Gender-based
discrimination is something that has been a topic of debate and discussion for
a very long time. Although society has
made great strides in the last several decades it is still an issue that
effects many people. I was actually surprised
to realize that it is more prevalent than I previously thought. My own sister-in-law was recently passed up
for a job she was more than qualified for.
The person hiring told her that because she was married he was worried
that she would get pregnant soon and therefore he did not offer her the
job. Instead he gave the job to a
male. This completely surprised me that
someone would actually not only make a decision to do this but to also blatantly
tell her this was his reasoning. This
story falls in line with some of the comments made by Dr. Kanter in the
video. She states that often companies
don’t want to hire women for demanding jobs because they don’t want to take
them away from their families. A company
may feel they are too family oriented to want to pull a woman away from the
home and the responsibilities they have there.
In the text Yukl states that the “the strong tendency to favor men over
women in filling high‐level
leadership positions” (Yukl, 2013, p. 371) is known as the “glass ceiling” (Yukl, 2013, p. 371) . This happens for a variety of reasons I will
discuss throughout this post.
The
experience my sister-in-law had tells me several things. First off, it tells me that gender-based
discrimination is prevalent and happens even to people I know and secondly it
tells me that some people that discriminate are just plain ignorant to what
they are doing. In part of the
discussion with Dr. Kanter she states that women need to speak up more and push
for those positions and salaries they desire. When my sister-in-law told me the
story I told her that she needed to speak up and tell someone. She responded by saying that she didn’t want
to cause issues or problems. In no way
do I take any of the blame away from those that perpetrate the discrimination,
however, those discriminated against need to stand up for themselves and say
something. This small decision to do so
may lead to future employees not having to deal with this kind of
treatment. In the text Yukl gives some
explanations as to why the glass ceiling exists. He states that one of the reasons is a “lack
of strong efforts to gain access to leadership positions” (Yukl, 2013,
p. 372) . This is incredibly important and in many
cases speaking up and fighting for your rights is the only way things will
change.
This
same reasoning may be, according to the interview, why pay has not kept up with
the pace of the rise of women in jobs. Dr.
Kanter states that she is not sure if the reasons are because of discrimination
or that women are just not as good at negotiating for themselves. Over my lifetime I have watched my father
negotiate with companies that he has worked for to get them to raise his
salary, often times to the max amount they are willing to go. This salary bump has put him at making the
same amount or more than people that have been there much longer than him. He simply states that other companies are
interested in hiring him, he then lets his past performance speak for itself
and lets them decide if they want to keep him and lets them know this is what
it will take. I have watched him do this
on several occasions and his has always benefited him. I don’t think the lack of doing this can be
pointed to only women. I think there are
a lot of people out there that struggle with this concept and many may not feel
confident that they are good enough to earn more money than they are already
making. The reality is though that those
that push for more money and work hard to earn that extra income are the ones
that will get ahead. If women want to
make more money and get the jobs they want this is the way to do it.
Dr.
Kanter goes on to explain that another reason for discrimination is based on
that those who are hiring tend to hire those that are similar to
themselves. This can be gender, race,
school or nationality related. We tend to
flock to those that we have things in common with and feel that we may
understand and know them better if they have more in common with ourselves. In leadership positions we need to see the
strengths of individuals and hire them based on their qualifications and not
their race or gender. In the text Yukl
points out that “in the complete absence of sex‐based discrimination, the number of
women in chief executive positions in business and government should be close to
50 percent” (Yukl, 2013, p. 371) . In December of 2013 Mary Barra become the
twenty third CEO to run a fortune 500 company. According to the text this should
be closer to around 250. While it is my
belief that people should be hired based on their qualifications and not their
gender and that more women are probably qualified to hold these CEO positions I
struggle to believe that this number would be at 50%. I say this because there are many more many
men in the work place than women and because of this the number of men
competing for these high level positions would be greater. This may not necessarily be due to
discrimination but that culturally rather be because in many countries women
are often the caretakers and keepers of the home while men are the bread
winners.
While
I feel that gender discrimination is significant and unfortunate I feel that if
anything is going to change it needs to change starting at management and
leadership positions. It is a leader’s
responsibility to have the knowledge and capability to hire those that are best
qualified for the job and to empower those that work for them to fight for what
they deserve. Discrimination of any kind
is uncalled for and takes away our ability to hire those that are the most
qualified and most deserving of jobs. We
also need to be able to recognize when our ignorance has led to us
discriminating against others and change our ways immediately.
References
Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in Organizations.
Boston: Pearson.
