The Challenges Of Employment Inequality For Women

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In relation to employment opportunities, females tend to be limited in their employment possibilities, where they are often viewed as less capable then men and often face discrimination at the workplace from their colleagues. Where, women are less likely to be employed than their male counterpart, have lower wages and aren’t likely to advance at the same rate that males do. Women are segregated into low paying female professions, like secretarial jobs, service orientated occupations or as caregivers. Laws have been placed that seek to prevent occupational discrimination towards women by demanding equal treatment yet those laws, “do not address the indirect obstacles, such as gender inequalities involved in family life or socialization to gendered …show more content…

When we take a look at female wages, they tend to make significantly less money than male doing the same jobs, in the United States for example, women make seventy-eight cents for every dollar a man earns that leads to an increase in the possibility that females will live in poverty. The glass elevator also come to play, where men who work in predominantly female profession, men are able to move up to higher positions than women at a faster pace and earn a higher income. Where men are able to bond with their male supervisors on an intimate level that women are never able to do because, “Masculinity is often associated with competence and mastery,” (Wingfield, 2014, pg. 358) that makeswomen have to work twice as hard to get the same recognition as their male …show more content…

The Equal Pay Act sought for equal pay for both men and women who did the same work in similar working conditions that however, didn’t necessarily guarantee equal pay for women because employers based wages on quality and quantity, which segregated women to low-standing jobs that solidified the gender barriers between men and women. The Civil Rights Act of 1946 prohibited discrimination, “on the basis pf race, color, sex, religion or national origins in determining wages...” (Henderson & Jeydel, 2014, pg. 122) and added enforcement measures unlike the Equal Pay Act, by allowing women to sur in a time period one-hundred and eighty days in the discovery of payment inequalities. The discrimination Act made it illegal for employers to fire females based on pregnancy and pregnancy related issues, but the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification gave employers a loop hole in which they where able to take sex into account when employing an individual to a certain job. In the European Union, the Social Charter sought to guarantee equal rights for all part-time workers and stated that, “unfair treatment of part time workers can constitute indirect sex discrimination against women,” (Henderson & Jeydel, 2014, pg. 125), where it sought to diminish the gender gap between males and

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