When I think about the terms prejudice and discrimination, the first thing that comes to mind is gender. In our society today, gender gaps within a work place are an ongoing issue. People of opposite genders are doing the same work for lower pay, simply because of their gender. So why is this? Is there a solution to this issue? Why in this day and age is our society still facing prejudice and discrimination against genders?
First, it is important to know exactly what gender, prejudice and discrimination are. People often think that gender and sex have the same meaning, but this is not the case. “Sex is the biological distinction of being a male or female, whereas gender is the social or learned characteristics that are associated with being male or female.” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012.) Therefore, gender can be described as how we see men and women. This meaning that if we see a woman, we as a society would automatically think of her having feminine characteristics, and vice versa for men. Next, we have to define the terms prejudice and discrimination. “Prejudice is an attitude toward others based a specific group membership. When this attitude becomes a behavior, that is then what we call discrimination” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012.) These two terms often go hand and hand. This is because often times when a specific group has an attitude towards something, a behavior will come soon after.
There was a study done that investigated gender wage inequality. In this study they found that “women who work in establishments in which relatively many of the managers are men have lower wages than do those women with similar qualifications and job demands who work in establishments with a stronger female representation in the power structure.” (Hultin & Szulkin, 1999.) This simply means that there is proven gender discrimination in deciding the wages of workers. People of opposite genders are doing the same work for lower pay. Male managers will pay male workers more money than they pay female workers. This is not because of the work they do, or the skills/qualifications they have, but simply because one is male, and one is female. Hultin & Szulkin (1999) also proved in their study that “men have less than two years more labor market experience than women have, and the gender differences in seniority with current employer as well as the number of years in education are negligible. Yet there are considerable differences in the allocation of women and men to jobs and establishments in the labor market.” (Hultin & Szulkin, 1999.) This again means that there are gender discriminations against females working in certain places.
Gender discrimination/prejudice in the work place is a big issue in society today. I am unsure if we will ever find a solution to this issue. There is a lot of evidence out there showing that men and women are more equal than different when it comes to employment, yet we still have this on going issue. This brings me back to my question in the beginning. Why in this day and age is our society still facing prejudice and discrimination against genders? Maybe we will never know that answer.
References:
Hultin, M., & Szulkin, R. (1999). Wages and unequal access to organizational power: An empirical test of gender discrimination. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(3), 453-472.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Gender inequality is a huge issue, and you’re right, I don’t know why this issue is even in question. I mean it is 2018, right? Why are women being paid less than men for the same job? Also, I would like to applaud the first person who commented username amm7474. I was just talking about this issue of inequality on the subject of parental leave. I think it’s extremely unfair that fathers get less time spent home with their newborns and not only that but it is then almost expected that the majority of responsibily in these early months lands on the shoulders of the mother. What is with this unequal share of responsibilities? What if she’s the one who wants to return back to work early and her husband wants to spend extra time home with baby? Or why can’t they both just get the same amount of time off so then neither parent has to be alone. Really all of this should’nt even be being discussed. Something that I just thought of was this problem hasn’t always existed it was developed by inflation really if you think about it. Way back when in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s Womenly mostly stayed at home while the men went off to work. The men could be the sole providers of a 5 member family household. Can you even believe that? Just one provider was necessary to support a fully functioning family and they could live a comfortable lifestyle. At this time, parental leave didn’t really exist, mothers stayed home with the children and dad came home from work everyday to his family. Now today that’s virtually impossible. Many families today are barely making it by on TWO incomes. It is required that both the mother and father work to support their family and this seems to have developed the need for parental leave. If by any chance it ever again becomes possible for a family to live on one salary then I would propose that the women are the one who work the full time jobs and “bring home the bacon” and the husbands can be the caretakers who keep the kids busy with activities at home. That would be a cool society, don’t you think? If only it were like it was then when only one salary was needed to support a family, this particular issue although important in todays world, may have possibly never even existed if inflation and costs hadn’t drastically changed so much over the course of time.
References for my above comment
Angelov, N., Johansson, P., & Lindahl, E. (2016). Parenthood and the gender gap in pay. Journal of Labor Economics, 32(3). doi: 10.1086/684851
Gender is an issue that I really find interest in. What shocks me most of the time is that we know what is right and wrong when it comes to gender, but for some reason, there has been little done to right these wrongs. Another big issue relating to gender gaps and the workplace is parenthood. I found a study that showed, “15 years after the first child has been born, the male-female gender gaps in income and wages have increased by 32 and 10 percentage points, respectively.” (Angelov, Johansson, Lindahl, 2016) Women tend to miss more work because of their obvious needs relating to parenthood, which in turn allows their career to suffer. Women should not be penalized for being able to carry life for 10 months and then being responsible for caring for their child. This is a natural goal, and should not be seen as a career-altering choice.
With that being said, all companies are required to allow for maternity leave, but this is often un-paid and does not accommodate new fathers either. Paid parental leave is something that I would consider a gender issue in the workplace as well. Mothers and fathers should be equal in their ability to spend time with their new child, and should not have to worry about their income during this time. I hope that we soon begin to adjust the problems that many face in the workplace relating to gender.