Men often display a greater sense of entitlement than women across multiple fields, which creates significant obstacles to gender equality.
Gender dynamics refers to the social roles that individuals are expected to fulfill within society (Eagly & Wood, 2016). These roles become an integral part of an individual’s identity.
Sense of Deservingness
Gender can have a huge impact on how much people believe they deserve something; for example, women may find it more difficult than men to feel they merit jobs or promotions due to them often being seen as men-centric privileges.
To foster a deeper sense of worthiness within yourself, it’s crucial that you surround yourself with supportive people who respect and encourage you. Over time, this will enable you to realize that what you desire in life is actually deserving.
As part of your effort to combat feelings of unworthiness or disillusionment, it is also necessary for you to act in such a way as to demonstrate that the things you desire are deserving.
Forming an understanding of yourself as valuable can be challenging, yet achievable. Although this journey will take time and dedication to succeed, you can reach this goal if you put forth effort into building it.
As a good place to begin, take note of those whose lives you envy. Although you may never fully grasp their motivations for receiving them, their actions provide clues into how they treat others.
Assimilate each individual’s inherent worth. No one is born with more value than anyone else and you should not expect them to give back what you give in return.
Gender dynamics and deservingness play an essential part in assessing social policies’ adequacy; this is especially pertinent when reviewing welfare programs that include both rights and obligations for its beneficiaries.
First and foremost, deservingness should be determined by your level of need (i.e. being unemployed with children). Such individuals tend to be seen as more deserving.
One criterion to consider in neediness determination is your level of control over it; many consider this a choice factor. For instance, someone in debt due to reckless spending would likely be judged less deserving than an unemployed individual with enough savings for survival.
Recognition
Recognition is the act of identifying similarities between two stimuli. While this process may occur automatically for familiar stimuli, recognition often requires slow deliberation as well. There have been various theories developed to describe recognition; dual process models in particular being popular.
Human beings rely heavily on recognition of others for creating healthy self-relations. Individuals who feel mistreated – whether due to a lack of recognition or through exploiting others for personal gain – can struggle with developing and maintaining a positive self-image.
Personal well-being and social life go hand in hand, so recognizing and celebrating individual contributions to society (Honneth 2003a, 185) should not only be valued but celebrated (Honneth 2003a, 185).
Charles Taylor, one of the pioneers in multicultural politics, Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth have all developed theories on recognition that have proven influential.
Identity Politics theories center around the belief that all individuals must be treated equally and recognized as worthy of respect in society; an equitable distribution of power being required for this to take place. Identity politics are sometimes considered a new form of politics.
They are, however, subject to criticism. Critics contend that such theories are too sectarian to address more fundamental questions of justice; furthermore they rely on an overarching theory of the good life intended to illuminate individual flourishing (or, conversely, social pathologies) rather than simply answering justice-related inquiries.
Critics argue that formal theories should not prescribe how people should live their lives but instead focus on creating social conditions in which citizens can realize their full potential. As an alternative to minimalism or negative morality theory that tends to prioritize denial of liberty as its focus, critical theory of recognition has emerged as a viable approach.
Apprehension
Gender dynamics refers to how men and women treat one another during interpersonal interactions. Gender roles and behaviors are socially constructed based on biological differences that may change over time.
Gender dynamic behaviors may occur unknowingly; an individual might believe they’re reacting to someone else but in actuality are responding to themselves or someone else in terms of gender dynamics. Knowing what to do if such incidents arise in your workplace is extremely helpful.
Apprehension can be described as the emotional reaction to an impending event or situation that you fear could bring harm, with feelings such as fear, anger, or anxiety associated with something imminently happening.
Apprehension may arise due to one’s past; for example, criminals might feel fearful that law enforcement officers will catch them and reveal that they aren’t who they say they are or they believe they are being targeted.
Research suggests that anxiety may be affected by one’s sense of entitlement – the belief that one has the right to receive certain goods such as money or power.
Recognizing that people’s sense of entitlement can influence their actions, particularly during negotiations. Furthermore, males and females possess different senses of entitlement.
Due to men and women having different social roles, and women tend to place greater value on power than money, both parties feel entitled to. This has an enormous effect on both parties’ sense of entitlement.
Women tend to experience greater levels of anxiety regarding evaluations. They worry that their ideas will be judged negatively, leading them to stay back and not share them with the group.
As a result, this can create several issues within the workplace, including lower employee morale and decreased productivity. To combat these challenges, leaders must become familiar with gender dynamics within their organization’s workforce, provide education on what the typical gender expectations are and make clear that their organization won’t tolerate disparate treatment of men and women in the workplace.
Negotiation
Negotiation is a dynamic process in which two parties work to come to mutually agreeable outcomes, often without clearly understanding each other’s bargaining range and acceptable standards for agreement (Blau & Kahn 2017). Gender triggers, or situational cues which provoke differences in male-female preferences, expectations and behaviors, can influence negotiation behavior and outcomes significantly.
Researchers have repeatedly discovered that negotiation is an emotional, social, and individualistic process in which individuals come together to establish rules (Blau & Kahn 2017, Kulik & Olekalns 2012). Gender triggers can play an integral part in how negotiators engage during negotiations even when conducted in neutral settings.
Women generally appear less self-doubting during negotiations and show greater interest in interpersonal relationships than men do. Furthermore, they’re more likely to share personal details during bargaining than their male counterparts; this indicates a sense of intimacy at the bargaining table.
Negotiations often occurs under uncertain and ambiguous conditions with little knowledge about its limits and appropriate standards for allocating value (Kray & Gelfand 2009; Kray et al. 2001).
Negotiators tend to be more cognizant of their negotiated outcomes than non-negotiators are; however, gendered stereotypes can limit this awareness. Many legal practitioners, business people and law students let these stereotypes dictate their interactions when negotiating with an opposing gender.
Studies indicate that stereotypical beliefs may play a key role in gender inequality during negotiations. This phenomenon becomes particularly apparent when men and women with differing levels of negotiation experience engage.
However, the extent to which stereotypes influence negotiators’ behavioral preferences varies dramatically. For example, male attorneys often mistakenly believe that women will act less competitively than their male colleagues during negotiations – this mistake gives women significant bargaining advantage during bargaining sessions.
Women seeking positive (i.e., desired) outcomes during negotiations should prioritize sexawareness over assimilation when approaching tasks that fit with their gender; such as monetary purchases or duties traditionally seen as belonging to women (Stuhlmacher & Walters 1999).
