Gender Discrimination Essay

Gender discrimination has been happening for a very long period of time throughout history. Although it has improved throughout the years, many people are still being discriminated due to their gender. Sex or gender discrimination is defined as “individuals treated differently in their employment specifically because an individual is a woman or man” (“Sex/Gender Discrimination”). Many gender discriminations happen at work places and deal with salaries, work positions, and being hired or promoted. Sex discrimination come in many different forms such as sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, work situations, and employment policies (“Sex Based”). According to statistics provided by the Nation Bureau of Economic Research and the Institute

Among the unjust treatments in a workplace, the one most heard of is unequal pay. Women are being paid less than men despite having the same job and producing the same result. In a research led by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, it states that “in 2014, female full-time worker made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 21 percent” and there won’t be equal pay between genders until 2059 or 44 years later (“Pay Equity”). In history, women were not allowed to work and their job were to be full time housewives. As time passed, women started realizing that they are able to go out into the work force and they have the ability just as men do. Women fought for the right to work and they received what they wanted but their salary was different from what was given to men. They were discriminated because of their gender and women were treated unfairly simply just because they were

Pregnancy and maternity leave is another form of discrimination seen in workplaces. Women are less likely to be hired due to maternity leave where they have to leave for a long period of time due to child birth (Larson). Recently, New York Times has been sued for gender discrimination by a former ad executive, Arielle Davis. Davis was recently laid off while she was on maternity leave for four months. She was “entitled to six months” but her managers “pressured her to take less than four moths” (Roy). Her leave did not affect her department of work in anyway yet she was laid off right before she was about to go back to work. There are several laws such as the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act that are supposed to protect women from being fired because they are taking time off to give birth. Even with these laws, women are still being laid off because of maternity leave just as Davis was. It is absolutely wrong to treat a woman differently or discriminate her because she is pregnant. Every woman deserves the right to have a job and start a family at the same