Most of the time in our life we spend on the workplace and inequality in this sphere may negatively impact our individual resources, limit our personal freedom, make us dependent on other members of the household and lower the quality of our life. Women have fought for their rights for many centuries and they seem to have massively succeeded in this, though even in the 21st century men are more often being promoted and have better chances for the high salary, while at the same time a potential pregnancy might become an obstacle for hiring. For example, applications of young women are being rejected because of the fear of potential pregnancy and some women are being told to sign a declaration that they won’t get pregnant during certain period of time.
Until the mid 20th century men were mostly the main source of income in the families but then, women entered the labor market and became its full members. But the stereotype that men need to have higher salaries to make more money than his wife still sits in the minds of employers. Moreover, in most cases men were the leaders and now if we see a woman-leader, it is thought that she cannot earn as much as the man, because she does not have that much experience as he does. Simultaneously with the change of economic and social trends, various acts and laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that must prevent discrimination in employment have been adopted. Numbers of women entering the labor market increase and keep increasing until now (Raymond F. Gregory). Women now have access to professional levels that some time ago were available only for men. Since then, workplace opportunities for women have significantly expanded thanks to anti-discrimination laws. Yet women still don’t have full equality in the workplace. Despite the fact that they can now contribute into professional and academic spheres, and occupy professions once reserved for men, there is still a presence of the “glass ceiling” which holds back the progress of female workforce (Raymond F. Gregory). Companies bragging about half of their employees are women, are actually the ones that profit from this, because of the fact that women get lower salaries, than men.
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The term “glass ceiling” was introduced by American sociologists in the beginning of 1980s to describe an invisible barrier which limits women’s carrier advancement. This is a specific form of discrimination and it is often being denied to exist, but in the reality, women and minorities representatives are the ones who are struggling to overcome this barrier. Times are changing obviously and people are becoming more tolerant, more women are being hired on the high-ranking positions, but there are still certain prejudices against women leaders in many professional spheres.
I think that the statement that women have worse skills and abilities as well as lower motivation is false. Women’s leadership skills are softer in interpersonal relations as well as in the first contact with employees. Very often men quit leadership positions because of the lack of compassion, attention and care towards their subordinates, while women are being praised for their interaction with the staff. Women leaders are more communicative and clear regarding their positions and views.
Gender stereotypes are flourishing in the modern society and are working to produce workplace discrimination. Stereotypes are known to be resilient and perhaps, this is partly because we are not always aware of their presence in our thinking. They can influence our views and we don’t even realize it. There is a cultural stereotype that women are a kinder sex, which is in general better than that of men and yet they are most often victims of discrimination, prejudice and violence. Theorists claim that biased workplace judgements are the result not of the prejudice of stereotypes, but rather of the wrong image of the demanded workplace qualities. So, people associate certain roles with masculinity rather than with stereotypical feminine characteristics like sensitivity and gentleness (Heilman & Eagly ). In Russia, for example, there is even a discriminatory list of professions prohibited for women: women cannot work as a train driver or occupy the whole list of positions in the army; also, previously women could not work as civil aviation pilots. There were also studies conducted using performance evaluation that compared men and women working in a large financial organization and the results showed that women occupying ‘male oriented positions’ received lower performance feedback, than women occupying ‘female oriented positions’ (Heilman & Eagly).
Gender workplace discrimination is, actually, more common, than I could have thought and having experienced it by myself (rather than hearing a story that a friend who has a friend heard it from their colleague) makes it easier to write about it. I bet I am not the only one who has ever heard some inappropriate comments regarding their clothing, makeup, hairstyle, odd remarks from the boss, which might involve a physical contact, like hugging and putting their hand on the shoulder or just pretending to forget about what personal space is or someone considering themselves having the right to evaluate me, telling that I don’t have a predisposition to be on a certain position. In practice, workplace discrimination manifests itself in a variety of ways and aspects from hiring and firing to salaries. Sometimes women try to accumulate to the environment to feel “safe”. I can dress in the way that another person feels normal, but that won’t make me happy. Women have to hide their identities. That’s a compromise. And I don’t think this is necessary to mention that above mentioned problems are mostly noticed by women, rather than by men and despite of growing consciousness of the society regarding the existence of gender discrimination issues, a lot of men still seem to not notice all of its symptoms.
Even though various states adopt laws prohibiting gender discrimination and making it illegal, corporations are still using management practices that are more likely to favor the promotion of men, rather than women. Here are some examples of companies being sued for discrimination against women. There were 238 complaints filed with the HR department of Microsoft for 6 years from 2010 and 2016. Among 238 complaints, 108 were stating sexual harassment and around 199 gender discrimination. Katherine Moussouris who worked for the company from 2007 until 2014, claimed that she did not get promoted, while her less qualified male colleagues were promoted.
A former female executive of Computer Science Corporation was fired, because she complained about the gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the company. She complained that some male executives were quite open about their personal beliefs on the women’s place in the society, stating that women should stay at home and take care of the kids, and made sexist remarks. In March 2018 several Nike female employees sued the company for gender discrimination, hostile working conditions and higher demands. The allegations against the company contained complaints about sexual assault, harassment, lower salaries and conditions of employment.
The #MeToo movemement that became famous in 2017 has opened how endemic sexual harassment is in our society. Gender discrimination happens to men too. It is not common in our society to talk about this, because of again certain stereotypes that men are the strong sex and to open up about discrimination probably means to show the weakness. After a conversation with a male colleague, he complained about few cases of sexual harassment from his female colleagues. This involved innocent touches and regular jokes having a sexual character. There are also few loud cases of discrimination of men in big industries. In 2011 Ventura Corporation Ltd., a company based in Puerto Rico, seller of jewelry and beauty products, has been sued by EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) for violating the federal law when they “refused to hire men for sales positions”. According to the details of the lawsuit, company’s management did not want to hire men as sales reps, because these positions were dedicated to women only. In response to the charge, Ventura Corporation Ltd., gave a role of a sales representative to a male employee who placed the complaint but created such a hostile working environment and unequal working conditions, that as a consequence he was fired for complaining about company’s discriminatory actions.
Another famous case of gender discrimination against men is the lawsuit against the chain of Lawry’s Restaurants Ltd. The EEOC started a lawsuit in 2006 because of the restaurant’s tradition to hire only women as waitresses. Las Vegas restaurant’s a busser raised a complaint that he was refused more profitable serving work in the restaurant. While female waitresses would earn $25,000 to $56,000 per year, busboys earned around 40% less. Lawry’s in Pasadena was also accused for sex discrimination. Consequently, the company had to pay $1 million for discrimination against men.
Many people believe that sex discrimination is not a big problem anymore for women in the workplace and the number of women who receive high level promotions in various professions is increasing.
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