Gender Discrimination example essay topic

Contents. 1. Introduction. [page ii] (The new reality.) 2. Unequal character of gender relationship through historical view. [page ] (Real example.) 3.

Gender discrimination. Breakpoints. [page iv] (Definition. Basis and types of gender discrimination. Why it still exist?) 4. Conclusion. [page vii] (Phobias.

Thinking about Men & Gender Equality.) 5. References and bibliography. [page ix] 6. Appendix. Introduction. Today women make up 45 percent of the world's workforce. Women in developing countries work an average of 60 to 90 hours per week.

Ninety percent of the 27 million workers in export processing zones are women. In 10 years, 80 percent of all women in industrialised countries and 70 percent of all women globally will work outside of the home. Women have transformed the labour markets of the world. In many countries the increasing labour force participation of women is driving employment trends.

The activity rates of males are declining while those of females are increasing. The structural transformation of economies, demographic change, informalisation and new notions of working time have redefined working and living conditions for both women and men. But gender inequality is sometimes built into labour institutions. Social security systems, for instance, frequently assume that the breadwinner of the family is male. Labour market segmentation along gender lines generates structural wage differences between men and women that are difficult to address through conventional labour market policy. Unequal character of gender relationship through historical view.

In the 19th century upper class and middle class women were not expected to earn their own living. women rarely had careers and most professions refused entry to women. In the middle of the 19th century it was virtually impossible for women to become doctors, engineers, architects, accountants or bankers. After a long struggle the medical profession allowed women to become doctors. Even so, by 1900 there were only 200 women doctors.

It was not until 1910 that women were allowed to become accountants and bankers. However, there were still no women diplomats, barristers or judges. Women were allowed to become teachers. In 1861 over 72% of teachers were women, but teaching was a low status job and was also very badly paid. Remember when... a woman doctor was a rarity? When Elizabeth Blackwell of Cincinnati applied to medical school in 1847, she was laughed at and advised to wear men's clothes and take an assumed name in order to gain admission.

Ignoring this, she persisted and earned a medical degree. Despite Blackwell's achievements, women with doctoring ambitions were considered cranks, freaks, or oddities not so many years ago. They actually declined from 6 percent of medical students in 1900 to 4 percent by 1930, the result of an informal quota system. In those decades, few hospitals accepted women as interns.

In 1948, Medical Economics asked 100-plus hospital chiefs of staff "What Do You Think of Women Doctors?" Only 36 percent gave unqualified approval. The balance rated them as "adequate, middling, passable, unsatisfactory, or just plain 'ouch!' " In 1961 the dean of one medical school proudly told The New York Times, "Hell, yes, we have a quota; yes, it's a small one. We do keep women out when we can. We don't want them here - and [other medical schools] don't want them either, whether or not they " ll admit it". In the 1970's, it took a slew of federal regulations barring gender discrimination to quash medical-school quotas. Today they " re about 150,000 strong, or 21 percent of all U.S. doctors, and 43 percent of the medical-school class of 2002.

And there have been other victories. Practices are becoming more woman-friendly, developing maternity-leave policies and allowing job-sharing and part-time practice. And little girls now have a role model in Dr. Barbie, a pediatrician. Extracted from: Medical Economics Author: Doreen Mangan Issue: May 11, 1998 Gender discrimination. Breakpoints. Encyclopedia definition: !

(R) Gender (or sexual) discrimination.! Sexual discrimination is any adverse employment action or policy based solely upon gender. Companies are obligated, under law, not to make decisions on hiring, promotions, dismissal, pay raises, benefits, work assignments, leaves of absence, or just about any other aspect of employment, based solely upon gender. For example, it is illegal to pay men more than women for doing the same or comparable jobs.

Legally, disparate treatment or disparate impact defines discrimination. Disparate treatment means that men in similar circumstances, or with similar job titles, are treated better than their female counterparts. Disparate impact means that a particular job action adversely affects women versus men, e.g. only allowing a certain job level to bid on promotions where significantly more men than women are in that classification, while more women than men are in the lower job classifications and cannot bid on promotions. There are three main reasons of unequal abilities for men and women in day to day working practices: traditional working patterns; ! (R) old boy! network doctrine; marital responsibilities. Our society is still based on the traditional stereotypes of male workers and female householders.

And of course, the most typical organisational culture is based on the working lives of men. Many companies have a power structure that consists of men. These may be men that have been with the company for a long time, or younger prot"|g"|s of the more senior men. Both formal and informal structures exist that concentrate the company's power and decision making within this network.

It is very hard, if not impossible, for a woman to break into this circle. An unaware woman may feel the impact of being left out of promotions and / or decision making positions without ever realising what is happening and how. She may also find that the! (R) old boy! network is engaged against her as retaliation for her complaints of discrimination and harassment. Well, generally, for many women, mixing socially with male colleagues, for example in after-work hours, is just not a practical proposition. Although there are now a wide number of women!'s networks.

Modern families have working mothers. Women's disproportionate share of family care reduces workforce participation, interrupts progression and affects training investment by women and employers. Sometimes women choose lower paid positions for the non-financial trade-offs such as flexibility to allow for family responsibilities. And yes, it is true that many women who work part-time while raising a family are happy working less than full-time. No wonder so many women are putting off having children, or not having them at all. They are afraid that they will be immediately relegated to the bottom of the working class if they do, and may never return.

This whole issue of life / work and family balance, needs a big rethink. Discrimination can be presented everywhere and whatever in culture of organisation. But according to practical experience of many women in the past, we can highlight some of them. Recruitment. Very often job advertisement state or imply a preference for male or female applicants. Selection testing.

Tests used in recruitment and promotion can be designed in such a way that a man would find them easier then a women. Training. A training course can be held at times or a location which would make it difficult for a women to attend it. Promotion. Employers can assume that a woman could not do the job because of her family responsibilities, or some times they suppose that a woman would not want do the job because in the past it has always been done by a man.

Pay inequity.! ^0 Men and women should have equal pay for equal job.! +/- "C this is the Law. But sometimes it is not completely true. A long-running study of graduate salaries has shown that the gap between male and female pay rates has not closed since 1977, when the study first began. Women's wages in manufacturing as a percentage of men's wages: Developed regions 1990 1994/1999 Australia 82 84 Austria...

68 Belgium 75 84 Bulgaria... 73 Czech Republic... Japan 41 58 Latvia 84 86 Lithuania... 77 Luxembourg 62 64 Netherlands 77 78 New Zealand 74 81 Norway 86 88 Portugal 69 66 Spain 72...

Sweden 89 91 Switzerland 68 72 United Kingdom 68 74 United States 68... Source: Prepared by the Statistics Division of the United Nations Secretariat from Women's Indicators and Statistics Database (Wist at), Version 4, CD-ROM (United Nations publication, Sales No. E. 00. XVII. 4), based on ILO, Yearbook of Labour Statistics (Geneva, various years up to 2000). Why it still exist?

There is a very big difference between physical and intellectual jobs. We can not say, of course, that one of them is more important than another. They just have a different concepts of labour organisation. Frederic Winslow Taylor was the first scientist which successfully used the theory of physical labour where extracted the term!

(R) productivity! That was almost obvious "C productivity was staying in proportion to physical conditions of employees (and also, how much they are motivated, but this is a secondary aspect when we talk about physical labour). But today, modern managers (especially in developed countries) have another problem. The scales of intellectual markets (and intellectual labour as well) are dramatically increasing, but nobody actually knows how to measure their productivity.

Many years ago everything was easier. Labour market was very simple. There were men and women (in the r"le of supply). There were two types of job - hard physical job (for men) and another type like nurses, librarians, etc. (for women).

Now it changed, even for men. For instance, now you should not be two meters long and a hundred kilos of muscles if you want work on the building sites. This inflation of physical requirements initiated liberalisation of labour markets in most industries. Consequently many women found their places in the male-dominated world. That was a natural evolution but not a revolution as some individuals claims.

Well, everything could look so good and peaceful, but not. A still pretty big part of men (old school!'s managers) and not less small group of women (feminists) are making noise in public. And we should be very careful because of such kind rubbish in magazines, newspapers, and especially in bookstores. At the end I want to say that the real discrimination does not exist anymore (in developed countries, of course). Basically most of these disputes are speculations, I am sure. And only people who are looking for any excuse of their defeats are still using this popular theme.

Conclusion. Phobias. Some argue that special reengineering of management in organisations would reduce female employment; for this to be so, women would have to be less valuable employees in the first place- that is, worth less to the employer. So long as a man and a woman are contributing equally to the company's output, there is no reason why equal pay would be a problem for any employer. Thinking about Men & Gender Equality.

Many people may not agree with me. But I truly believe that market forces always shape every type of goods, even labour, in a fairest way whatever it can be. And if women still have a little smaller salaries, if the enter barriers in some industries still exist, we should not say that it is a problem of culture, or in general of society. It is just not a problem at all. Today every woman can get every education whatever she wants.

And trust me, employers are not stupid or are hurry to become a bankrupts. And they are not interested in the gender conflicts. If a woman is a really good professional she will never find any! (R) discrimination! on her work place. More than this, she always will be a leader even in a men!'s work groups. But biologically, of course, we all have some kind of expectations, especially in gender relationship.

And sometimes these expectations or some kind of sub-emotions or! (R) It! , as Sigmund Frayed defined this idea, are rules of our conducts. It is obviously impossible to exterminate! (R) It! in our behavior. But do we need to do so? I do not think so.

As civilized people, we just should to control it.

Bibliography

Michael W. Drake and Stan Koss en, ! ^0 The human side of organizations! +/- (7th edition), Addison Wesley Longman, 1998.
chapter 17] Peter F. Drucker, ! ^0 Management challenges for the 21st century! +/-, Williams Publishing House, 2000.
David L. Collinson, David Knights and Margaret Collinson, ! ^0 Managing to discriminate! +/-, GB, 1990.
Web sources: United Nations web United Nations Development Fund for Women web Bureau of the Census web Women employed institute web web Bibliography. John Brabham, ! ^0 Benchmarking for people managers! +/-, Cromwell Press, 1997.