Recently, a trend in Brazil has appeared and seems to
increase more and more every year: the place of women in Brazilian society. So,
how easy is it for women to join the business world in modern day Brazil?
Over the last decade, Brazil’s women are entering the
business world at a rate never seen before and have been making quiet significant
advancements. This is due to the extreme willingness of Brazil to make economic
trade with western countries, where women are treated with fairness and
respect by the men.
At the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in 2011, Dilma
Rousseff, first female president of Brazil, has claimed that the 21th Century
was going to be the one of women. “I speak to you with a feminine voice; it’s
the voice of democracy, of equality.” Today her words seem to be ringing true
as the trend of women entering into the Brazilian business world steadily
increases. According the population estimates of the labor force made by the
World Bank, between 2001 and 2015, women comprised 43.8% of the
entire Brazilian workforce. Besides, Women have narrowed the gap in education
and are now graduating at a faster rate than men: nowadays, 60% of all college graduates in
Brazil are women.
Nevertheless, despite this increasing trend, when it comes
to senior level positions within the business world in Brazil, the lack of
women is still predominant. In an Executive Opinion Survey done by the World Economic
Forum, the ability of Brazilian women to climb the corporate ladder was
measured and received a mediocre score of 4.06 out of a possible scale of 7.
In fact, Brazil is a country which still faces deeply gender
differences between males and females culture in term of job position,
communication, health, social awareness and orientation to the environment. Gender
roles and inequality do exist in Brazilian society. While the percentage of women
working outside the home has increased significantly over the last several decades
(between 1950 and 1980), in term of salary, women earned only 28% of what their
male counterparts do in 2015. In fact, the gender differences in the workplace are more
emphasized in Brazil than in the United States.
Discrimination within the workplace still exists in Brazil,
and seems to be the biggest barrier for women to get promoted fairly. According
to Time, in 2011, 40% of Brazilian women felt that they were currently receiving treatment at work that was inferior to their male colleagues simply because they were women. According to Time, in 2011, 40% of Brazilian women felt that they were currently receiving treatment at work that was inferior to their male colleagues simply because they were women.
Brazilian
men have always respected the “old” traditions. Thus, the gender-based
etiquette, such as opening the door for a woman, is not considered as a sign of
sexism but of good upbringing. If you are a woman, lucky for you, because you
will rarely pay the bill at the restaurant; and you can also expect to be
complemented a lot on your look, appearance and dress sense.
However, it seems that men’s behaviors could
still be considered as misogynist sometimes. Indeed, even if a women can afford
to hire a nannie and work full time within an organization, she is often
dissuaded from doing so, as her first placed is perceived to be with children. For
many in Brazil, the word mother is synonymous with the word woman. So, the
gender differences still exist with women doing the cooking, cleaning, doing
the laundry and taking care of the children, while men do more physical jobs
around the house such as home repairs.
Sources:
The World Bank. (2015). Labor
force, female (% of total labor force). Retrieved from: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS
The World Economic Forum. (2014). Executive Opinion Survey . Retrieved from: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR14/GGGR_CompleteReport_2014.pdf
Hewlett, S. A. (2011, October 24). Is a Woman in Brazil Better Off than a Woman in the U.S.? Time.
Retrieved from: http://ideas.time.com/2011/10/24/is-a-woman-in-brazil-better-off-than-a-woman-in-the-u-s/
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