Gender discrimination is a serious problem!!!

Do you think Gender discrimination is a serious problem. Expand your answer or point of view on the basis of feminism (1st and 2nd wave)

Do you think Gender discrimination is a serious problem. Expand your answer or point of view on the basis of feminism (1st and 2nd wave)

Bloomberg Did Not Discriminate Against Women by Treating New Mothers the Same as Other Leave-Takers

August 30th, 2011 | Piper Hoffman

 Article first published as Judge: Bloomberg Did Not Discriminate Against Women on Blogcritics.

The judge who ruled that Bloomberg LP did not illegally discriminate against women for taking pregnancy leave raised an important policy question in her written opinion. Judge Preska did not drop “an anvil…on the work-life balance scale,” despite commentators’ efforts to portray her decision as a calculated blow against work-life balance; in deciding in Bloomberg’s favor, all she did was follow the existing law. In her commentary, however, she questioned the wisdom of the law itself, and noted that one alternative might be for employers to “treat pregnant women and mothers better or more leniently than others.” Judge Preska did not say whether she thinks that would be a good idea. It is a dreadful idea.

The judge’s legal reasoning in the Bloomberg ruling is by the book. The federal law bans pregnancy discrimination as a form of gender discrimination, as it should – only women get pregnant. The law does not require employers to treat pregnant women better than other employees, just not to treat them worse. Based on the evidence Judge Preska summarized in her decision, Bloomberg LP did not treat women who took pregnancy leave worse than other leave-takers; to the contrary, if that evidence is to be believed (in an earlier ruling Judge Preska threw out the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s expert witnesses, leaving the evidence lopsided in Bloomberg’s favor), women returning from maternity leave may have fared slightly better in terms of compensation than employees returning from other kinds of leave.

The evidence also showed that taking leave for any reason is not a wise career move at Bloomberg. The company policy is, in essence, that employees must put Bloomberg LP ahead of God, country, family, and whatever else figures in their particular pursuits of happiness. Bloomberg scoffs at work-life balance, and while that might be poor business judgment or even reprehensible, Judge Preska was correct that it is not against the law.

Judge Preska makes it clear that the law, whether she likes it or not, grants employers the right to ignore and even discourage workers’ lives outside of work. She quotes former General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s grim assessment that there is “no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

The judge writes that “it is not the Court’s role to engage in policy debates or choose the outcome it thinks is best. It is to apply the law.” Judge Preska goes on to discuss all the things that courts do not have the power to police. She includes in that list what she calls “work-family tradeoffs” – she does not believe one can have it all. But maybe one can have more than Bloomberg gives: the judge observes that it “may be desirable” and “may make business sense” for companies to “treat pregnant women and mothers better or more leniently than others.”

I disagree. Treating pregnant women and mothers more leniently than other employees is not desirable. The view that pregnant women and mothers deserve special treatment may appear feminist, but it actually serves the interests of those who want women pregnant and at home while daddy wins the bread. The law already bars employers from discriminating against women because of pregnancy and related medical conditions, so this policy question is not about whether women’s biology holds them back in the workplace. It is about whether some mothers’ choices to spend more time away from work than fathers and non-parents do should be underwritten by the government and employers.

“Treat[ing] pregnant women and mothers better…than others” would be an insult and a disservice to several groups of “others.” First, fathers: why should employers treat mothers better than fathers? To ensure that women take more time off work and that men don’t? To reinforce sexist stereotypes that, compared to men, women are better at/prefer/should be raising children? Those stereotypes don’t need much reinforcement: studies have shown that men who take paternity leave are later penalized in terms of compensation and promotion compared to men who leave all the child-rearing to women. The attitudes behind those penalties are the same attitudes that support treating mothers better than other employees.

The second group of slighted “others” is the ill and disabled: why should pregnant women and new mothers be treated better than employees who take leave that is necessary for different medical reasons? Pregnant women at least chose to suffer their medical condition, unlike people who have to take leave for, say, a kidney transplant, or to care for a dying parent. Pregnant women and new mothers should not be treated worse than others with medical conditions, and they should not be treated better.

Third, non-mothers: treating female employees who choose to bear children better than those who do not (and in some cases cannot) devalues the lives of women without kids. Requiring employers to treat mothers better in the workplace than women who are not mothers would divert both public and private resources to subsidize the individual lifestyles of people who choose to have children. People do not have children for the greater good or out of a sense of civic duty – they have children because they want to. It makes no sense to force employers to grant preferential treatment to women who choose to spend their time and resources having children over women who choose to spend their time and resources doing something else. It is not up to employers to value any of these private, non-employment-related choices over the others.

Judge Preska put a point on this policy debate by referring to “work-family tradeoffs” rather than “work-life tradeoffs.” But these are not the same thing. Family is not a substitute for life; family is a part of life, but there is more. For most people blessed with the resources to choose how to spend their time, life includes friends, the arts, physical activity, spirituality, or any of many other interests. The judge’s phrase, “work-family tradeoffs,” frames the issue as a question of trading family time for work time, implying that family is the only thing that could possibly merit time off of work. In the context of a gender discrimination case like this one, this framing is not only reductionist, it is frightening in its confinement of female employees to only two spheres: family and making a living.

Judge Preska merely outlines the policy choice of favoring mothers over other employees. She does not claim it as her own. But it is not a straw man: it is at the heart of many “work-life balance” criticisms of the judge’s ruling. Critics are not satisfied with the law’s requirement that employers treat women who take medical leave related to pregnancy the same as other employees who take leave for other reasons. They want pregnancy and motherhood to be privileged.

I am not on Bloomberg’s side. Expecting employees to put work above all else is a recipe for misery for all but workaholics, and an ugly manifestation of corporate greed. But putting children above all else is not the answer for everyone either.

Judges lack the power to force employers to facilitate humane work schedules, and in a free market with more workers than jobs, employees lack the leverage to reach company- or industry-wide bargains for a better balance. At least for now, people who choose to have children will have to make trade-offs to pursue their dreams the same way that people without children do. Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Judge Preska’s ruling, pregnancy and related medical conditions are not a part of that trade-off – they should have no different effect than any other medical condition.

If other “work-family” trade-offs continue to fall more heavily on mothers than fathers, they will have a discriminatory effect. The most immediate and attainable palliative is for fathers to step up and mothers to step back. As more fathers take more parental leave the stereotype of women as children’s natural caretakers will begin to erode, and if women take less leave, the stereotype that women are not as committed to their work as men are may begin to erode too. Parents who can afford for mom to take non-medical time off with the kids should not wait for the courts or the legislature to solve their childcare challenges. They should tap underutilized in-house talent instead: dads.

This blog originally appeared  at Piper Hoffman on August 26, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Piper Hoffman is a writer and employee-side employment lawyer. She holds degrees with honors from Harvard Law School and Brown University. Hoffman blogs regularly on law and social justice issues at piperhoffman.com.

Gender-Sensitive Language

What this handout is about

This handout will explain some of the current thinking on gender issues and writing and will provide suggestions to help you appropriately express gender relationships as you write.

What is "gender-sensitive language" and why should I use it?

English speakers and writers have traditionally been taught to use masculine nouns and pronouns in situations where the gender of their subject(s) is unclear or variable, or when a group to which they are referring contains members of both sexes. For example, the U.S. Declaration of Independence states that " . . . all men are created equal . . ." and most of us were taught in elementary school to understand the word "men" in that context includes both male and female Americans. In recent decades, however, as women have become increasingly involved in the public sphere of American life, writers have reconsidered the way they express gender identities and relationships. Because most English language readers no longer understand the word "man" to be synonymous with "people," writers today must think more carefully about the ways they express gender in order to convey their ideas clearly and accurately to their readers. 

Moreover, these issues are important for people concerned about issues of social inequality. There is a relationship between our language use and our social reality. If we "erase" women from language, that makes it easier to maintain gender inequality. As Professor Sherryl Kleinman (2000:6) has argued, 

[M]ale-based generics are another indicator—and, more importantly, a reinforcer—of a system in which "man" in the abstract and men in the flesh are privileged over women.

Words matter, and our language choices have consequences. If we believe that women and men deserve social equality, then we should think seriously about how to reflect that belief in our language use. 

If you're reading this handout, you're probably already aware that tackling gender sensitivity in your writing is no small task, especially since there isn't yet (and there may never be) a set of concrete guidelines on which to base your decisions. Fortunately, there are a number of different strategies the gender-savvy writer can use to express gender relationships with precision. This handout will provide you with an overview of some of those strategies so that you can "mix and match" as necessary when you write. 

top

Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that substitutes for a noun. The English language provides pronoun options for references to masculine nouns (for example, "he" can substitute for "Tom"), feminine nouns ("she" can replace "Lucy"), and neutral/non-human nouns ("it" stands in for "a tree"), but no choice for sex-neutral third-person singular nouns ("the writer," "a student," or "someone"). Although most of us learned in elementary school that masculine pronouns (he, his, him) should be used as the "default" in situations where the referent (that is, the person or thing to which you're referring) could be either male or female, that usage is generally considered unacceptable now. So what should you do when you're faced with one of those gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous situations? Well, you've got a few options . . . 

1. Use "they" 

This option is currently much debated by grammar experts, but most agree that it works well in at least several kinds of situations. In order to use "they" to express accurately gender relationships, you'll need to understand that "they" is traditionally used only to refer to a plural noun. For example, 

Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were famous "first-wave" American feminists. They were also both involved in the Abolitionist movement. 

In speech, though, we early twenty-first century Americans commonly use "they" to refer to a singular referent. According to many grammar experts, that usage is incorrect, but here's an example of how it sounds in our everyday speech: 

If a student wants to learn more about gender inequality, they should take Intro to Women's Studies.

Note that in this example, "a student" is singular, but it is replaced in the second sentence by "they," a plural pronoun. In speech, we often don't notice such substitutions of the plural for the singular, but in writing, some will find such substitutions awkward or incorrect. Some people argue that "they" should become the default gender-neutral pronoun for English writing, but since that usage can still sound awkward to many readers, it's best to use "they" only in plural situations. Thus, one other option the gender-savvy writer may choose to employ is to make her/his sentence plural. Here's one way that can work: 

A student's beliefs about feminism may be based on what he has heard in the popular media. 

can become

Students' beliefs about feminism may be based on what they have heard in the popular media. 

2. Use she or he or she/he. 

There is another, simpler option the gender-savvy writer can use to deal with situations where a pronoun needs to refer to a person whose gender isn't known: write out both pronoun options as "she or he" or "she/he." For example, 

Each student who majors in Women's Studies major must take a course in Feminist Theory. She or he may also get course credit for completing an internship at a local organization that benefits women. 

OR 

Each student who majors in Women's Studies major must take a course in Feminist Theory. She/he may also get course credit for completing an internship at a local organization that benefits women. 

3. Alternate genders and pronouns 

You may also choose to alternate gendered pronouns. This option will work only in certain situations, though—usually hypothetical situations in which the referent is equally likely to be a male or a female. For example, both male and female students use the Writing Center's services, so the author of our staff manual chose to alternate between masculine and feminine pronouns when writing the following tutoring guidelines:

• Respond as a reader, explaining what and how you were/are thinking as you read her texts so that she can discover where a reader might struggle with her writing. 

• Ask him to outline the draft to reveal the organization of the paper. 

• Ask her to describe her purpose and audience and show how she has taken them into account in her writing.

• Explain a recurring pattern and let him locate repeated instances of it. 

Of course, this author could also have included both pronouns in each sentence by writing "her/his" or "her/him," but in this case, alternating "he" and "she" conveys the same sense of gender variability and is likely a little easier on the reader, who won't have to pause to process several different options every time a gendered pronoun is needed in the sentence. This example also provides a useful demonstration of how gender-savvy writers can take advantage of the many different options available by choosing the one that best suits the unique requirements of each piece of writing they produce. 

4. Eliminate the pronoun altogether 

Finally, you can also simply eliminate the pronoun. For example,

Allan Johnson is a contemporary feminist theorist. This writer and professor gave a speech at UNC in the fall of 2007.

Note how the sentence used "this writer and professor" rather than "he."

Many people accept the negative stereotype that if a person is a feminist, she must hate men.

could become

Many people accept the negative stereotype that feminist beliefs are based on hatred of men.

Note how the second version of the sentence talks about the beliefs. By avoiding using the pronoun "she," it leaves open the possibility that men may be feminists.

top

Gendered nouns 

Like gendered pronouns, gendered nouns can also provide a stumbling block for the gender-savvy writer. The best way to avoid implications these words can carry is simply to be aware of how we tend to use them in speech and writing. Because gendered nouns are so commonly used and accepted by English writers and speakers, we often don't notice them or the implications they bring with them. Once you've recognized that a gender distinction is being made by such a word, though, conversion of the gendered noun into a gender-savvy one is usually very simple.

"Man" and words ending in "-man" are the most commonly used gendered nouns, so avoiding the confusion they bring can be as simple as watching out for these words and replacing them with words that convey your meaning more effectively. For example, if the founders of America had been gender-savvy writers, they might have written " . . . all people are created equal" instead of " . . . all men are created equal . . .."

Another common gendered expression, particularly in informal speech and writing, is "you guys." This expression is used to refer to groups of men, groups of women, and groups that include both men and women. Although most people mean to be inclusive when they use "you guys," this phrase wouldn't make sense if it didn't subsume women under the category "guys." To see why "you guys" is gendered male, consider that "a guy" (singular) is definitely a man, not a woman, and that most men would not feel included in the expression "you gals" or "you girls."

Another example of gendered language is the way the words "Mr.," "Miss," and "Mrs." are used. "Mr." can refer to any man, regardless of whether he is single or married—but women are defined by their relationship to men (by whether they are married or not). A way around this is to use "Ms." (which doesn't indicate marital status) to refer to women.

Sometimes we modify nouns that refer to jobs or positions to denote the sex of the person holding that position. This often done if the sex of the person holding the position goes against conventional expectations. To get a sense of these expectations, think about what sex you would instinctively assume the subject of each of these sentences to be: 

The doctor walked into the room.

The nurse walked into the room.

Many people assume that doctors are men and that nurses are women. Because of such assumptions, someone might write sentences like "The female doctor walked into the room" or "The male nurse walked into the room." Using "female" and "male" in this way reinforces the assumption that most or all doctors are male and most or all nurses are female. Unless the sex of the nurse or doctor is important to the meaning of the sentence, it can be omitted. 

As you work on becoming a gender-savvy writer, you may find it helpful to watch out for the following gendered nouns and replace them with one of the alternatives listed below. Check a thesaurus for alternatives to gendered nouns not included in this list.

gendered noun

man

freshman

mankind

man-made

the common man

to man

chairman

mailman

policeman

steward, stewardess

congressman

Dear Sir: gender-neutral noun

person, individual

first-year student

people, human beings, humanity

machine-made, synthetic

the average (or ordinary) person

to operate, to cover, to staff

chair, chairperson, coordinator

mail carrier, letter carrier, postal worker

police officer 

flight attendant 

congress person, legislator, representative

Dear Sir or Madam:, Dear Editor:, Dear Service Representative:, To Whom it May Concern: 

top

Proper nouns

Proper nouns can also give gender-savvy writers pause, but as with common nouns, it is usually very easy to use gender-neutral language once you've noticed the gendered patterns in your own writing. And the best way to avoid any confusion in your use of proper nouns is to use the same rules to discuss of women subjects as you already use when you're writing about men. In the examples below, notice how using different conventions for references to male and female subjects suggests a difference in the amount of respect being given to individuals on the basis of their gender. 

1. Refer to women subjects by only their last names—just as you would do for men subjects.

For example, we would never refer to William Shakespeare as just "William;" we call him "Shakespeare" or "William Shakespeare." Thus, you should never refer to Jane Austen simply as "Jane;" you should write "Jane Austen" or "Austen." 

2. In circumstances where you're writing about several people who have the same last name, try using the full name of the person every time you refer to him/her. 

For example, if you're writing about George and Martha Washington, referring to him as "Washington" and her as "Martha" conveys a greater respect for him than for her. In order to express an equal amount of respect for these two historical figures, simply refer to each subject by her/his full name: "George Washington" and "Martha Washington." This option may sound like it could get too wordy, but it actually works very well in most situations. 

3. Refer to women subjects by their full titles, just as you would refer to men subjects. 

For example, you wouldn't call American President Reagan "Ronald," so you wouldn't want to refer to British Prime Minister Thatcher as "Margaret." Simply call her "Prime Minister Thatcher," just as you would write "President Reagan" to refer to him. 

top

Sex versus gender 

In many women's studies classes, one of the fundamental concepts students are expected to master is the difference feminists see between an individual's sex (which feminists understand as one's biological makeup—male, female, or intersexed) and that person's gender (a social construction based on sex—man/masculine or woman/feminine). Because this distinction is so fundamental to understanding much of the material in many Women's Studies courses, expressing the difference between sex and gender is an important element in many writing assignments given by women's studies instructors. 

Essentially, all you need to express sex vs. gender distinctions accurately in your writing is a clear understanding of the difference between sex and gender. As you are writing, ask yourself whether what you're talking about is someone's biological makeup or something about the way that person has been socialized. If you're referring to biology, use "male" or "female," and if what you're talking about has to do with a behavior or social role someone has been taught because of her/his biology, use "woman" or "man." 

Thinking about the different answers to these two questions might help clarify the distinction between sex and gender: 

What does it mean to be male?

What does it mean to be a man?

"To be male," as an expression of biological sex, is to have a chromosomal makeup of XY. "To be a man," however, expresses the socially constructed aspects of masculinity. Ideas of masculinity change across time, culture, and place. Think about the differences between what it meant "to be a man" in 17th-century France versus what it means "to be a man" today in the United States. 

top

Checklist for gender revisions

To ensure that you've used gender savvy language in your piece of writing, try asking yourself the following questions: 

1. Have you used "man" or "men" or words containing one of them to refer to people who may be female? If so, consider substituting another word. For example, instead of "fireman," try "firefighter."

2. If you have mentioned someone's gender, was it necessary to do so? If you identify someone as a female architect, for example, do you (or would you) refer to someone else as a "male architect"? And if you then note that the woman is an attractive blonde mother of two, do you mention that the man is a muscular, dark-haired father of three? Unless gender and related matters—looks, clothes, parenthood—are relevant to your point, leave them unmentioned.

3. Do you use any occupational stereotypes? Watch for the use of female pronouns for elementary school teachers and male ones for scientists, for example.

4. Do you use language that in any way shows a lack of respect for either sex?

5. Have you used "he," "him," "his," or "himself" to refer to people who may be female? 

top

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. 

China’s ‘sticky floor’ 

According to the research, Economic success in China will hinge on fixing the gender inequality among its workers. 

Courtesy 

MAY 2009 

Source: McKinsey Global Institute 

China’s transformation to a market-oriented economy has been accompanied by a significant increase in the pay gap between men and women. In many industrialized economies, gender-based differences are most pronounced in white-collar jobs, creating a “glass ceiling” for women who work in the office. But as China industrializes, gender pay differences are most striking among blue-collar workers. Few economists from China’s Tsinghua University consider whether China’s female factory workers labor on a “sticky floor.” 

Gender inequality in China

China has experienced a steady worsening of what’s sometimes called the “sticky floor” phenomenon. By sticky floor, we refer to the wage gap between female worker and their male counterparts in jobs that require relatively few skills and little education. 

In the West, there’s a rich history of research into questions of gender discrimination in the workplace. But for developing nations, there isn’t much evidence. There seems to be some similarities between China and European nations such as Hungary and former Soviet republics. As in China, the income gap between genders in those nations has widened since their transition to a market economy.

Economist decided to study gender differences in China because they felt it to be a significant problem that hadn’t been fully recognized. China’s labor market has undergone dramatic change in recent years. In the centrally planned era, everyone tended to earn similar wages, regardless of ability or differences in educational background. Now we see education can lead to big salary differences. That’s what you’d expect in a market economy. But we’ve also discovered that, as firms have greater freedom to establish salary standards, their compensation policies tend to discriminate against female workers.

China’s enormous pool of surplus rural labor contributes heavily to gender discrimination among low-skill workers. For employers in China, the pool of inexpensive labor seems almost limitless. Companies can afford to be very picky about whom they hire and what they pay.

In developed countries, discrimination tends to be more of an issue for high-end job holders, the so-called glass-ceiling phenomenon. In China, discrimination is more prevalent among low-end job holders.

We expect the economic crisis and recent government initiatives to intensify the sticky-floor effect in China. The global economic slowdown has led to widespread factory closures in the Yangtze River and Pearl River Delta regions. This is unwelcome news for immigrant workers, especially women. I fear we’ll see some wage reduction and employment-opportunity reduction for women workers. At the same time, the government’s 4 trillion yuan economic stimulus package will mostly go to fund big infrastructure projects. Those projects will generate a lot of new construction jobs, which are dominated by men. Both factors, we think, could aggravate the gender gap, at least for a while.

Conditions on the factory floor

Economists didn’t expect to find the sticky-floor problem to be so pronounced in China. In factories driving China’s export boom, the workers are overwhelmingly female. Many of them begin working in the factories as young as age 16 or 17. They tend to work for seven to eight years. Most of their income is used to support their families. These girls work incredibly hard, and their income doesn’t necessarily reflect the value of their contribution. Male workers who do the same job tend to earn more money. These girls are the real engine of China’s GDP growth. But they are also the victim of unfair treatment, such as wage discrimination.

Usually wages are their sole source of income. They aren’t entitled to social security or retirement benefits. They are almost all girls, they come from small villages. They have few skills and often not more than a junior middle-school education. Typically, the work they do doesn’t require much physical strength. Still, it’s very hard work, usually requiring ten hours or more each day on the assembly line. After seven or eight years of work, many of these women save a bit of money for their families and set aside a dowry for themselves.

Most women go back to the countryside to marry and establish their own families at the age of 24 or 25. So they have only seven to eight years to work in the cities, which means that they don’t establish a permanent career track. Mostly, they just do some simple and repetitive work in the factory, which offers limited opportunity for promotion. Of course, these women earn more money in factories than if they had simply remained in the fields. You would say that is a gain. But we should not confuse the two different things. Compared with her counterparts of different gender, she faces far fewer prospects for long-term employment than a young man [does].

Avenues for improvement

Their  view is the one-child policy has been helpful in easing the gender gap for high-skill, better-educated workers. Before the policy was implemented, urban families typically bore more than one child. In many cases, families concentrated their resources on educating sons and neglected investing in their daughters. But when families are restricted to a single child, they shower attention and resources—in terms of education and career development—on that child, regardless of gender. The policy has also helped change traditional attitudes about girls. If your only child is a girl, you want her to be a success. That’s why we believe the one-child policy helps to reduce [the] gender pay gap in the cities. But in rural areas, where families are still allowed to have a second child if their firstborn is a girl, the story is quite different.

Li Bo: We believe the situation will improve. One important reason is China’s one-child policy. The rigorous enforcement of that policy has the effect of reducing the labor supply. As China’s baby boomers age, the demographic dividend will disappear. The supply of low-end labors will decrease. In the first half of last year, even before the economic crisis started, we began to see signs of shortage of immigrant labor in some of the coastal areas.

The increasing acceptance of rule by law and stronger law enforcement could help as well. Discrimination exists because relevant laws are not strictly enforced. With continued economic development and improved law enforcement, I believe, things are going to get better.

Chi Wei: Employers shouldn’t see maintaining gender equality as a cost. We believe fair treatment of both genders in the process of recruitment and compensation management brings many benefits to firms. Many studies indicate that a single-gendered workforce is less productive than a workforce with a balanced gender ratio. Equality in the workplace contributes to employee morale and can help create a sense of passion to one’s job.

We believe it’s more effective to teach gender equality in primary and middle schools than universities. That’s because college girls have to pass a very challenging entrance examination before they can enter any college. So if a girl can make it to college, she’s already usually very independent and competent enough to pursue career success, [much] like boys. But at the primary-school and middle-school level, we hope compulsory education can change the tradition in the countryside, where women are regarded as inferior to men.

Li Bo: It’s important to distinguish between legislation and enforcement. On a legislation level, we already have labor laws. They have been revised and updated. I think it is safe to say that legislators in China have clearly endorsed the principle of equal pay for equal work. The big problem is enforcement.

Gender discrimination at work place

While our culture has made progress against sexism over the past few decades, the sad truth is that sexism and Gender discrimination still exists.  It has been widely reported that women have a harder time getting higher positions of authority at work and that they are paid less than a man is for the same amount of work.  For example, consider the gender gap in salaries.  The Census Bureau reported that as of 2002, a woman's average salary was just 77% of the average salary for a man.  By knowing that you really can't deny that Gender discrimination is still active today.

Gender discrimination, now more commonly referred to as gender discrimination, in the workplace can occur in many ways.  It may happen during the hiring process when men are hired instead of women with equal abilities and experience.  It can be in the form of Gender harassment, when a woman or man is not taken seriously and is regarded as a sex object.  Or it can come in employment benefits such as the amount of training or vacation a male or female employee receives.

If you have been Gender discriminated against, you need to know that there is something you can do about it.  Know that someone can be fired for Gender discriminating against someone else at work.  In order for Gender discrimination to end, you need to tell someone about it.  

What to Do

There are steps you can take to end the discrimination that you and others may be facing.  Be sure to take action.  gender discrimination doesn't go away; it just gets worse.  

Keep a diary.  The first thing you should do is to document the problem.  If the issue gets brought to light, either within the company or legally, it is critical that you have a written record.  Keep a notebook with entries describing each time you think you are discriminated against.  Be sure to include the specifics of the situation including who said what, when it happened, and if any witnesses were present.  Keep this diary in a safe place at home, not at work.

Start low.  At first you should try to resolve the issue at the lowest level possible.  Go to your supervisor and express your concerns.  Give them specific examples of the discrimination.  It is best to do this in writing, keeping copies of your complaints.  Ask to see the company's Gender discrimination policy and ask about the company's process for resolving these issues internally.

Involve the law.  While it should be your last option, know that there are many laws in place to protect you from discrimination.  If your company didn't resolve the situation for you, or didn't treat it seriously, you may want to file a complaint with a government agency.  If you decide to go to a government agency, do it right away.  Many states have deadlines of 6 months (180 days) for reporting discrimination.  Contact the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and your state's fair employment agency.  After this, you can choose whether to sue for money, getting your job back or a court-mandated discrimination policy for your company.