Preferred Administrative Assistant Women And Men

For this assignment Read and respond to the following questions with 700 words:

Chapter 1

This activity is to analyze a case study that illustrates the changing attitudes toward women that have taken place in the U.S. Read the case study and then answer the questions that follow.

Bill is a man in his late fifties and the founder of a two-person investment company. He has run this company for twenty years and is well respected in the field. Helen has been Bill’s secretary for the last ten years, and the two get along very well. Helen is also in her early fifties and began working outside of the home after her last child finished high school. Bill often refers to Helen as “dear” and his “catch-all girl,” since the small size of the company necessitates Helen doing a wide variety of tasks. For example, Helen is expected to make Bill’s coffee in the morning and run personal errands for him during office hours. Helen enjoys doing these things and considers them part of close working relationships within a small company. She looks forward to working with Bill for many years.

While Helen was out sick for two weeks, the temporary employment service sent another woman to fill in for her. Margaret is in her mid-twenties and very career-oriented. Shortly after starting, she told Bill that she did not like the title of “ secretary” and preferred “administrative assistant” instead. The first time Bill referred to her as a girl, Margaret promptly corrected him by saying she was certainly old enough to qualify as a woman. She also politely refused to make the morning coffee, explaining that her job title did not call for her to be a waitress. Bill was becoming increasingly annoyed by Margaret’s behavior. After she refused to run a personal errand for him during office hours, the two agreed that the working arrangement was not working for anyone. Bill then called the temporary service and asked for someone who was not as “difficult to work with.” Margaret, in turn, asked for someone who was not “such a chauvinist.”

Comment with your thoughts based on chapter 1 and your own observations /understanding on the following discussion questions:

• How are Helen and Margaret different in their attitudes towards the treatment of women in the workplace? What might account for these differences?

• Why do you think Bill became frustrated with Margaret’s behavior? Why did Margaret become frustrated with Bill’s behavior?

• What do you think of Margaret’s work ethic? How else could she have handled the situation more effectively? What could Bill have done differently?

• What changes in women’s roles, language, and the workplace today can you identify from this case study?

• Can you think of other ways in which attitudes toward and of women have changed in our society? Name some. Where and how are the attitudes different from those in the USA?

• Describe job discrimination you have experienced or seen toward someone else for any reason and describe it and your understanding of it.