Gender Equality in the Workplace - Essay Example

Gender Equality in the Workplace The word discrimination means treating a person in a certain manner based on category or gender. It is an adverse action which is taken by one person or a group of person against another. In the 21st century when the world is progressing and moving towards such advancement in every fields, countries and companies are still not capable of removing gender biasness or discrimination from the society or even from workplaces. One form of discrimination that is often practised in the corporate hierarchy is known as Glass Ceiling.

This means creating invisible barriers for women to prevent them from rising to the top level of the company. These are the intangible barriers such as psychological factors or socio-cultural factors. The tangible barriers include education or career advancements, etc. In the late 1970s or 1980s, very few women were educated enough to reach the top level management positions of the company. Those few were educated were restricted to their houses by the society. Strict social norms prevailed for women in all the countries in the world.

Though nowadays almost all women are educated and many of them are even more educated than their male counterparts, but the glass ceiling still prevails in the society. Many women at the top level management are feeling isolated due to the lack of cooperation from the male members of the company management (Thye, 2006, p. 89-90) The theory of not only glass ceiling but also glass cliff has come into existence. It is often seen that when females makes mistakes, it is blown out of proportion to push them from the position they are standing.

It acts as an invisible cliff for them, from where they are pushed to degrade from their existing position. The basic types of gender discrimination that is faced by women are as follows: Direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, Harassment at work or victimization. In some workplaces, women are not earning as equal to the men. Though the women are holding the same position and have similar educational background, yet they are not receiving similar appraisal in the company. Sometimes even the monetary benefits are higher for the men than for women in the organisation.

Sometimes rules are made in the company in such a manner that it indirectly points that a particular gender is not allowed or involved. Another important issue is harassment at workplace for females. This often takes place due to the ill behaviour or verbal harassment or inferior behaviour in the organisation. This not only creates a mental trauma for the female employee but sometimes also end up taking the life of that person. Even victimisation by the male employees in the workplace is an issue of major concern even in this era, when we call ourselves educated human beings.

Organisations must not motivate this kind of behaviour because it not only hampers the goodwill of the organisation but also hampers the productive too. The male employees involved in such activities are not full productive to the company because they waste their working hours in distracting other employees of the opposite gender. Moreover, the victims of these employees also are harassed, so they are also not fully productive for the company. So, it leads to wastage of useful resources for the company.

Moreover, the internal environment of the company gets hampered and this affects the financial as well as the overall development process of the company. In short, the whole story revolves round managing talents skilfully (Unglobalcompact, n. d., p. 10) At present, most of the people working in organisations or companies are educated and well versed with the work that they do, irrespective of their gender. The company’s main focus should be acquiring talented people for the development and not encouraging discrimination within the workplace.

The government of several countries have come forward to introduce laws and rules, so as to stop discrimination at workplace. Under the new Equality Act 2010, it is against the law if any employer discriminates its employees on the basis of gender. Even the sex discrimination act covered all men and women workers of the country. This act also covers the recruitment, the employee terms and conditions, trainings to be provided, transfer and the promotion opportunities of the employees and the dismissal regulations.

In the law of Equal pay, it is strictly mentioned that men and women are going to receive equal pay for the same kind of job or work that they do. The scale of evaluating their performances would be same irrespective of any gender discrimination. If any discrimination is done, then it has to be a genuine cause and the employer is bound to explain the difference. If any employer supports a particular gender without specific reasons and give preferences then it would be considered an issue under gender discrimination act (Directgov, n. d.).

References Directgov. (no date). Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay. [Online]. Available at: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ResolvingWorkplaceDisputes/DiscriminationAtWork/DG_10026665. [Accessed on May 10, 2012]. Thye, S. R. (2006). Social Psychology of the Workplace. West Yorkshire: Emerald Group Publishing. Unglobalcompact. (no date). Equality Inspires. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/labour/non_discrimination/Equal_opportunities_company_good_practice_guide.pdf. [Accessed on May 10, 2012].