Gender Discrination in the Workplace Essay

researcher has drawn valid conclusions based on the research findings.

Background of Information

According Kabeer, (2005), Gender inequality can be described as the disparity of status, power and treatments between members of the society such as men and women. Although there is ignorance and unwillingness to acknowledge existed of gender inequality, it remains a reality that today it exists in the United States. Gender inequality problems have been spreading throughout communities for many years. This have been brought about by problem of unequal employment opportunities. In this case the root causes of employment problems needs to be revealed and understand sociological factors that prevents women from getting similar benefits, wage rates and job opportunities to their male counterparts (Kabeer, 2005).

Many studies shows that women are raised up to become mothers hence they have been forced to stay home and take care to their children. Historically women have been claimed to be man’s property, they had no voting rights, they had no right to own property and they could not take part of a jury (Walby, 2005). The society had historically been shaped by men. Researchers argue that in nineteen fifties women were not even supposed to own credit cards. Policy-makers in the society have been consistently males and therefore the biasness that exists in the society are reflected to be as a result of male dominance (Walby, 2005).

Though there is equality between men and women in the population, there exists dominant inequality in the rights of women. The treatment of boys and girls in many societies and families are unequal where girls disproportionately lack opportunities, face privation and get lower levels to invest in their nutrition, health

and education. In most societies men have been given more power that women and this violates human rights (Lorber, 2010).Gender discrimination as are result leads to early child marriages, sexual violence, coercion, sexual trafficking as well as female genital cutting.

Over decades of years, gender inequality has touched all spheres in life almost all over the world. First is gender inequality in families in which male and female have different roles where women roles are considered lesser (Yodanis, 2004). Men are the heads of the family and work outside the household for paid workforce while women are the heart of family and are expected to stay at home to take care of the family. Second is inequality in education where women in developing countries are less educated compared their male counterpart (Lorber, 2010). Investment in education is the only effective way to eradicate poverty and encourage sustainable development. An educated woman has knowledge, she is confident and has information required to be better parent, worker and citizen. Therefore educating girls is the most important investment society can make (Yodanis, 2004).

Third is women inequality in decision making in which women are not recognized and involved in decision making process hence they have no power to make decision over the men. The other sphere of life in which gender inequality is witnessed is inequality in the workplace. Although women contribute a lot to the economy of the country, this has been considered as their reproductive role and they are prevented from participating in public life which covers all forms of paid work (Walby, 2005).

Thesis Statement

Over the decades women remain to hold fewer positions in the workplace compared to

men globally. However, constitutions in many countries are being designed in a way to boost women positions tremendously. This step has been adopted to obstruct prevailing dominance of men in major positions of leadership. There are reasons behind misrepresentation of women in executive, dictatorial and governance positions. In this case, a common word used to explain barrier to poor women representation in the workplace is glass ceiling. Glass ceiling is used to refer to the invisible obstacles behind gender inequality. One of the major reasons as to why women do not find their way to senior positions is that they do not examine themselves as leaders. As a result, they lack effort to fight for the major positions. Becoming a holder of such major positions takes into account learning the skills, knowledge and roles required in that particular post. In addition, it means learning leadership styles of the people in office.

Recent studies have shown that the contributions of the women towards the success of an organization is increasingly surpassing the contributions of men who have similar skills, qualifications and experience. Although a considerable number of studies have been conducted on discrimination against gender, minority, disability and children, none of them has focused on the gender discrimination in the workplace. For example Edwards (2005) conducted a research on the discrimination of transgender children in the American schools but he did not focus on the gender discrimination in the work place. Likewise Lorber (2010) investigated on how gender discrimination have subjected females to the sexual violence but he did not focus gender on gender discrimination in the workplace. This research therefore sought to breach this important gap

in knowledge. The study seeks to determine the effect of gender discrimination in the workplace.

The Purpose of the Study

The study findings will add insights to the existing knowledge in different social environments so as to solve gender related conflicts and problems by offering common understanding on gender equality and its benefits in the society. The study helps understand unique contributions of each gender as well as gender needs thus enhancing equality between men and women. The knowledge acquired will help reduce gender relate abuse including maltreatment and discrimination which have been persisting due to lack of knowledge. The study is based on gender studies which is helpful to eradicate injustices by offering solutions to the gender discrimination in the workplace, family, education, politics and leadership.

Research Hypothesis & Theory

• Ho1. There is no significant relationship between gender discrimination and firm’s productivity.
  Ho2. There is no significant relationship between gender discrimination and the workplace relationship.
  Ho3. There is no significant relationship between gender discrimination and family leadership.

Literature Review

This literature review presents empirical studies and theories that have been conducted before in relation to the gender study. It will further give a critique to the literature by identifying information gaps and how the current study will try address the issue.

Barriers for Women in Leadership Positions

Ibarra et al. (2013) conducted a research on challenges faced by women in leadership positions and found out that, most organizations contribute a lot to women failure in reaching major positions in the organizations. The research findings revealed that organizations communicate vacancies on executive positions publicly and openly but the greatest mistake is their failure to tell the policies and practices for mismatches of these positions

and women. Similarly, Tatchell and Edmonds, (2015) research findings showed that a subtle gender bias that exists in organizations and society are fundamentals that disrupt a cycle at the heart of becoming a leader. This research also recognized some steps and efforts made by companies towards women encouragement in leadership positions. The research recommended that, women should be motivated through instilling the right skills and using a context that support them.

Ibarra et al. (2013) research concluded that, although traditional high-potential leadership and mentoring programs are very essential, they are not sufficient to drive women to the executive positions in an organization. The research outlined steps that are recommended for one to become a leader. According to Ibarra et al. (2013) research, people become leaders by internalizing their identity and developing a sense of purpose in leadership. Person’s fitness for a job is assessed through taking purposeful action or by encouraging or discouraging subsequent assertions. The study added that person’s high-profile and challenging assignments becomes more likely as leadership capabilities grow and opportunities to demonstrate them expand. This gives a person affirmation for motivation towards new leadership exercises. Absence of such affirmation deprives ones self-confidence and opportunities to seek developmental opportunities and experimenting.

According to research conducted by Tatchell and Edmonds (2015), and the data from Bureau Labor of Statistics, there are only 9% of the total women who have made their way into the executive leadership positions as compared to men. Surprisingly, Tatchell and Edmonds (2015) research on the number of women employed or holding leadership positions in corporate governance has been declining tremendously from the year 2011 to 2014. It is quite surprising for report

of study to reveal that the chances of women holding major positions like CEO in a company are very minimal. In the research, Tatchell and Edmonds (2015) argued that after analyzing 20year data on major USA firms, it is rightfully to conclude that the odds of employing another women in an executive body of that organization very low According to Ibarra et al. (2013) research findings, Powerful men are mostly known for creating awareness to other men when leadership programs arise. However this is not commonly responsive to women. It usually takes much time for women to look for leadership potentials as compared to men.

The research conducted by Nelson and Bridges, (2005) on misrepresentation of women in the leadership positions suggested that for women to be effective leaders, they ought to have a sense of purpose that match with their values and that advance the collective good. By doing this, leaders get chance to think beyond the status quo by trying all the ways possible to avoid insecurities and personal fears. The leaders who try to think beyond status quo are trustworthy because they are always ready to take risks in their perceived goals.

Dependent and Independent Variables

A variable can be described as any trait, condition or factor that is capable of existing in different amounts types. Dependent variables is the one which depends on the elements which are measurable (Fuwa, 2004). It is the variable which is subject to change when due to the manipulation of the independent variable of the experiment or the variable which has a presumed effect. Independent variable on the other hand is very stable and cannot be affected by other

variables which are measurable. It is that condition of the experiment in which the investigator can systematically manipulated (Fuwa, 2004). Therefore independent variable has an impact to the dependent variable. In the study gender discrimination is the independent which causes a great impact on the Firm’s productivity, workplace relationship and family leadership which are the dependent variables of the study. Gender discrimination would lead to poor productivity of the firm, poor workplace relationships and family conflicts. This therefore causes a cause-effect relationship between dependent and independent variables.

Research Method and Design

Research design or method refers to the plan and effectiveness of the investigation used to obtain valid conclusion for the research hypotheses. The researcher used a case study design where independent variable was looked into in order to study their independence and interactive effects on the dependent variables. A case study effects of the gender discrimination in the workplace was adopted. The case study involved in-depth investigation secondary data that enables the researcher to draw conclusions on research hypothesis comprehensively. A case study approach also allowed consensuses building since the learners are able to relate real life and work issues to the theoretical knowledge and empirical results.

Research Data and Data Collection Instruments

The study has used the secondary data which is collected from the published journals, books and periodicals. The main data collection instrument adopted is online reading due to time factor. Secondary data sources were preferred because the data could be obtained quickly and efficiently.

Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics on Gender Discrimination

The study focused descriptive statistics of Walmart wholesaler, one of the United States biggest organization. According the statistics, the number of employees for Walmart retail

stores increased by 50% from about 600, 000 employees to 930,000 employees from 1996 to 2001. Out the population increase, the number of women employees decreased from 67% to 64% within the period. As at 2001, 38% of Walmart workforce worked in Discount stores, 10% at Sam’ Club Stores, 52% in supercenters while 1% worked in Neighborhood markets. In all these workplaces the number of male employees exceeds that of female employees as shown below (Drogin, 2003).

Bar Graph for Descriptive Statistics for Number of Employees by Store Type

The gender discrimination is revealed in that the number of male employees is more than the number of their female counterparts. Walmart stores have been over decades been giving priority to the male employees in the recruitment practices than the female job seekers with the similar skills and qualifications.

Discrimination Against Gender in Payments

Men have historically been paid better than women who are in the same job group and with similar skills, qualifications and work experience. This inequality in the payment has actually caused poor productivity of women employees since they feel that their efforts are not well recognized and rewarded just like their male counterparts. In Walmart stores in United States, women who work in the disproportionate lower paying hours usually gets less pay than men who performs the same jobs (Drogin, 2003).

Bar Graph Showing Earning Gap Between Women and Men

The study found out that from the year 1960 to 2010, the salary gap between male employees and female employees have been increasing continuously whereby male employees have been paid highly at an expense of the female counterparts. This has led to gender inequality which hinders the company

productivity. For the past decades, salary gap have increased from 60.7% in 19660 to 77.4% in 2010 which is an unusual change to the disadvantage of the women employees (Kwan, 2002). This has lowered the motivation of women employees leading to low productivity of the firm in the long term due to low efforts of female employees creating the culture of laziness in the workplace.

Gender Discrimination Against Color in the United States Organizations

Most United States companies discriminates against color. The gap in gender pay has been witnessed in the organizations whereby the immigrant employees have been paid less as compared to the Native-born American employees. These immigrant employees come from different areas of the world including African, India, Asian and Latin. Among such groups, male employees from the American land are compensated 100% salary which is equivalent to their efforts while female counterparts with the similar skills, work experience, job position as well as qualifications are paid almost 50% of the male or about 75% depending on the country of origin (Kwan, 2002).
Bar graph showing the Gender Pay Gap between Men and Women depending with color.

Discrimination Against Women in the High positions

Women employees in the United States have been discriminated in the workplace whereby they are denied his positions in the organization. Most United States organizations communicate vacancies on executive positions publicly and openly but the greatest mistake is their failure to tell the policies and practices for mismatches of these positions and women. Similarly, subtle gender bias that exists with human resource and top officials of the organizations and society are fundamentals that disrupt a cycle at the heart of becoming a leader (Drogin,

2003). This leads to very few female employees occupying the top management positions which is has a resulted from gender inequality. The reasons which the companies give for this gender disparity is that male employees have higher potential to achieve than their female counterpart. According to the past study involving a number of respondents including young men, women and men on the female and male performance analysis shown that, 47% of young men said both men and women have equal opportunities while 37 of the women supported the same opinion, 62% of the women said that men employees have more potential and only 47 of the men agreed for the same idea (Drogin, 2003).

The bar graph above shows that men have more opportunities for better achievements than female count part and therefore they the best suited for the managerial position than women. Likewise in research of whether any gender discrimination has an issue shows that young men are likely to claim there is no problem at all while only 11% of the adult men would say it has an issue. Meanwhile only 5% of the women would agree that it has an issue (Drogin, 2003).

Conclusion

It is clearly evident from the study that leadership inequality based on gender continues to thrive in all parts of the world. Only small percentage of women finds their way to executive management team in an organization with men being absolute dominants of such positions. Significantly, there are unforeseen obstacles such as failure to self-examining, which obstruct women from being leaders. Secondly, men themselves act as the greatest contributors of gender inequality in leadership positions. Therefore, in order to fight disparities

in gender distribution, women should gain courage and put into practice quota system. These will serve as the major ways to realize their priorities in ruling. Women should also form women empowerment association which would successfully fight for the rights within the organizations as well as in the society at large.

References

1. Drogin, R. (2003). Statistical analysis of gender patterns in Wal-Mart workforce. Submitted as expert report in Dukes v. Walmart Stores, No. C, 01-02252.
2. Edwards, J. (2005). The Leadership labyrinth: Negotiating the paradoxes of ministry. Macon, Ga: Smyth & Helwys Pub.
3. Fuwa, M. (2004). Macro-level gender inequality and the division of household labor in 22 countries. American Sociological Review, 69(6), 751-767.
4. Ibarra, H, Robin. & Deborah, M. (2013). Women Rising: The unseen barriers.Bottom of Form
5. Kabeer, N. (2005). Gender equality and women's empowerment: A critical analysis of the third millennium development goal 1. Gender & Development, 13(1), 13-24.
6. Kwan, M. P. (2002). Quantitative methods and feminist geographic research. Feminist geography in practice: Research and methods, 160-73.
7. Lorber, J. (2010). Gender inequality: Feminist theories and politics. Oxford University Press, USA.
8. Nelson, R. L., & Bridges, W. P. (1999). Legalizing gender inequality: Courts, markets, and unequal pay for women in America. Cambridge u.a.: Cambridge University Press.
9. Tutchell, E., & Edmonds, J. (2015). Man-made: Why so few women are in positions of power.
10. Yodanis, C. L. (2004). Gender inequality, violence against women, and fear a cross-national test of the feminist theory of violence against women. Journal of interpersonal violence, 19(6), 655-675.