Legislation Relating to Gender Discrimination in the Workplace - Essay Example

? Advantages and Disadvantages of Legislation Relating to Gender Discrimination in the Workplace IntroductionDuring the early phases of men and women, there is a change of learning about the sex roles of each sex, and this is translated into an attitude, which results to problems in work life (Miller, Lietz & Kotte, 2002, 69). In fact, numerous people consider these problems and discrimination of women as inappropriate and unlawful, and they are not tolerable. On the other hand, numerous women are continuing to suffer from discrimination in their workplaces, though there are rational people such as employers seeking to employ the right person for the job that suits them, for example, there are those who are proficient at public relations, appearing on advertisements. In this case, managers may prefer assigning attractive women the role of marketing products while men are assigned technical, manual and production. Nevertheless, the paper will focus on discussing the advantages and disadvantages of legislation concerning gender discrimination in the work place. The legislation that relate to gender discrimination in the work place is the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where the federal law seeks to establish gender equality in the workplace (Docksey, 1984, 81). Furthermore, there are other laws such as the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1973 and Executive Order 11246, while the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 was established to deal with the federal criminal offences for violence against women. However, it has been subdivided into two federal district court cases, which are applicable in the employment setting to supervisors (Otten, 1993, 20). In addition, the Title VII and Equal Pay Act were enacted according to Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, whereby deeming the employment discrimination to have a significant effect on interstate commerce while the federal powers were emphasised by the courts as constitutional. On the other hand, this has brought a notion that the cost of employing women is high while their productivity is low because of their intermittent breaks caused by pregnancy and rearing children (Farmer, Wardrop, Anderson & Risinger, 1995, 170). Therefore, this has brought the question of the family commitments affecting the competence of a woman in her workplace, thus posing a significant challenge in deciding on employing a woman at work. Decisions of choosing an individual to accept work in a given occupation are a decision, which is influenced by the learned cultural and social values that are considered discriminatory to women. Nevertheless, the preferences are determined by learners gender related factors that stereotype occupations as either male or female (Miller & Budd, 1999, 17). Advantages One advantage of the legislation concerning discrimination of gender in the workplace relating to the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which focuses on discrimination on pay, whereby men and women should receive equal compensation (Aaron, 1993, 45). The other merit is that terms of the legislation are gender natural, whereby in a situation when a man is a plaintiff, and a women they are expected to show the difference in court, where either of them receives a lower pay than the other if they performed the same task for the same employer. The legislation also emphasises on the notion of "substantial equivalence,” which is depicted by equal effort, skills, responsibilities and working environment. However, the legislation relating to the issues of gender discrimination offers the defendant a chance justify the disparity, in a situation where the elements are established by the plaintiff. Therefore, the defendant justifies by seniority, merit quality or quality of production and other factors that are not related to gender (Rutter, 1997, 30). Employers are not given a chance to depend on subjective estimates; thus, they have to provide precise criteria that can be applied and communicated to employees. The other advantage relates to focus on sexual harassment, whereby the claims of the complainants are based on the perception of treatment based on gender and claims of disparate treatment under Title VII (Davies & Rosses, 1986, 56). Therefore, the claims of sexual harassment are considered hostility in the working environment, through there are other instances where employers requires favours of a sexual nature in exchange for employment or working condition. Legislation related to gender discrimination recognizes the kissing and other body contact as a requirement of continued employment, hence forming part of evidence for the claims of sexual harassment. However, if there are no physical contacts between the parties involved, there are chances of sexual harassment under hostile working environment claim. In this case, the legislation makes employer to be liable for creating a hostile working condition if there are disparities that are affecting the gender basis. Disadvantage On the other hand, there are disadvantages related to legislation of gender discrimination, whereby there are disparate effects on cases of different treatment, which intentions to discriminate a necessary part of plaintiff burden of proof. There are situations where an employer may have a policy or practice, which has a neutral gender, but it is systematically disadvantageous to applicants or employees of a certain sex. Moreover, in cases where certain policies require the employee to be able to lift eighty pounds deadweight, there are chances that a woman may not have a chance to be employed. However, the facially neutral requirement is reasonable, in a way that the court can grant the defence of business necessity, which in disparate impact cases expects the employer to justify that the qualities measured by the test are in excellent faith. Therefore, the legislation does not incorporate the idea of the necessity that may arise due to the need for adequate performance at a job in question; though there are tests to evaluate these policies, which seem to be discriminatory. The other disadvantage relates to the policies and practices that have a disparate effect, which are not defined clearly as a test requirement, whereby a candidate for midlevel and upper-level management are not assessed by test requirements; instead, they are selected through objective methods (Easter & Katherine, 1988, 28). Therefore, these methods are problematic for disadvantage employees, in a situation where they are expected implement a policy that can lead to undesired effects. For example, workforce is not indicating the ethnic and sex mix of qualified and accessible employees in a way that is enough to develop unequal effect (Petrocelli & Barbara, 1998, 10). This results to identification of policy, practice or procedures that are disadvantageous, and these policies and practices are related to the impact. In conclusion, the paper has discusses the advantages and disadvantages of legislation gender discrimination in the workplace. The discussion commences with an elaboration on issues related to gender discrimination and the laws that are related to this issue. This provides a basis of understanding the merits and demerits that are discussed in the last two sections of the paper. References Aaron, E. (1993), Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Guide to the Law and a Research Overview for Employers and Employees, Jefferson, NC: McFarland Docksey, A. (1984), Sex Discrimination in Britain, the United States, and the European Community, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 13: 181. Davies, J. C., & Rosses, O., (1986), Processes of discrimination: a study of women working in the NHS, Department for Health and Social Security, No.5, pp. 40-56 Easter, N. C & Katherine, W.B, (1988), The interdependence of Family and Work: A Frame Work for Family Life Education, Policy and Practice. Family Relations, 37, 23-28 Farmer, H., Wardrop, J. L., Anderson, M & Risinger, R., (1995), Women's career choices: focus on science, math and technology careers, Psychology of Counselling, No. 42, pp. 155-170 Miller, L., Lietz, P & Kotte, D., (2002), On decreasing gender differences and attitudinal changes: Factors influencing Australian and English pupil’s choice of career in science, Psychology Evolution and Gender. Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 69-92 Miller, L. R & Budd, J., (1999), The Development of occupational sex-role stereotypes, occupational preferences and academic subject preferences in children at age 8-16, Educational Psychology, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 17-35 Otten, A. (1993), Women's Rights and the Law, Westport, CT: Praeger Petrocelli, W., & Barbara R., (1998), Sexual Harassment on the Job: What It Is and How to Stop It. (ed.4). Berkeley, CA: Nolo Press Rutter, P., (1997), Understanding and Preventing Sexual Harassment: The Complete Guide, New York: Bantam Books Read More