Sex Discrimination Essay, Research Paper

Sex Discrimination

Despite Legislation for Equal Opportunities, sexism is still in evidence in

the workplace.

Sexism is a particular concern for society when considering it’s effect in the

workplace. Sexism has always been a particular problem in the labour

market especially with the formation of capitalism. In the last half of the

20th century this has been especially highlighted due to the increase of

woman entering the labour market. This aroused the need for a legislation

for equal opportunity for both sex’s to be passed in 1975. It stated that

discrimination of a persons sex whether male or female was unlawful in

employment, union membership, education, provision of goods, services,

advertisements and pay.

In this essay the discussion will cover subjects such as why woman hold a

large percentage of the work force in companies but hardly any seem to

have any power. Obstacles in the way of woman in careers, ifwomen

prefer different jobs to men, equal pay for both sexes and what’s changed

since the law was made an Act of Parliament. This essay will only

concentrate on the problem of sex discrimination in the U.K.

Sex discrimination means that a person gets treated in a less favorable

manner because of their sex. A good example of this is to take two fictional

characters, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. The Jones’s want to go swimming, they get

to the swimming baths where they find that Mrs. Jones is charged an O.A.P.

price while Mr. Jones has to pay the full price even though they are both the

same age. This is because woman become pensioners at the age of sixty

while men cannot gain the benefits until they are sixty five.

Sex discrimination is not only present within the older generation but is also

evident throughout the entire age range. Before legislation was passed in the

1960’s most young girls left school after O-levels to receive a strong social

message that their careers where already setup for them as marriage and

motherhood (Pascall 1995: 2). The only jobs they would be getting were

tedious low paid jobs (a Secretary) and be only looking forward to when

they would meet a man, have a family and settle down. Statistics show that

in 1971, 51% of married women did not work compared to 29% in 1993

(Pascall 1995: 3). Women now hold 46% of the labor work force, with

young women seeing housework more of a part-time rather than a full time

job. This is an enormous social change for the family giving women less

dependence on marriages which are increasingly falling apart day by day

and a greater command over the increasing area of technology and resources.

With more women getting jobs, it encourages other woman who were reluctant

to move into the labour market to do the same and become more career

minded.

Although woman now make up 46% of the English work force only 3% of

woman hold chief executive positions. This has only increased by 2% in the

last 20 years (Mildrew 1992: 17). A point to be raised here is that as the

hierarchy of management positions increases, the amount of women in these

positions decreases. This quite clearly means that woman do not hold the

prestige and influence that men do, as their sector of high ranking jobs is so

small. We’ve all heard men say at some point, “I just don’t understand

women”, yet there are only 5 woman High Court Judges out of 91 men and 28

women circuit judges out of 496 men in the Judiciary in 1993 (Pascall 1995:

2).

Thanks to media attention women do have access to careers. In 1980 woman

made up 12-14% of professional and managerial jobs. In 1990 the figure had

raised to 32% managers/administrators and 40% professionals. On the other

hand women seem to fall into different sectors to men, they make up 62% of

teachers and librianship but only 25% of business and financial professionals

and shockingly only 5% of engineers and technologists. Teaching is a qualified

position, 90% of primary school teachers and 60% of secondary teachers are

women but 50% primary and 80% secondary school heads are men. This is the

same right the way across the specturm, in university only 5% of professors

are women (Pascall 1995: 3).

This segregation of gender in different jobs can be separated into two

dimensions, vertical and horizontal. Vertical segregation is the segregation

of gender in the hierarchy of power in a certain job. Woman tend to be found at

the low end of vertical segregation in professional occupations. Horizontal

segregation is the segregation of gender in the spread of different

occupations.

Woman are usually found dominating teaching while men dominate

engineering. Data from the Eurostat Labour survey shows whenwoman break

horizontal segregation by increasing their presencein a particular

occupation, vertical segregation becomes securely established. This is shown

by the fact that 3 per cent of all clerks and typists in 1911 were woman.

By 1971 the situation had reversed and woman dominated this area. As soon as

the number of woman increased, office work was down graded and became a low

paid dead end job by deskilling. Theactivities where broken down to suit what was

thought as women’s abilities (Mildrew 1992: 12).

Educational qualifications are a must for anyone who wants a career (man or

woman). 20 years ago girls would have left education at the end of their O-

levels being norm. In the 1991/92 GCSE results 42.7% of girls compared with

34.1% of boys received 5 or more A-C grades and 16.1% compared with

14.4% of boys received 3 or more passes at A-Level. The number of woman

students at university has tripled in the last 21 years which is almost twice

the increase for male, making up 48% of the student population. At degree level

46-48% of medicine/business and financial students are women but only 12%

take engineering or technology. These men / woman dominated areas are

clearly seen, simply by looking in classrooms at secondary or university

education. 91% of sociology classes are female dominated and about 90% of

computer science / physics, classes are male dominated (Pascall 1995: 4).

The Sex Discrimination Act is in power to help woman in a number of ways

and lets them into previously closed doors. However due to the fact that most

legal institutions are male dominated it is not quite as clear cut as it may

seem on the outside. The law is often interpreted restrictivly meaning a woman may

have to fight an unequal battle with her employer and even if they come out

victorious little compensation is received and she may be victimized at work

in the aftermath.

A major need for the discrimination act is to try to help break down the

presence of what is known as theglass ceiling’. This is where men get

promoted and go further up the managerial hierarchy while woman get to a

certain position and can not climb any further. Although they can see the men

climbing further up the company they cannot break the glass ceiling

themselves (Gregg 1991: 8).

A study called Indsco’ in a large industrial conglomerate lead by Rosabeth

Moss Kanter (A management professor at Harvard) in 1977, recognized that

people who work in large organizations have a tendency to hire and promote

those who resemble themselves (Mildrew 1992: 17).

Unfortunately some men feel uncomfortable with women being their equals

and since men dominate managerial levels they have much more control over

peoples careers beneath them. If men do not recognize women as their equals,

then women are overlooked for transfer or promotion, findthemselves

directed intofemale’ job areas and are not offered a challenge. Men use

strategies to cope with women such as patronizing them, not listening to them

seriously, being over protective and shielding them from dangerous situations

so they never have the knowledge of how to cope (Allen 1993 p26).

The Employment Act 1978 gives women going through pregnancy and child

birth the right to have time off with no loss of position. This is only given

however to woman who have a career involving full time and continuous

employment and stops just 29 weeks after childbirth (Pascall 1995: 4).

Parental leave, flexible hours and care of the child in sickness and health is

left for the employer and employee to discuss.

This is a very complex problem because once a child is born it must have the

proper care and attention. Nursery provisions for women who want to go back

to work are appalling. Only 2% of work places have nursery facilities and the

male dominated government seem to think that the problem doesn’t exist!

Shocking statistics show that for every 14 females that work full time there

is only one which has children between the ages of 0 and 15 years old. i.e. There

is 4,200,000 woman with no children in full time work and only 300,000

woman with children between the age of 0 to 15 (Pascall 1995: 4). Taking into

account that most woman would like to have at least one baby, there is going

to be a lot of woman in low paid jobs. Professions such as medicine which

require an intensive course of work to build up the knowledge for the career

has actually implied a ban on woman with children. Even traditional woman’s

jobs such as nursing do not have a career that can comfortably take on board

a woman with her off-spring.

Since for most women all this is a bit to much they will most certainly turn

to part-time employment which will be punished by lower grading and pay.

In 1975 the equal pay act came into power. This made it illegal to offer

different wages for the same work on the grounds of sex. Men’s full time

wages over woman’s fell drastically. The gap has been narrowing ever since.

The New Earnings Survey (NES) shows that in 1980, men’s pay stood 40%

more on average over women’s and in 1992 that gap had narrowed to 25%.

Woman in low paid jobs, where before were paid much less then men now

have leveled up to the same wage or sometimes higher. However in high flying

jobs there still is a large wage difference. The NES showed that woman’s

hourly earnings where on an average 70.9% of men’s in 1990. The problem

being is that since woman go into different areas of work than men it may be

very difficult to compare the skills and amount of work they do to claim equal

pay.

We can see that even with the law, there are many loop holes that clever

employees can seek. This isn’t the only thing that stands in the way of woman

who want a career, there are many other obstacles. Society is a very powerful

instrument, people get molded by the society they are in. It changes the way

people think and act. Also (From personal experiance) many children are

directed to appropriatetraditional’ subjects by their secondary

socialization in schools particularly byold fashioned’ teachers.

Unfortunately the law is not beneficial to everyone. It is not allowed to be

broken, but there are numerous ways of stretching it! A good example of this

is D.Quinnen vs Mr. J.H. Hovell. Mr. Hovell hired 2 woman and 1 man to

work in his store at Christmas time. The 2 woman got paid more than the man.

Mr. Quinnen complained and was dismissed, he claimed equal pay and sex

discrimination.

Mr. Quinnen took this case to the industrial tribunal (I.T.). At a preliminary

hearing the tribunal dismissed Mr. Quinnens claims on the grounds that he was

not employed by Mr. Hovell as the definition of employment was that there

was acontract of service’ which Mr. Quinnens did not have. Mr. Quinnens

actually then to took his case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal which

awarded him ?530 (E.O.C 1989: 63), but most people would not take the case

this far after getting turned away by the I.T. A useful rule for woman is that

the law works on the rule of precedent, where if a woman has won a case before

almost in the same position as the woman who may want to go to court now,

the previous case will be used as a base for the prevailing case. With this in

mind woman can almost see what the outcome of the case will be before even

going to court, saving themselves victimization from male counterparts.

From what we have seen it appears that male dominance is to be blamed for

women’s under achievement in the work place. However this may be a one

sided view. Once a woman gets a job in power she may adopt the I had to

work hard to get where I am so why shouldn’t others’ attitude and will

discourage other woman from taking responsibility. Woman also tend to be

more cautious then men, a survey by British Gas showed that when a

opportunity came up in their company for a job with more power the women

would only apply for it if they fitted the whole job criteria unlike men who

applied for it even if they didn’t fill half the description (Allen 1993:30).

The other obstacle that woman would seem to set up for themselves is their own

confidence. A study taped seven university faculty meetings and found that

men’s contributions before someone broke in ranged from 11 to 17 seconds

while woman’s where 3 to 10 seconds. Women also use deferential tag lines

like “Don’t you think?” and “Isn’t it?” far more often then men and are

reluctant to delegate work so they overload themselves (Mildrew 1992: 18).

In reflection to the examples given evidence shows that the effectiveness of

introducing the numerous acts of parliament have not been entirely successful

on implementation. Trends show that through out education females have been

directed towards traditional feminine subjects. Lack of fundamental education

needed to back up university courses have reflected women’s immobility to

achieve positions of high statues in the whole range of occupations. Mature

woman share this problem as lack of qualifications in appropriate subjects

prevents them from achieving powerful positions.

Clearly, it can be seen that women are getting the same wage as men in low

paying jobs since the Sexual Discrimination act was passed in 1975 but there

is still a long way to go until woman in managerial jobs get an equal wage to

there counterparts. The fact that women are entering different job areas to

men e.g. Teaching / Social working, means that even if a woman takes a company

to court because she believes she is not getting paid as much as a male

employee, even though she is using the same skills and has the same work

load, this is very hard to prove if the two employees are not doing the same

job.

With most woman wanting babies, and leaving full time work to have a child

and probably only taking up part-time work after it is born, it gives

directors of companies a very bad opinion of women in powerful jobs as they believe

that as soon as the woman has worked her way up she will leave the company

due to maternity leave and never be able to keep up the same quality of work

as before. Women tend to naturally set obstacles in their own way and it seems

that the only way to get a powerful, influential, prestigious job is to never

have a baby and are never get married.

The law is not much use for woman in power as there is so many males above

them in any company. The usefulness of the law can be seen however in the

fact ofprecedent’ where any previous case of a woman taking a company to

court for sexual discrimination or equal pay and winning may be considered

in a similar court case.

The glass ceiling is a major obstacle preventing woman from achieving high

status professions. However since the law has been in power I believe that the

glass ceiling is cracking but it’s going to take a lot more years to see any

kind of noticeable improvements in woman’s careers.