Discrimination Law at the European Levels and the Position of Women in the Workplace - Essay Example

Critically assess the extent to which discrimination law at European and domestic level has improved the position of women in the workplace. Introduction During the last few decades new policies concerning discrimination at the workplace were introduced in Europe. The aim of such policies is to eliminate the discrimination that represents a real threat to the democratic society development. However, the investigations showed that European labour market still suffers from various forms of discrimination. People who came from other countries as well as women suffer terrible discrimination. The main issue of the work is gender discrimination in the workplace, which is closely connected to women, their careers and lives. Much has been said about this problem, but it seems there is still much to be done to solve it. To my mind, this problem can hardly be ignored; there are a lot of means of softening and minimizing it, as much as it is possible. The work is devoted to the discussion of the effectiveness of legislation, concerning the problem of gender discrimination, and the present situation in the society in terms of this problem. The work touches main theoretical aspects of gender discrimination in the workplace from psychological and ethical points of view. The main idea of the work is the following: 1. Gender discrimination in the workplace has now acquired a concealed form, thus it is very difficult for discrimination law to fight with it. 2. The main reason of gender discrimination in the workplace is the existence of human stereotypes. 3. Theoretical approaches, which will be later described in the essay, look at the subject from the narrow point of view, not taking into account social and historical backgrounds of workplaces. Legal Actions taken in order to eliminate gender discrimination The European Employment Strategy (EES), created in 1997, implies that European countries prepare National Action Plans once a year. The plan will reflect the changes at the labor market made in accordance with the common goals. The plan was to make 60% employed by 2010 and provide females with equal rights and opportunities. Some European countries including France and Spain try not only to eliminate cases where women are not given a job because of many male candidates, but also to set equal salaries for men and women. In England and Sweden the situation is regulated by the Equal Opportunities Act and the main attention is also paid to equal salaries (Kersten, 2004). Important facts about current situation at labour market Though many people believe that gender discrimination is no longer relevant, it should be noted, that still among the 500 Fortune best companies, only five are headed by women, and other 495 are managed by men. In some job categories there are $10,000 differences in salary between men and women. Though the portion of women in the labour force is growing each year, and now equals to 48 percent of the total labour force, in some areas, as law, the sums women earn constitute only 59 percent of mens salaries in the same area for the same type of work.      There are some stereotypes which exist in the society towards working women, and here are some of them: - women dont want to work; - women are not strong enough to survive in the modern business world; - women are unwilling to work in extended hours, because they have children; - women are too passive, and not aggressive; - women are too emotional. While studying the theoretical basics of the problem, it should be admitted that there have been outlined a number of so-called forces, that is the characteristics of human nature, which contribute to the existence of the glass ceiling. There are social stereotypes, which contradict with professional interests. This factor is very bright in engineering industries. Those women, who support their female style, may be considered to be incapable workers, and those, who try to support their masculine image, wont be respected. Social stereotypes at work may lead to managers being too protective of women, and thus giving them no hard or ambitious assignments. This ultimately deprives women of any possibility to make career. When the problem of gender discrimination is studied from the psychological point of view, it appears that opposites are not attracted here. On the contrary, if management is mostly constituted by males, they will tend to cooperate with other males, as those, who have similar professional experience and similar look at work perspectives. One more psychological factor is that humans tend to generalize mental models, based on specific examples. In simple phrase, if the person is surrounded by managers, who are mostly white Catholic men, he unconsciously thinks that successful manager should be a white Catholic man. Male-like behaviors in the team, where men prevail, may lead to the decrease of womens self-esteem. These are only some of the arguments, which are given by men, who suppose that a woman cant work effectively. A theory of rational bias was created, which was an attempt to justify the refuse of some managers to give jobs to women. This theory is based on the assumption, that the refuse to give a job to a woman is based not on some gender prejudices, but on the preference of clients to work with men, rather than with women. Thus this is considered to be a rational approach, directed at the increase of the firm profits. Another interesting theory of male – female relations at work is called pipeline theory. It implies, that to be a senior manager, twenty-five or more years of practical experience are required, and women usually dont have such an experience, or, as it is said, they have not been in the pipeline for so long. Of course, no matter how many theories can be created to justify gender discrimination, it is clearly seen, that women are becoming more educated than men, they already get more than one half of all bachelors and masters degrees. These women will be better qualified at work, and thus they will seek legal solving of the discrimination problem. Some people tend to think that this is not the discrimination that keeps women from making career, but their personal choices, which are made outside work, and which later conflict with work interests. The problem of gender discrimination, is that this action is well hidden by those who provide this discrimination, and thus other workers may mistakenly think that gender discrimination is absent at their workplace. All such decisions are covertly implemented. It should be pointed out, that according to the World Bank research, economies, which minimize the gender gap between men and women, allowing both equal rights for careers, grow faster than other economies do. One of the reasons for the fact that gender discrimination in the workplace still exists, is that women are rarely willing to make the case public and go through litigation. Some women dont feel the effect of discrimination on their careers, some dont want to risk their family responsibilities, some are afraid of losing their job; some cant afford hiring a good lawyer. Thus discrimination towards women finds little response in judicial systems of many countries, and though there many acts and bills concerning womens rights, they are not frequently applied. Though most employers today believe, that gender discrimination is illegal, immoral, and inappropriate, this item remains prominent with many workplaces in the country. Companies often fail to adopt the appropriate anti-discrimination policies. Another reason is that many companies provide such policies, but they are often ignored by senior and mid-managers, thus the situation for women in the company remains discriminatory. Because of existence of many barriers for women in making their career, many of them start to create their own business. It appears easier for them to work for themselves, and thus not to be discriminated in anything. Women in business are developing twice faster than men do. The companies headed by women are mostly small or medium. As for the areas of their work, these are mostly services, trade, catering, etc. The problem of gender discrimination at work is often considered from the very narrow point of view, but it is very important to look not only at the working atmosphere, but at the societal and historical background and prejudice, with which people come to work, because this will give a broader understanding of why discrimination is still a problem. There are the two main approaches towards gender discrimination, which are called disparate treatment and disparate impact. Disparate treatment occurs when ‘individuals are intentionally treated differently by virtue of their group membership. (Acker 140) Disparate impact is represented by evidence that members of particular groups are adversely affected by the procedures used to make workplace decisions and by workplace practices. Even though these practices may not be intended to discriminate between men and women, they have the impact of providing proportionately fewer opportunities to women than to men. (1)      It is important to note that according to several studies, women are the most likely to go through discrimination, if applying for jobs that are traditionally held by men. Women hold less prestigious and less payable jobs; they also get little benefit from job changes and transfers, which is different from men. Society itself puts the prejudices and stereotypes on women in terms of work, family and their whole life. Work is traditionally considered to be a man’s domain. And all our attitudes towards work and non-work relations reflect man-oriented perspectives. We have got used to the thought that managing ten subordinates is more important than teaching ten children, thus the salaries of a manager and a teacher are drastically different. We’ve got a great number of assumptions as for how people should work and how organizations should be created, and all these assumptions show our male orientation. We’ve got accustomed to the thought that a woman is closer to the family, and a man is closer to his work, and thus a woman is not able to fulfil her job well. It is necessary to re-think all these assumptions; a radical change in views of the society at the subject of women and work is needed.   Two essential approaches I can offer two legal approaches toward the discrimination law-making: 1. The first approach analyses the problem of making a decision towards a specific candidate when all candidates are absolutely alike by their qualification, work experience, job aspirations, etc., and the main difference is gender. In these cases preferences are usually made towards men. 2. The second approach analyses different organizational outcomes, like salaries and promotions, for both genders. And here gender appears to serve as an artifact for the already existing and known differences in qualities of candidates. When it is difficult to make a correct decision towards some candidate, gender becomes a decisive factor and is often negative for women. There is another evidence of gender discrimination at work, when women are deprived of career opportunities, or their conditions of job are much more stressful and uncomfortable than those of male workers, doing the same work. So, despite the deceptive opinion that gender problem is no relevant anymore, and despite the fact, that situation is changing for the better, the problem of genders in the workplace and the problem of women’s discrimination in terms of looking for and having a job, remains very urgent. People’s opinion Some Europeans state that it is easier to communicate with women rather than man at work, because they do not consider women to be an equal rival. Men are recognized more confident and rather impudent at work. Men thought they were superior to women at work and that was awful according to her mind (Cleveland 2000). The next question is whom they prefer to see as supervisor: woman and man. Europeans underline that only men had to be supervisor, because they were more skilful, experienced, hard-working and firm of purpose. According to his mind a woman can never become impartial leader. It is clear that everything depends on the personality, not only the gender. Sometimes men are better supervisor than women, sometimes women are (Cleveland 2000). The important question was asked about gender discrimination in the working place and what women had to do. Mccluskey notes that nowadays women were really tired of fighting with men for the leading positions in companies. She said that women also faced racial discrimination. For example, if the woman is Afro-American she is paid 30% lees than man and if a woman  is Latino she is paid more than 45% lees than men. The greatest and the most outrageous discrimination to her mind is payment inequality. These pay inequalities lead to the current situation that women who earn less have the opportunity only to rent flats, to send their children to average education institutions instead of sending to prestigious colleges and universities. They have to think not about decent retirement, but about penury and saving money. Despite the measures and laws passed the situation hasn’t completely changed. But the reality is really outrageous: women earn less for performing exactly the same tasks as the men. The next moment of work discrimination as some feminists admit is that motherhood is like a serious crime. It is obvious that women are punished at work for being mothers, but “daddies” have no risk at all. (Mccluskey 1997) Some researchers state that women deliberately chose lees paid and risky jobs. Moreover, they argue that continued that woman who suspected pay inequality or sex discrimination had all rights to file a lawsuit against the company and to start long legal process in order to find out whether she was paid less than other male employees. Very few women did so and it means that there is no payment inequality. However, measures taken by the government to decrease gender discrimination are still very effective. Women are the founders of their own companies and organizations. It is apparent that due to implemented European laws women have all rights to be the owners of the company and to run business. But is a matter of fact that the relative success of separate women is only the beginning of the fight for equal payments for women and men, because the outrageous inequality is do present in workforce. It is necessary to mention that many corporations and companies tried to look honestly at their pay practices and then to correct inequalities. Modern companies try to provide equal working opportunities. (Cleveland 2000) The main conclusions There should be developed a complex approach towards the existing stereotypes. It often appears that the myth of men, being the strongest half of the humanity, is denied. Women are able to achieve success both in career and family. The problem of gender discrimination lies deep in the human psychology. I believe it is necessary to take into account the social and cultural environment in which the work takes place. I also suppose that taking into account broader antecedents of this problem, and also the outcomes of gender discrimination, will provide us with better understanding of this phenomenon. It doesn’t mean in what way the gender discrimination in the workplace may be evaluated, it is evident, that men and women still have different work experiences and different organizational outcomes. Gendering will always exist as the way of supporting the advantage of males. In our time most literary sources and books written on gender discrimination, provide only partial enlightening of the problem. Most people fail to recognize the social and developmental context of gender in workplace. There are opinions that the problem of gender discrimination goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, with the appearance of ‘white collars’, when women used to work only in service sector, retail sale, etc. But nevertheless, with the increasing role of women in the world industry and business, it is essential to acknowledge the fact that women are becoming equal to men, and they have all rights to achieve success in those areas, which had been unavailable for them before.  The salvation of the problem of gender discrimination should start from each small firm and enterprise through creating policies of anti-discrimination, which will finally change the mentality of most people towards women and careers, and will ultimately lead to the elimination of the question.   Works cited Kersten, Denise. Daily Grind, USA Today. (2004) http://www.workrelationships.com/site/articles/officeromancerisk.htm    Management Issues (13 June, 2006). http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=3303   Cleveland, J., Murphy, K., and Stockdale, M. Women and Men in Organizations: Sex and Gender Issues at Work. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000. Mccluskey, Karen. Gender at Work.  Public Management, 79, 5 (1997, May): 5-10. Acker, J. “Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations.” Gender and Society, 4 (1990): 139-158. (2) Budig, M.J. “Male advantage and the gender composition of jobs: Who rides the glass escalator.” Social problems, 49 (2002): 258-277. (3) Groves, M. “Women still bumping up against the glass ceiling.” Los Angeles Times 26 May 1996: D1, D5  (4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_discrimination Read More