Gender Discrimination Against Women During The Workplace

It seems that women workers have reached a plateau in society. In order for women to be respected (as men are) in the workplace there needs to be a redistribution of domestic and family work. It’s acceptable now for women to work; but this acceptance into the workforce has not drastically changed what they, women, are expected to perform at home. There is no way for women to move forward to equality in pay if they are not recognized as contributers to their job (i.e. women are still expected to perform outside of work in the family setting as well in a way that men are only expected to perform at work and not at home).

Despite Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law which bans gender and race discrimination in employment, advancement, and termination, ethnic discrimination and prejudice in the workplace is still a very pertinent issue. In fact, racial discrimination is the most common kind of discrimination workers report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency in charge of enforcing Title VII. Prejudice in the workplace is shown in a variety of forms, is either obvious or subtle, and at times may occur without employers even realizing it. As the General Manager of a popular restaurant in Texas, I witnessed such racial discrimination and prejudice firsthand and saw how detrimental it is to the success of

For the first time in history women had surpassed men in the paid labor force. Yet, instead of provoking an equality among the sexes, the figures play no statistical significance, as women still try to bridge the gap between their inequality among their male counterparts. One apparent setback for women in the workplace is their unequal payment, “Women workers are still paid less than men, currently about-three quarters of mens income if they work full time and year round”(Institute for Womens’s Policy Research, 2010). Although there women are beginning to integrate into vastly male populated jobs throughout the labor force “… women in America today earn 78 cents to a man’s dollar, according to the U.S Census Bureau, and have struggled for decades to achieve pay for equal work” (Riley 2). Not only has this pay gap significantly effected the nature of women throughout the county, it has also violated the bill that Congress passed called the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Equal Pay Act was signed in order to establish a more sound and equal treatment among the sexes. It noted that an employer was unable to discriminate employees on grounds of gender, yet as figures denote today, this bill seems to not possess enough jurisdiction over the wage gap. The wage gap has contributed to various problems within the United States, especially among single mothers who do not have a supporting male figure within their household.

Women have been entering the workforce since the 1970’s at an increasing rate. Statistics show that 39% of the workforce during the 1970’s were women. In 2010 that percentage increased to 47% (Gender, Web). As more women enter the workforce, even with the possibility of increased fraternization and sexual harassment, there should be equality in pay and positions.

“I am delighted today to approve the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages.” President John F. Kennedy had said this when he signed the Fair Pay Act on June 10, 1963. This is what women were working for before there was equality like there is today. However, there are many people today that believe that there is still discrimination in the wage gap were women will only make 80 cents to every man's dollar.

“They” say, “We’ve come a long way baby!” “They” are both correct and incorrect at the same time. While it is true that women have come a long way from June Cleaver and the typical 50’s housewife to the modern two parent working household, statistically, it would take women approximately one extra day of work per week to earn the same as their male counterpart. So, while women have begun to work in higher paying professional and managerial jobs that before were typically held by men; they are paid less. This is gender discrimination and is commonly known as the Gender Wage Gap. There are many arguments as to why there is a wage gap between men and women; there are those who argue that women are taking lower-paying jobs, so they can attend to the needs of their families. Others argue that women are purposely choosing fields that pay less. One thing is clear, though: a gender wage gap exists, and if steps are not taken to remedy this situation, women may never see equal pay for equal work.

In general, the wage gap has narrowed at a slow, and uneven, pace over last three decades. Recent data shows that women in the American workforce earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns (Trevino). The existence of this “gender wage gap” has been an issue since women entered the workforce. The ongoing issue of the past has now become an apparent problem in our modern-day, progressive society. Women nowadays have opportunities that were not obtainable in past decades but must overcome, or ignore, the barrier of being punished in the long run for simply being a woman. While there have been major progresses in breaking through the norms and social constructs, women face other challenges, including discrimination and sexism (Gender). Despite the ongoing struggle to reach wage equality between the sexes through various legislative initiatives and the ever increasing involvement of women in the American workforce, the wage gap has only closed by a marginal 15 percent over the last four decades (Dale and Levine).

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for systematic gender inequality in the workplace. Cultural benefits, the actions of male employees, the actions of the female employees, and the actions of the employer can contribute to intentional or unintentional gender discrimination (Ngo, Foley, Wong, & Loi, 2003). It has also been mentioned that women make less money because their work environment is generally safer than the stereotypical male work environment; childcare, cashiers, and secretary positions as opposed to firefighters, truck drivers and construction workers (Parcheta, Kaifi, & Khanfar, 2013). Perhaps the most dominant reasoning for women receiving less pay is the carrying over of biological roles into the workplace. Female employees often take time off to have a family, take care of a family, and are the primary caregiver of said family.

A second key issue is the hiring process. Many companies prefer to hire men over women for a positionregardless of their education or experience. Some reasons this may be is because most females have to balance work and family duties which may be a huge barrier in helping advancement in an organization, so an employer may prefer to hire a man who will not come with the baggage of children or the issue of balancing work and family duties. During an interview some women are not hired because they cannot be taken seriously because some may wear too much make-up or their pants suit or skirt may be too tight. Women that are pregnant are also sometimes not considered for a position because the manager may worry about the women wanting time off work on maternity leave. This may not be a direct financial concern about paying women while on maternity leave. It's more about the cost of replacing and training someone to cover their role while they are off.

Women fought very hard for their rights in the workplace. Some of them, including Susan B Anthony, went above and beyond the norm. Yet, today our rights are still not the same as a man’s. At one point women weren’t allowed to work at all, and today they are allowed to have jobs while still being home makers. Although improvements have been made, there are still several dilemmas that need to be addressed. A women earns less than a man when doing the same work, and that is extremely unfair. Another issue in the workplace is that men underestimate women due to lack of strength and discrimination. There are also the issues of pregnancy and sexual

The generation now has made it easier to equalize men and women but there is still a substantial amount of places where gender inequality is still happening in the workplace and where females still face discrimination. Women are often discriminated in the workplace and are usually not promoted as quickly as men are and they also receive less pay. History shows that women have not always been defined as property and thought of as second class citizens. But in the 21st century many have seen a drastic change in the so called “traditional” family ways where women are suppose to stay home and take care of the household chores, food, and children and men are suppose to work to support their family and provide financial stability. Many assume that in the workplace women are more vulnerable and less competent than men because women 's instincts are to put their family before work or anything else. Whereas men are the ones who will usually stay the late hours to work. People on both sides of the political spectrum and everywhere in between seem to be fearful of what is to come and more fearful of others than they are often willing to admit.

Nowadays there are a lot of ethical issues in a workplace around the world. A major ethical issue in a workplace is gender discrimination against female workers. A lot of companies are directly or indirectly treating female workers like they are lower class citizens compare to the male workers. In the case of Walmart which is the largest well known retailer with an annual revenue of four hundred and forty-seven billion . They also shows a lot discrimination against women workers who work in their stores. They use different ways which are unethical to discrimination the female workers who are loyally working for them.

There are many issues facing women today in the workplace. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2013 report, Women in the Labor Force, 76% of the labor force were mothers with children between the ages of 6 and 17. The median weekly wage for women in 2012 was about 81% of the median weekly wage for men, with a larger discrepancy for minority women. In 2011, working women were slightly more likely to be under the poverty line than working men, again, a discrepancy which increased for women who are also part of other minority groups. Further, about 17% of women with a disability were in the labor force. Childcare, the pay gap, a living wage, and

“The wage gap has narrowed by more than one-third since 1960”(Hegewisch, 2010) and “the share of companies with female CEOs increased more than six-fold” (Warner, 2014) since 1997. As well as the truth that men and women’s earnings differ for many other reasons besides the presence of sexism. “Discrimination in labor market, in education/retiring programs, unequal societal norms at home and the constrained decisions men and women make about work and home issues” (Hegewisch, 2010) are also factors that can contribute to the unequal treatment of man and women in the workplace. Yet even with most of these variables removed women are still being paid less than men, sexually harassed in the workplace and hold very little managerial positions.

Gender discrimination against women is out of control across the world and seeps into many aspects of women 's lives. This discrimination harms women in two ways. First, women directly experience stressful events. The experience of sexism is so common that some research suggests women can experience one to two instances of everyday sexism. But women aren 't only harmed by sexism through the physical stress caused by others. They are harmed to the extent that they internalize and adopt these sexist attitudes that can manifest as poor self-concept. This negative self-concept often obvious on a subconscious level, as women and men will demonstrate automatic negative biases against women (Ferguson, 2013).