We are supposed to be training our students today to introduce parity and diversity in tomorrow’s world. We actually discuss a lot about the difference between salary and gender discrimination and of course the famous glass-ceiling.
Nevertheless, what is really happening in terms of “social reproduction”? Let me tell you a short story: during an exercise in a management class in a business school, 4 groups of around 30 students composed of 67% of female participants and 33% of males participants were ask to respond to the following task: they should use modelling-clay to design the “perfect employee” for an IT job offer. The naïve subjects were told that the objective of the experience was using the m-clay to best reflect the personality of the “perfect employee” which they also needed to define on small piece of paper. The information requested for the description was the following one: name, sex, education, nationality, work experience and some qualities and weaknesses.
The results where surprising: Around 80% of students selected “Male” as gender for their “perfect employee” concerning the position offered (remember, around 67% were female participants). And the nationalities often recalled were: Germany, USA, and GB (what about diversity?).