, but the reaction from Dr. Godfrey was fueled by her ‘masculine’ assertiveness and could have been avoided if she took on a more playful discourse following the ‘good daughter’ role. This analysis underscores that the precariousness of working in a masculine culture (Marshall, 1993; Murphy & Zorn, 1996) compels women humor initiators to check to make sure they have not crossed an imaginary or illusory, but important, relational line. In this framework, women seem to be more on their defense and precarious in their endeavors to negotiate great framework business culture. It is clear that management practices are actually guided by masculine norms, including leadership, decision making, self promotion, and expression. This means that men’s are anticipated and enacted in management character while women are deemed to violate social gender norms when given authority. Menâ...