...Women in the workplace: Obstacles they may never overcome For decades, women have been striving for gender equality in the workplace. Since then, there have been several laws that have been passed to project and protect gender equality. One of these laws is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and this law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Although these laws are enacted, many places of employment do not implement these laws. Because of this, gender equality in the workforce has been very delayed, and women are still struggling for equality. The feminist movement has been ongoing for several decades, and although the movement has made tremendous strides towards total gender equality in the workplace, there are some barriers that will never be overcome such as salary differences, gender stereotypes, and anatomical differences. What is Discrimination, and how does it affect women in the workplace? The legislation defines discrimination as treating one person in a less favorable way than another person (“overview…”). In the workplace discrimination is evident in all areas of work. Discrimination can range from unequal pay to sexual harassment. More specifically discrimination can be based off of 9 grounds: gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, and membership of the traveler community (“overview…”). Women in particular often experience this discrimination when trying to obtain a job...
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...{DRAFT} YAZRUL FARHANA WILLIE PRINCES SITTI HAIDA DISCRIMINATION AT WORKPLACE IN MALAYSIA INTRODUCTION Discrimination against minorities at workplace in Malaysia Malaysia is a country with people raging from different racial and ethnic groups. That has what led Malaysia into one of a country that is unique compared to other countries around the world. However, the diversity of races in Malaysia can lead to discrimination. There are many issues about discrimination have been expressed, and most of these issues are very serious and should not be ignored. For our coursework, we select three news articles based on the issue of discrimination that occurred in Malaysia. The three selected articles were about the discrimination against gender, and race which is very common issues in Malaysia due to the multiracial community and the increasing population of women not just in Malaysia, but all over the world. Discrimination against race is a very significant issues occurred in Malaysia. Even more in the context of employment. Based on the Job seekers in Malaysia experience discrimination, by L.Suganya, The Jakarta Post, in the year 2013, there is an issue from a Facebook users claims that she could not get a temporary job as a sales person in a retail outlet because she wears a hijab (long headscarf) or tudung (short headscarf), created a debate with other users. This issue became viral in social media as it involving the racial issues. Based on this story, the...
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...CHAPTER 1 Background of the Study The existence of successful women like Cory Aquino, Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey might cause some individuals to believe that the gender equity gap in business is narrowing quickly. For the past 50 years, laws such women rights have protected women from overt discrimination in the workplace. However, despite these examples of prosperous women and legal mechanisms, gender inequity continues to exist in the workplace (King, 2006; Sarra, 2005; Scott & Nolan, 2007). Of the 75,768 claims filed through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in fiscal year 2006, 30.7% were gender related (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2007). Theorical Framework To comprehend perceptions of inequality and the...
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...Workplace Inequality: Female Discrimination Over the last 60 years, women have seen their rights evolve and improve; however, many believe the separation between man and woman is still too great especially when it comes to discrimination in the workplace. Today, in the workplace, women face inequality in pay, ability to receive promotions, and ability to obtain a leadership or executive position. Women on average earn .77 to every $1 a man earns and face discrimination and are often overlooked for promotions. In addition, even successful women tend to hit a “glass ceiling” when it comes to receiving leadership roles and executive positions. Women in executive positions also, on average, earn less than men in comparable executive positions. While legislation has been put in place to eliminate workplace discrimination, many believe that it has not done enough and the inequality that exists is still too prevalent. Women saw their rights increase in 1964 when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act is the most important piece of anti-discriminatory legislation in history, as it was a major starting point in ending discrimination. This Act ended discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, and gender and required equal access to employment with the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC regulates workplace discrimination and “Made it unlawful for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any...
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...Gender Role Analysis Mindy Brown SOC/333 February 17, 2014 Erica Lloyd Gender Role Analysis Gender roles and stereotypes are often intertwined. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, and are speculations about the roles of each gender. The stereotypical female role is to marry, have children, and take care of the household duties. Stereotype of the male role is to be the family provider financially. Children learn these from adults as stereotypes and gender roles are passed from one generation to another. This paper will analyze gender roles shaped by education, norms of the government, its laws and its policies, and in the workplace. Gender Shaped by Education Gender roles and stereotypes are often reinforced in the classroom setting. Children learn these gender biases from their teachers and the materials used for learning. Some teachers have an unconscious bias toward a gender and make assumptions based on the gender's behavior and actions. Girls are expected to be polite and studious while boys are rational, unruly, and boisterous. Bias may also be social as well. Teachers may socially categorize children by race, class, and religion. For example, they may perceive African American girls to be more outspoken and louder than Caucasian girls. Teacher typically targeted boys of the Caucasian race as they asked and answered most questions (Scantlebury, 2009). Teachers may ask them more complicated questions than the girls. If they are unable to answer the question...
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...although discrimination toward women is illegal now, there still are some difficulties that women face in the workplace. This article, written by Carol P. Harvey and Deborah L. Larsen, is titled “ Women In Leadership Positions: Why Aren’t They There Yet?”. The thesis of this article is that women in leadership positions struggle under the stereotype of gender expectations. To illustrate, the authors develop some differences between males and females, and discuss stereotypes of gender; at the end they explore possible reasons why women have difficulties in the workforce. At the very beginning of this article, the author gives us a chain of statistics and indicates a fact that the percentage of female representative roles, such as CEO, and Board members, are inferior to the percentage of males. Then the authors refer to a stereotype called “horizontally segregate” and ”vertical segregate”, which means either a field the women put themselves in women dominant workplaces or men are more likely promoted than women respectively. These concepts caused an unchangeable wage gap in female and male, seventy-seven cent to one dollar on average. Accordingly, the author looks to gender differences and gives a main idea that “Males tend to use a more transactional leadership style while females tend to use more transformational one.”(p.133) The stereotype of females being sensitive, emotional and unassertive is taken as weakness for women pursuing leadership positions. “Gender,” as the...
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...Discrimination in the Workplace Joshua Najar Alejandro Komiyama Liria Nilzandra *out of country* Texas Tech University Sociology 1301, Section 004 November 7, 2015 The United States likes to believe that everyone living in it is equal to one another. Unfortunately, even in today’s world discrimination is still prevalent in our society. James Henslin, author of the book “Essentials of Sociology” defines discrimination as “an act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group” (G-2). One specific place in our society that still has discrimination is the workplace. A workplace can be described as “a place where people work, such as an office or factory” (Dictionary.com 2015). A company’s workplace can discriminate against a person’s race, ethnicity, gender, age, and religion. These discriminations will affect the person’s salary, work conditions, and determine if they get hired or not. Throughout time the United States has made several laws to protect certain groups against discrimination in the workplace. These laws have tremendously helped those groups however, they are still illegally discriminated against. There are numerous ways to analyze why there is discrimination in the workplace but we will be using the three sociologic perspectives. The three sociologic perspectives that we will use to analyze this topic will be the Structural Functionalism, Conflict Theory, and Symbolic Interaction. The Structural Functionalist Analysis will focus on how discrimination...
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...different with a variety (Diversity, 2012). Diversity in the workplace allows the employees to accept, appreciate, acknowledge, respect, and celebrate the differences of all the people with regard to race, age, sex, sexual preference, and physical and mental ability. Globalization in today’s business world means interacting with people from all over there world with different cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds. The U.S. population is forever changing, which makes the diversity within this company change (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, & Kepner, 2012). a. What are the demographic changes? • Women in the workplace The workforce of today’s levels of employment has obtained the highest level of involvement ever by women. An increase in two incomes within a family and single mothers who work has been seen in today’s market because of the change in family structure. Diversity issues are seen in all races and gender with fewer mean and women in traditional family roles (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, & Kepner, 2012). • Organizational Restructuring Downsizing and outsourcing are resulting in significant changes in organizations. The impact of globalization and technology are changing work practices with trends that lean towards lengthen working hours. Many reorganizations cause less people within an organization doing more work than before (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, & Kepner, 2012). • Legislation Discrimination with the workplace is illegal because of Federal and State equal opportunity legislation...
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...case is its discrimination of women in the workforce, and how they go hand in hand with the utility, rights, and justice arguments of discrimination. The Utilitarian arguments claim that discrimination leads to inefficient use of human resources. This applies to the Wal-Mart case because they were not getting full use out of their employees because they would often times promote a man instead of a woman, even if she had more experience and was better qualified. Studies conducted by a statistical expert that the six women hired, Richard Drogin, revealed that a much larger amount of men were receiving promotions at every level in the Wal-Mart workplace, even though women’s performance ratings were higher than men’s. Wal-Mart was clearly not promoting or giving benefits to these women because of their gender, and they were stuck underneath the “glass ceiling.” The Rights-based arguments claim that discrimination violates basic human rights. In this case, Wal-Mart didn’t view women to be equal to men because men were receiving the promotions when it should have been the women, as stated before. A Kantian argument also states that a person would not want to be discriminated on the basis of their characteristics that do not affect the person’s ability to perform a job, in this case, being a woman. Wal-Mart is not viewing their male and female employees as equals, as they should and stated they would, and therefore it plays right into the rights-based discrimination argument. The...
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...Sexual Discrimination and Sexual Harassment among the sexes Name: Institution: In a post-modern society characterized by rapid economic progression, technological advancement, progressive diversification and complication of social life, issues of sexual harassment and discrimination have come into play, demanding more and more reflection and attention. Research indicates the shows that a large fraction of the current sexual discrimination and harassment occurs in the workplace, and the form of harassment produced has dire consequences as compared to harassment occurring in the public place. The effects exacted on victims extend further than mere mental anguish to include deterioration of employment conditions, where some victims are forced to resign to avoid more harassment ultimately causing economic losses. Notably, the high probability of occurrence of sexual harassment and the severity of harm go beyond the imagination of people and thus it is necessary to understand and solve this issue. This paper investigates sexual harassment and discrimination at the intersections of gender. Specifically, the paper examines the reasons as to why harassment occurs among sexes and why it is underrepresented among each gender. Defining Sexual Harassment and Discrimination When the terms sexual harassment and discrimination are used or rather mentioned in a conversation they raise an alarm. Sexual harassment, according to Fitzgerald, Collinsworth & Harned (2001), is legally...
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...Stereotypes are generalizations, or assumptions, that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image, sometimes incorrect about what people in that group are like. Stereotypes are formed because people really don't know other people. Stereotypes are learned at an early age from our parents and peers. It was assumed that girls would be housewives and stay-at-home moms while boys would become the main bread winner. If they did work, women mainly worked in female-dominate roles, such as secretaries and nurses. Men were mainly employed in fields such as law enforcement, military or engineering. There are many stereotypes in the workplace; gender, race, sexual preference, age, and religion. Some of the stereotypes that represent my own views are gender and age stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are generalizations of the role of each gender. Women and men suffer when they restrict their occupational choices to those that seem suitable for members of their sex (George Powell, pg. 78). Men are more likely to gravitate toward jobs such as engineering, carpentry, and computer science; where women tend to seek jobs such as nursing, teaching, and helping people. Stereotypes can be harmful in the workplace because people put labels on others based on general assumptions. I believe gender stereotypes still exist as to what is considered “women’s work.” In the workplace women face many more challenges than men as a result of stereotyping, such...
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...Discrimination In the Workplace i Sex and Gender Discrimination in the Workplace Discrimination in the Workplace 1 Sex and Gender Discrimination in the Workplace In the early nineteen hundreds women did not have rights and experienced sex discrimination. They were not allowed to be educated, vote, or work outside the home except as maids or nannies. It has been an uphill battle to attain these basic human rights. Today women can go to school, vote and are active in the workforce more than they have ever been. Women are entering all arenas of the workforce to be construction workers, entrepreneurs, and even heading large companies. Even so, they are secondary to their male counterparts just because they are female. Women are facing sex discrimination. Sex and/or gender discrimination involves treating people unfairly strictly because the individual(s) are man or woman. Sexual discrimination should not be confused with sexual harassment, although it is a form of sexual discrimination. Sexual harassment refers to the unwanted sexual advances or innuendoes from an employer. Unfortunately, men and women face sex discrimination (workplacefairness.org). Some examples of sex discrimination include but are not limited to the following: Hiring • You apply for a job and have experience and qualifications, but they do not hire you because the clients are used...
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...Sexism in Workplace and its Effects on Workers Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Sexism in Workplace and its Effects on Workers Sexism refers to a kind of gender discrimination that is based on an individual’s sex. Sexism still has roots in the society and has also been reflected in the corporate sector. Though it is argued the sexism affects both women and men, the prejudice has primarily been shouldered by women. The psychology links this prejudice to gender role and other stereotypes that are constructed in our society. People have a mental perspective that one gender is superior to the other. However, this is not the case. Besides, the remarkable changes and breakthrough that have been achieved in the 21st century, sexism still dominates the workplace and have adverse effects on the workers. Some of these effects include; rape, sexual harassment, and other sexual violence activities. The idea of sexism is developed in thoughts and thus, one cannot separate sexism and psychology. The question is what sexism is as depicted in the working environment and what effects does it have on employees. The current paper looks deep into the issue of sexism in workplace and the influence that it has on employees by using empirical evidence from several researchers. According to psychology, sexism is a hostile or a negative attitude, feeling or opinion developed towards an individual or a group of people (Boysen, 2013). The attitude...
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...INTRODUCTION Gender discrimination is the act of preferring someone based on their sexuality and ignoring the other sex. For instance, a manager at a workplace may clearly prefer only males and therefore, may be overlooking the credentials of the women as a result. The women may not get a job at that organization. It is women who suffer the wrath of gender discrimination most of the times. Women have difficulty reaching higher positions in their work sphere because they are mainly seen as unproductive and also non career oriented persons by their bosses. Sexual violence is also a part of gender discrimination. METHODOLOGY AND TOOLS The hypothesis is that women face gender discrimination at a workplace. This project has been undertaken to measure gender discrimination in a workplace. The method used in collection of data was the survey method. A self made questionnaire was used for collection of data. The questionnaire consists of 10 questions, which cover aspects of gender discrimination at a workplace. There were ten samples ranging from ages 25 to 40; and all samples were women. The answer categories were ‘Always’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Never’. The samples were instructed to tick the option applicable to them and give reasons for each statement. For questions 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 scores allotted were : Always : 3 Sometimes : 2 Never : 1 DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA Scores of all samples: Sample number Score 1 26 2...
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...is a modern phenomenon, it would not be possible without the pioneers of the Women’s Rights Movement; however there are still challenges women face, such as gender discrimination. Gender discrimination is treating individuals differently in their employment specifically because the individual is a woman or a man. Currently the federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protects individuals from discrimination based upon sex or gender. This law makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate against individuals because of their gender in the following actions: hiring, firing, and other terms and conditions of employments, such as promotions, raises, and other job opportunities. Title VII covers all private employers, state and local government, and educational institutions that employ more than 15 individuals. Even though gender discrimination is illegal for companies to discriminate against, it seems to still be an issue in the 21st century. The focus of this research paper is on gender discrimination in the technology industry in Silicon Valley as recent news scandals by companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have made mainstream media, the reasons why women are behind in the technology industry and how companies manage or should manage their operations in order to prevent gender discrimination. It is an unfortunate fact of life that much of Silicon Valley and the technology industry is...
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