Social Implications Towards Equality
             To best comprehend human behavior in organizations, we must first understand the behaviors of society. With all our community's efforts towards creating better equality for all, we must wonder why there are still few women in high-level positions within organizations. Unfortunately, women are disproportionately represented in upper-managerial and governmental functions. There are a number of theoretical perspectives concerning this phenomenon. Two perspectives, functionalist and conflict theories, exhibit the different sociological views prevalent in today's society.
             Within the past thirty years, women throughout the United States have made great strides in the labor force. Since 1950, female participation in the labor force has grown from 34% to 60%. However, women constitute less than 8% of all upper-managerial, administrative, and governmental positions (Bartlett and Miller, 1985). This overall trend shows an increase of female managers in the United States. However, they are generally lower-managerial positions. For example, women may manage an individual grocery store such as "Food Lion" but are rarely district managers. Also, women occupy only 1.7% of all upper-managerial positions in Fortune 500 corporations.
             Additionally, over 80% of these corporations have women on their board of directors but usually have only a single female member (Jacobs and McCelland, 1994). In addition to the business world, women share a similar disproportionate percentage in the political arena. Studies indicate that 46% of federal employees a!
             re female but, only 6.4% of them are in executive positions (Gutek, 1993).
             Functionalism, a macro-sociological perspective, explains the large-scale social patterns concerning the lack of women in upper-managerial positions within organizations. "Studies found that attributes associated with the traditional feminine sex role (e.g., emotion...