Sex Discrimination in the Workplace: Strategies for Dealing with Diminished Responsibilities, Bullying, and Cultural Intolerance

Running head: SCENARIO 1
SCENARIO 1
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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SCENARIO 1
Scenario 1:
Researchers have opined that sex discrimination may be direct as well as indirect. Direct
sex discrimination takes place when an employee is subjected to unfavorable and opportunities
because of their sex. Indirect sex determination mainly takes place about what sort of
workwomen and men are capable or incapable of doing (Barak 2016). On analysis of the case
study, it was found that the female employee named Danielle was exposed to gender biased
attitudes and the behaviors of the male employees subjected her to indirect sex determination.
This case falls in the category of diminished responsibilities. This mainly means that the males
and the females are not given the same responsibilities and the opportunities based on the gender.
The case study shows examples of situations and events that fall in the category (Schultz 2018).
As she is a female, the duties of arranging coffees, birthday parties and similar others are given
to her. Although the males are equally capable of arranging for such events, the males of the
office do not do so. They categorize such actions to be feminine and hence allocate such actions
to Danielle only. Moreover sexist remarks are also made to her as people are seen to call them
“office mom” when “office dads” title is not provded to anyone. This shows that the workplace
environment discriminated between males and females. The CEO who was complained about the
gender discrimination by Danielle was also seen to avoid the topic stating that Danielle is being
over sensitive. In the real sense, the CEO should have supported the claims of the female
employees and should have discussed her concerns in details. He should have taken steps to
develop the organizational culture where such discrimination biasness does not take place. This
would have resulted in increase of the productivity of the organization and would have increased
morale and job satisfaction of Danille. Rather he turned a deaf ear and neglected the issue. In a
way, he was also a supporter of the issue and he did not protest against the issue. Such

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SCENARIO 1
mentalities needed to be changed both in order to avoid legal obligation and to influence
employee morale, job satisfaction and meeting organizational goals effectively. (Helms and
Mills 2017)
One of the strategies that Danielle can undertake is maintaining a transparency of what
she feels about the recent scenario and thereby discusses the same with the male employees as
well as the female employees in an open discussion session in a meeting. She should establish
her point about how being called with such titles affect her dignity and affects her morale
(Basford, Offermann and Behrand 2014). She should also establish the fact that she is
accomplishing all her assigned duties successfully and are conducting the same work as that of
the males. All these should be discussed not in the arrogant tone but in a polite yet confident
manner so that a transparency can be maintained.
The second initiative that Danielle can undertake is to have a meeting with the human
resource department and discuss the issues with her. Without taking particular name of the
employees and exposing them to the human resource department, she should suggest the HRM to
introduce a number of steps in order to make a better organizational culture for both the genders.
She might suggest the department to hold training sessions for development of the organizational
culture, introduce various policies that might make the male employees more careful, proactive
in providing job roles to all irrespective of their gender roles (Cortina, Rabelo and Holland 2018
The third strategy that Danielle can undertake is that she can disclose all the issues she
has faced and her feelings to those male employees who are supportive of her and do not possess
any negative feelings. Taking such an initiative will have two better outcomes, this would help
the other male members to know about the issues that their female colleagues are facing and