Question

explain reasons for the pay gap; discuss the glass ceiling and sexual harassment in the workplace. Is it getting better or worse? what can be done?

Answer 1

The reasons for pay gap can be many and it effects individuals in many different ways. Pay gap usually refers to low wages paid to the women for doing the same job as compared to men. The reasons behind pay gap can be described as below:

- discrimination and biases at workplace

- questions on competence and skills of women at workplace

- flexibility of job for example, 24 hours and 7 days working

- different choices of jobs, for example, not all jobs hire women and prefer men

- stereotypes about genders for instance, women can not drive better then men or at workplece it can be like women are not able to do a certain task better than men

- there is also a phenomenon called motherhood penalty which is also considered as cause of discrimination in pay for women

- the performance of women is undervalued at workplece

1. Glass ceiling effect: an unobservable and unbreakable barrier or obstacle that prevents women or lets say minority groups from promotion to higher places or being successful in the workplace regardless of the educational qualificationsof the individuals. Prejudices and biases are the main cause of this phenomenon that promotes dicrimination against women at workplace. Individuals try to overpower women and it is kind of a glass ceiling that is present, clear and transparent but can not be seen untill the individual hits the barrier, it is like a metaphor for discrimination which is experinced by the women or minorities but no action can be taken against it. Women tend to feel that there is a certain limit which they can not get access to, no matter how hard they try or how much work they put in to get a certain promotion or a desired outcome because of that glass ceiling that is present there in their workplace.

2. Sexual harassment: This can be explained as unwanted touch, sexual intentions, stares, teasing, commenting or physical contact with women at workplace. It is exteremely hostile environment at worlplace and is very derogatory in terms of mental aspects as well. The patriarchal structure of society or communities add on to the sexual harassment of women at workplace and also jealousy, superiority complex, emotions like being felt disrespectful or negligence and mere pervert thoughts of individuals are some other factors that give rise to sexual harassment of women.

The main cause of paygap; glass ceiling and sexual harassment have been increasing and getting worse over the time. Some aspects of these phenomenon are getting better for example, women are able to get more into jobs than earlier times but are more prevalent to fall prey to glass ceiling effect and sexual harassment at workplace now a days. There are laws against the sexual harassment at workplace but are not implemented effectively due to the loopholes and lack of awareness with courage to comeout against such events. Women try to save their job and support their family which kind of becomes a weakness for them and they absorb the derogatory work environment for the sake of their job. Women feel that the company will anyway win the cases in court because of the power and male superiority comes into play but they fail to recognise the law in the first place and do not report such events which further complicates the conditions for other women also and gives rise to many more such cases. However, now a days it is getting better and women are trying to come out and rebelling aginst such issues, and glass celing is also brought in the broad daylightto be tackled. There are many ways to handle such effects like if individuals is at a higher position in the company and is observing such effect they can take actions to minimize it by priortizing women slection or women pairing with men to work collectively on a certain same task. As far as sexual harassment is concerned, there are a lot of laws and even company guidelines that strictly condemn such activities and encourage women to staright away report them to special commeties made in workplace and ensure strong and strict actions agianst the offender.