EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 3 ! Career management 171
a construction employee. He supports ...’.
Note that these guidelines are by no means a complete standard, as there is still much
disagreement on proper usage.
4.3.2.4. Step 4: job characteristics
The job characteristics or criteria are the central elements of job rating systems, to which
the ‘weight’ of the job is measured. The job classification system must analyse and appreciate
jobs on all aspects that are important in the execution of the job.
There are a number of characteristics which are typically attributed to jobs, usually performed
by women. Those characteristics are seen as inherent to women and thus inherent
to the job. But, characteristics that are not described can also not be appreciated. In
order to obtain a more balanced inventory of job characteristics for all jobs, relevant job
characteristics of jobs dominated by women must be added to the system.
Typical characteristics that are generally associated with traditional ‘female’ jobs are for
instance social skills, physical and emotional care, concentration, handiness, preciseness,
cleanliness, repetitive and short cyclic work, domesticity, patience, etc. Typical characteristics
that are associated with traditional ‘male’ jobs and that are generally overvalued are
for instance leadership, organizational capacities, technical insight and activities, commercial,
financial and material responsibilities, heavy physical work, policy development,
policy advice, etc.
‘Male’ and ‘female’ characteristics must be integrated proportionally in the system. In
general, job descriptions are rated based on the same criteria. Be alert for those basic
criteria. Remember that what is not incorporated in the description cannot be appreciated
either. The tool makes a suggestion to be attentive for this issue by providing an exercise
on listing all relevant characteristics and describing them in an unambiguous and clear
way. All characteristics or criteria must therefore be defined in such a way that they are
applicable to both ‘male’ and ‘female’ jobs. Independence, responsibility, creativity, complexity,
knowledge, are for example characteristics that can be typical for ‘female’ and
‘male’ jobs but are sometimes defined in a way that is more characteristic of ‘male’ jobs.
4.3.2.5. Step 5: verbs
In job descriptions most aspects of the job are accentuated by the use of verbs. In traditional
‘male’ professions the emphasis is more on technical and physical aspects and the
responsibilities of the profession are being stressed by using the following verbs: to monitor
quality, to identify needs, to detect compatibility, to secure continuity, to check, to
implement etc.
In job descriptions of traditional ‘female’ professions however, the human-specific, nurturing
aspects are emphasised and the profession is implicitly presented as a hierarchical
subordinate position. The following verbs contribute to this subordinate position: to play a