What accounts for this difference? I find it unlikely that the disparity comes from blatant discrimination, like “He is a man, thus he deserves higher pay.” Rather, a suggestion from PayScale seems more plausible, and that is that “higher-paid jobs often have less concrete or quantifiable measures of productivity and duties.” Meaning, subjectivity comes into play. Subconscious gender roles unveil themselves even more so as jobs become more about quality over quantity. If a job is quantifiable, then men and women are more likely to receive equal pay because merit can be directly tied into job duties. Thus, if a job is not quantifiable, then it is more subjective, so a man may receive higher pay because of characteristics attributed to men that aren’t necessarily job qualifications.
According to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it is illegal to discriminate against a person in the workplace based off of gender. This includes confining an individual to gender roles. For instance, a woman cannot be barred from promotion, because her employer perceives all women as being pushovers. I believe that gender roles are a main reason for pay disparity in our modern day. While this reason is usually not intentional, it results in unequal employment opportunities and benefits for women.
Some people argue that women don’t seek out male dominated occupations such as being a CEO of a company or being a doctor, because women have an inherent tendency to not want such positions. Perhaps there is a long line of discrimination in such areas, thus women are discouraged from them. As Laura Fitzpatrick states, “A dearth of role models might, in turn, influence the next generation of girls to gravitate toward lower-paying fields, creating an unfortunate cycle.”
I think that there is no question that equality has yet to find permanence within America’s workplace. I also believe that society has made progress with this issue. However, I am afraid that progress is tapering off and this issue of gender pay difference will find itself complacent before being resolved.
I agree to the extent that we need more women's right activists. This may be because I am female, but women are still not considered equal to men. I have a friend who is a mechanic in the army and has to prove herself to every man there. She said it is only difficult when a new person arrives and she has to prove herself all over again because he doesn't find her capable of doing her job because of her gender. And even though, it is illegal to discriminate against a person in the workplace based on their gender, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. One thing I have learned this year about the Criminal Justice field is that motive is that hardest thing to prove. This is true for an employer's motive behind a promotion or demotion. Even the employer may not know that subconsciously, the reason they chose the employee is solely based on gender. Having more women rights activist would make the employer think twice about the real reasons behind his/her decision and maybe consider all of the options to make the decision unbiased and fair. This could spark a whole new thought process in the workplace throughout the nation.
ReplyDeleteI agree there are definitely some bias ideas in the workplace. From the practical point of view, how can this be prevented? I agree that it should be prevented, but how can we change ideas that have been engrained into our brains? Men honestly are stronger than women physically making some jobs more appropriate for men. Now, in business there really should not be any discrimination. All that should matter is how well a person does a job. I just feel ultimately trying to fix this problem is impractical in some circumstances.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely some gender disparities that result in unequal pay and other discrimination factors in the workplace. I do disagree, however, on the statement that the main reason for pay disparities in today's workplace are because of gender roles. There are plenty of examples of women with drive who have taken initiative and become very successful and probably some who even became CEO's of companies. There probably isn't much discrimination that actually goes on in the workplace because of gender. That kind of thing is monitored very closely in today's society just because of all of the equality movements still going on. And if a woman feels that she is being discriminated against because of her gender, she has every right to file a complaint and an investigation will be done to determine if her case is valid. I think that a vast majority of the women that whine about being discriminated against in the work force aren't really working that hard. Maybe if they spent more time trying to improve their situation and devoted time to getting promotions instead of complaining all the time, they'd find that promotions are there for the people who deserve them.
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