Solution to Gender Inequality
By: Tonio
Winkler
Gender inequality is something that most people
don't want to think about. It's something that most people, especially the
younger generations, don't believe still exists. It is something that most
people would rather look at as a blemish in society's history than to see it as
a current, evolving problem. This is where we have a problem today. I've
written two different blogs about the effects of gender inequality in the
workplace, but I haven't given a solution yet. At this point, there may not be
a solution. But there can be a movement, and it has to be acted on by both
women and men in the workplace. We need to stop looking at things that we
consider to be commonplace in the workplace for what they really are- different
examples of gender inequality.
Raymond F. Gregory even lays this out as one of
the main points of his book "Women and Workplace Discrimination:
Overcoming the Barriers to Gender Equality". In the intro to his book, he
says "if the workplace is ever to be free of gender inequality, working
women must commit themselves to opposing employer discriminatory conduct,
policies, and practices” (Gregory, 2003) . This is
something that is the responsibility of women in the workplace, but I believe
it's the responsibility of the men as well. There are everyday things that
happen in every place of employment that are examples of gender discrimination
in that place of business. Some of them are more blatant showings: A female
employee in a hardware store not being able to move outside of a cashier role
because the employer believes that male customers wouldn't trust a female's
opinion; A male employer only allowing the females in a shipping business to
occupy administrative positions because they aren't as dangerous of positions.
In addition, there are other examples that prove
to be just as detrimental, but aren't as obvious as what we may think. “The
sorry truth is that most working women today-even with the protection of law-do
not feel that they are treated as equals in the workplace, and survey data
indicates that they have reason for this belief” (Donohue,
2004) .
If you have a restaurant that employees
mainly female cooks, it may look progressive because there are many who believe
that's still a "male dominated" position. But if the employer has
females in the kitchen because he believes that they're better cooks, then
that's gender discrimination. If you have a paramedic that is female and is
always paired with male partners, it may not be something that we, as a general
public, would think twice about. But if she's paired with males because the
commanding officer doesn't think that the female is strong enough, or may be
too emotional, to deal with every situation and that's why she's paired with
males, then it's gender discrimination.
Furthermore, let's look at another example that
may not be noticed. If an elementary school has a kindergarten teacher position
open and an administrative position open, and they hire the female to be the
teacher, it could be looked at as an equal opportunity employment. Yet, if the
female was put into that position because they fulfill the stereotype of a
kind, female kindergarten teacher, then it's done more harm than good. This is
yet another example of subtle forms of gender discrimination. The problem is
that many of the subtle forms of gender discrimination are ignored or excused
throughout normal, day to day life because they aren't enough to make a fuss
over. This is something that women need to start looking at, but that men need
to start taking care of as well. There are some things that we, as men, need to
be willing to stand up and say that it's not right that it's happening. We need
to stop training our women to expect the discriminatory behavior, but we also
need to stop training men that this behavior is acceptable in any situation.
In addition, if the population doesn't come
together to change discrimination in the workplace, then it will never happen.
“Gender discrimination often results from a lack of diversity within an
organization” (Scott, 2012) . If you look
at any of the major battles that have been won against discrimination, whether
it was against slavery, or women voting, or whatever the cause was, the cause
was not won only by the people that were being put down. Women and men need to
take up this stand together because, even though we have mostly been talking
about women being discriminated against, they are not the only ones that face
this oppression in the workplace.
In conclusion, the fight against gender equality
can't be fought by just women- the men need to take a stand against it as well.
Women can fight as much as they can, but the fight can only go so far when you
are fighting against males in a work environment that don't want to change. As
long as the environments stay the same, the fight will never end and inequality
will always be there.
This problem is unfortunately on the issue of the day and it would be difficult to solve it but I have some ideas I consider to be interesting, follow the link http://puressay.com/blog/gender-inequality-essay-how-it-began-and-what-it-turned-out
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