Women in the workplace



Women in the Workplace

Written by:
Craig Beam- PP247

For several years, discrimination in the workplace has been a major problem. Discrimination is isolating someone on his or her physical appearance, gender, age or race. There are two types of discrimination, indirect and direct. Indirect discrimination might be a women being overlooked for a promotion, or an employee displaying inappropriate sexual material in the workplace. Direct discrimination may include a women being discharged from her employment because she is pregnant, or taking to many leaves to take care of family. Another major area were women have been affected in the workplace is sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is closely linked to sex discrimination. Sexual discrimination forces women into lower paying jobs, and sexual harassment helps keep them there. One of the main issues that have been affecting women in the workplace is the stereotype of women in regards to raising a family. For many centuries women have taken the role of housewife, mother and nurturer. It has been their job to cook the meals, laundry, take care of sick kids. Even today motherhood is still considered to be a primary role for women. Women undergo extensive situation while executing their professional duties in their respective work place for the reason being that most companies lack composed work diversity as well as companies lack a family-friendly work environment. The question is do women have enough accessibility in the workplace to balance both work and family? The article “Women and Family Issues” discuss about the family-friendly environment and how it influences women in the workplace. Many companies discriminate hiring women for the reason being that the cost of employing a woman is much greater than the cost of employing men. This is due to the fact that women are encouraged or more so required in taking maternity leaves, child care etc. Thanks to the family-friendly program women are given flexible scheduling, flextime, able to take leave and so on. There are two types of women discussed in this article. The first type of women is known as career-and-family women. Women who are career-and-family oriented are willing to trade some career growth and compensation for freedom from working long hours. The second type of women is referred to as career-primary women. Career-primary women put their career first and are willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary to achieve at the top. The reason why companies invest so much effort into the family-friendly program is due to the fact that the company looses investment in training, when experienced workers leave and the failure to attract the same best talented individual. A valid reason why women that wok with a family-friendly environment is because the program provides many necessities for women to be able to balance both work and family. The program provides assistance help to take care of kids, counseling employees with family problems, sick-child care and many more. By providing this program, it creates a uniform environment in the workplace where women are treated equally to men. Having the same concept the next article talks about sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual Harassment can be spoken words, graphics, gestures or even looks. Everyone looks upon things differently, just as someone would watch how they speak when their children are around, or their elderly relatives the same distinction must be applied at the workplace. Women are not the only one that can be harassed, women can also harass men or even both the harasser and victim can be of the same sex as well. Sexual harassment has the ability in destroying a women’s life both physical as well as mentally. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It is recommended that managers promote a harassment-free environment. There are many difficulties with women in the workplace, but luckily in the 21st century there are many things to help solve all difficulties women must deal with in the workplace. For example the first article talks about how women have difficulties coping with family as well as work, but the solution to that is the family-friendly program. The second article talks about women as well as men being harassed, but if a woman ever feels discomfort or feels as if she is being harassed in the workplace they always have the authority to report this action. One method that can be used to support equality would be to introduce federal legislation or the Family and Medical Leave act to guarantee equal pay for equal work. Our attitudes toward women in the workplace are slowly starting to change. More opportunities are developing for women in the work place today than ever before. For example the family-friendly program is a great way to support women in raising a family as well as trying to balance their work life. The unequal treatment of working women will take years to change, but change is occurring. This topic will remain until people treat and pay women equally, based upon their abilities. There have been many remedies introduced into the workplace that have tried to address the injustice toward women in the workplace. Although there have been many improvements for women in the workplace, there are still many inequalities for women when compared to men. Remedies are needed to secure a fair and equal role in the workplace. This change can only fully occur when we change the attitudes of every individual towards women. When we accomplish that then we can finally achieve gender equality in the workplace.