Essay Example on Women's Fight for Gender Equality in the Workplace

Introduction

For a long time, women have consistently fought for gender equality at the workplace in our contemporary world. Gender discrimination is a phenomenon that has been primarily considered standard in the places of work. Many have found it a women's concern because gender discrimination has mostly affected women (Lyness & Grotto, 2018). It is argued so because, in most cases, it has been confirmed that organizations have more men than women. For example, nearly 44.3% of the employees in the S&P 500 companies were women in 2017, but they were not well represented in the leadership and management (Lyness & Grotto, 2018). They held 36.4% of the first to middle-level management positions, 25.1% of senior-level positions, 19.9% of corporate board seats, and only 5.4% of the CEO positions (Lyness and Grotto, 2018). Stainback & Skaggs (2010) confirm that there exists sufficient proof that minority and female access to supervisory jobs tends to happen in organizations with more considerable minority and female representation in nonsupervisory roles. The concept of gender discrimination refers to a situation where an individual is subjected to a different and unfair kind of treatment when compared to others due to gender (Rangvid, 2019). In as much as gender discrimination at the workplace may have both the strengths and weaknesses, it appears that the weaknesses outweigh the advantages, which is why the issue should be resolved.

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Justification of Gender Discrimination

Psychosocial processes

Verniers & Vala (2018) use the social dominance theory to justify gender discrimination in the workplace. According to this school of thought, justification of activities that sustain social inequalities is brought about by the declaration of public approval or the support legitimizing myths, gender, and the roles associated with gender (Verniers & Vala, 2018). These ideologies have additionally been proved by the system justification theory, which has studied the social stereotypes, meritocracy, political conservatism, among others (Verniers & Vala, 2018). According to the opinion of the system justification, it is documented that immigrants can easily take jobs away from the native societal members and consequently increase the rates of crime in the regions they occupy (Veniers & Vala, 2018). As a result, native members of society tend to respond to disliking immigrants. This, to a greater extent, exposes the association between prejudice and the immigrants (Verniers & Vala, 2018). In the same spirit, it is perceived that the same mediational procedure is responsible for gender discrimination, especially in women at the workplace (Verniers & Vala, 2018). This is because initially, most jobs in organizations, whether locally or globally, were held by men. It was irrespective of whether the job had a lower rank and salary or higher ranks and consequently, higher salaries.

Very few women could secure such jobs, and even when they acquired the posts, they were discriminated against and harassed at workplaces. Verniers & Vala have the feeling that the gender discrimination aspect of sexism is linked to the gender discrimination witnessed at various workplaces. They support this argument by saying that the maintenance of power inequality is considerably brought about by the traditional gender roles, which also happen to be at the center-stage of the whole concept. Fundamentally, gender roles have played a key role in discrimination against women in the workplace. This can be seen from the idea of sexist attitudes based on gender roles. Verniers and Vala say that the adoption of the sexism attitude leads to more opposition to women at the workplace. This sexism attitude, which gives a clear distinction of the roles of men and those for women in the family setting and at their profession, justifies the discrimination based on gender (Verniers & Vala, 2018). Thus, it will take more time for this kind of discrimination to be resolved entirely.

Motherhood Myths

Over the years, there has been an undisputed tradition that dictates the role of women and men at the family level. For instance, Verniers & Vala (2018) argue that the legends have held that marriage is the most fulfilling adult relationship that both men and women turn to when gender relations are challenged. It is believed that women are best endowed with parenting responsibilities and that they are more connected to their children. Importantly, it is considered that employed women on more than one occasion have neglected their parental duties to their children. As a result, family relationships worsen at the expense of the profession.

When it comes to paying gaps, researchers have shown that it depends on the flexibility of employees based on gender. For instance, there are those professions that may involve long working hours, such as lawyers and auditors. In such cases, men are likely to take more hours working as compared to their women counterparts who also consider childcare and household duties (Thakur, 2017). Additionally, scholars identified that men tend to take more of the last-minute shifts and rescheduled themselves to take about 83% of the overtime hours while women, on the other hand, took more of the unpaid time off via the Family Medical Leave Act, considered less of the last-minute overtime hours and shifts as well as avoiding weekend and holiday shifts (Reppond & Bullock, 2020). Another research indicates that women are willing to give up about 40% of their earnings to avoid irregular work programs (Vesely & Goodman, 2019). As a result, men gain more experience due to long working hours. This experience then plays a fundamental role in the promotion of more men than women and consequently attracting more salaries as compared to their women counterparts. This aspect thus justifies gender discrimination in the workplace.

Strengths of Arguments for Discrimination Based on Gender

Despite being harmful, discrimination against gender has proved beneficial to some extent. For instance, specific duties and responsibilities are considered more suitable done by women, while others are more appropriate for men (Windels, 2016). For example, data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that some of the jobs best done by women include Preschool and Kindergarten teachers where female workers take 97.6%, dental hygienists at 97.1%, speech-language pathologists at 96%, dental assistants at 96%, childcare workers at 94%, secretaries and administrative assistants at 94% (Allen, 2019). Furthermore, the medical records and health information technicians at 93.6%, among others (Allen, 2019). All these professions, when done by women, are most likely to deliver the best outcomes possible.

Discrimination at workplaces based on gender has equally proved beneficial in works that require more muscles, and only men can be comfortable working at such places. An example includes construction sites. Building and construction is an industry dominated by men due to work involved (Paap, 2018). This is advantageous as it prevents women from taking part in heavy duties, which might be harmful and even cause health complications.

Since women are more attached to children and family-related duties, discrimination at the workplace by, for instance, releasing women from work earlier than men and assigning night shift duties to men works best for women. This is because they can find some time to respond to family issues, including childcare and other household duties (Harell et al., 2017). For example, when women are released earlier enough from their work stations, they can always have time to collect their children from school (Szastock et al., 2019). As a result, it helps to build and strengthen family relationships.

Weaknesses of the arguments for Discrimination Based on Gender

According to Heilman & Caleo (2018), the unequal treatment of women at the workplace has a high chance of increasing stress among the victims. Moreover, the increased pressure causes mental health problems among the victims, which dramatically affects employee workability since they will not be able to perform effectively (SteelFisher et al., 2019). The stress also influences employees to absent themselves from work frequently. The overall outcome of this is the unimpressive results on the organizational performance.

When women are forced to take job leaves coupled with the inability to work at similar shifts like those for men, it leads to decreased job satisfaction. This confirms a preferential treatment for men, and as such, men are in a position to attract frequent promotions, which also improves the earning levels (Bader et al., 2018). On the other hand, women are disadvantaged because they cannot effectively learn and acquire new skills and experience that come with long hours of job operation (Bader et al., 2018). Because of this limitation, women are constrained when it comes to the attraction of high-level jobs or ranks within an organization.

With the increased stress level, which improves the health complications, and the dissatisfaction of female employees as a result of discrimination, there are high turnover rates in an organization. This is because the affected employees seek other organizations that will provide better environments for them. In their new organizations, they try to satisfy their needs, which were denied by their previous employers. This has undistinguished results for most organizations since they spend more funds on recruitment, selection, and training of new employees (Dunham, 2017). Sadly, women employees often encounter sexual harassment, which makes the work environment unbearable and hostile. There are uncountable reported cases of sexual harassment for women (Marchiondo, Ran & Cortina, 2018). Leave alone those that go unreported. It is argued that most women are sexually mistreated by male managers when they seek job promotions and salary increments (Carliner et al., 2017). Unbelievably, most women are threatened for dismissal if they do not give in to their managers ‘sexual demands and desires (Carliner et al., 2017). For this reason, it is not surprising to encounter women leaving lucrative positions due to limited or complete lack of opportunities for growth, obstinate work hours, and insufficient or lack of female confidants and peers.

Importantly, gender discrimination in the workplace has a tremendous effect on the reputation of the business. This is because the spread of allegations of harassment and discrimination of employees to the general public will destroy not only the brand image but also to a more significant extent, contribute to decreased stock prices (Meyer, Tegtmeier & Pakura, 2017). When the stock prices fall, it exposes the company to the threat of takeover (Meyer, Tegtmeier & Pakura, 2017). Additionally, the shareholders will not be pleased with the operations of the organization because their primary interest is to maximize their wealth, which is not possible when the stock prices decline (Lawrence & Weber, 2014). Consequently, the organization losses its value.

Also, the falling stock prices will send a negative perception to the general public, who shall respond by hesitating to purchase the company goods (Lawrence & Weber, 2014). This will also go a long way toward reducing the company's investments since the executive management is forced to be more conservative about expansion and related concerns (Lawrence &Weber, 2014). The aspect hurts the business organization even more as they find it hard to recruit other workers as a result of the destroyed image, brand, and reputation.

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