An Analysis of Gender Discrimination in Modern Organizations

This essay delves into the pervasive issue of gender discrimination in the workplace, examining both direct and indirect forms. Direct discrimination, encompassing gender and sexual harassment, is contrasted with indirect discrimination, where policies disproportionately affect certain groups. The essay provides examples from various organizations, including Microsoft, and highlights global statistics on pay gaps, participation rates, and representation in leadership roles. It explores the impact of discrimination on women, emphasizing the need for anti-discrimination policies and employee training. The essay concludes by advocating for a workplace culture of respect and equal opportunity to combat gender bias. The analysis draws on various research papers and reports to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Discrimination is a common term which we heard a lot in our daily routine when we talk about
the women at workplace. “Discrimination” occurs when someone treated differently with others
just because of gender, religion, language, race, sexual preference or national origin. According
to the Professor Wouter Vandenhole, there is no universally accepted definition of discrimination
but as per the International Covenant Civil & Political Rights said that, “the law prohibits the
discrimination with any employee at workplace on the basis of sex, color, race, religion, social or
national origin, birth, property or other status” (Article 26) For example, “In 2002 a group of
young boys who belonged to ROMA was restricted to enter into a bar by a guard and he said that
ROMA people are not allowed in this bar” (Schiek Dagmar, Lisa Waddington & Mark Bell,
2007) This policy of bar shows the negative impact towards the people of ROMA as bar
management targeted the people of ROMA which is not right.”
There are various forms of discrimination but here we will discuss the most common two of
them which is faced women in organizations. First one is direct discrimination & the second one
is indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is when someone is treated differently and
worse than others in terms of age, marriage, maternity, race, religion sex or sexual orientation. It
is also called gender harassment & sexual harassment. (Anon., 2017) It is also discrimination
when some pregnant women give priority rather than others just because of her pregnancy. Even
though it is good to treat well with pregnant women but as per law it is discrimination. There are
a lot of examples where women discriminated just because her race, religion etc. For example,
Microsoft a well renowned name was sued by a female employee just because of discrimination
in terms gender basis. Katie Moussouris who worked for seven years in Microsoft claimed that
female employees offer fewer salaries or promotions rather than the men who have same
qualification & expertise even some female employees are much active & qualified but their
salaries are low then the low performer men employees. (Leena Rao , 2015) In 2012, Computer
Science Corporation was prosecuted by a high position female executive who was terminated as
she identified the organizational discrimination & harassment with female employees. Same like
that Quest Diagnostics and AmeriPath was accused because of systematic discriminations
against women which later they had distributed 152$ Million to all its current & previous
females employees after the court order (Lahle Wolfe, 2017) Direct discrimination is not always
an intentional discrimination sometimes employer set such criteria which will be beneficial for
its own organization but could be tough for women. So, it is not right that direct discrimination is

always an intentional discrimination. (Nilanjana Dasgupta, Jack Glaser & Curtis D. Hardin,
2009) Indirect discrimination occurs when any policy or rule which is applicable to all
employees but it has worse effect on some specific people than others like dress code &
appearance policy of any organization. Religious festival is also an example of indirect
discrimination. Most often organization has some dress policies which is applicable to all
employees but because of religion such policies become worse for such religious people like not
to wear any scarf which will be a worse policy for any Muslim female. (Anon., 2017) It is
different from direct discrimination as in this discrimination you can discriminate with any
specific person because in this some specific group could be affected. For example, from last
few years Muslim women were treated badly at workplace in European countries just because of
hijabs or scarf. (ACLU, 2016) In McDonnell Douglas Corporation, a female applied for a job,
after test or interview she qualified but she was denied just because an administration wanted to
offer that job to someone else who even didn’t qualify for that job but administration wanted to
give him that job on the basis of favoritism. (Debbie Muller, 2015) Same like that a UK living
Spanish girl applied for an accounts job & qualified but she was denied because employer
mentioned “native English speaker” as a requirement. It is an example of indirect racism
discrimination in which employer sets some rules for its organization which indirectly affects the
others.
Unethical acts of organizations are captured or publicized in no time & grabbed the attraction of
public, politician, media, internet etc. Like Volkswagen’s emission scandal was highlighted in no
time in all over the world and even they were accused & charged a heavy amount. Such incident
affected their brand image & reputation in all over the world. Discrimination is also an unethical
act of organizations but mostly been overlooked & no action been taken. Discrimination is not
only specific to any country, region or state. It is a global issue at workplace & mostly women
have to face it. According to the survey which was conducted by UKCES in 2015, 8 out of 10
women believed that gender discrimination is still exist while 45% women claimed that they
personally experienced gender discrimination at their workplaces. (Megan Jeapes, 2016)
In 2016, an Australian biased “workplace gender equally agency” conducted a research on
discrimination with the help of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation &
Development), World Bank & ABS and collected the data of 28 countries. The basic purpose of

this research is to find the ratio of discrimination proportion of each country & for this purpose
they categorized men & women into different discrimination practices.
Above are the results of pay gap difference between men & women and in every country men
has high salary than women. Only five countries Denmark, Norway, Belgium, New Zealand &
Hungary have below 10% which shows a positive message of gender equality as compared to

other countries while three countries Korea, Japan & Finland are above 20% which gives a
negative message of gender equality pay gap between men & women. (Workplace Gender
Equality, 2015)
According to the OECD, average participation rate of female in 28 countries is 67.2% while for
men is 79.7% while shows that men have also an upper edge in this category. The highest

participation rate of women is in Iceland 84.2% which is followed by Sweden 79.3% &
Switzerland by 79% while lowest participation rate of women is in Turkey, Mexico & Italy
respectively. Women are emotional & sensitive which could be the one reason of women’s low
participation. (Workplace Gender Equality, 2015)

Above mentioned result shows the position of women in organizational board of director which
lead the organization & do decision making processes. In every country men has a privilege on
women. Most often people consider that women are so emotional so its bit risky for any
organization to make them a part of decision making because when you have to run a business
you have to work through strategies rather than to use your emotions. Result shows that Iceland
has the best percentage of women seats in boards while Japan is the least one. (Workplace
Gender Equality, 2015)

Above mentioned figure is showing the percentage of men & women of different countries who
are at some managerial position. Australia has the highest percentage of female managers which
is 8.9% while Korea has the lowest proportion of female managers which is 0.4%. It shows that
Korean don’t have trust on women skills or abilities that they can perform their duties on any
managerial position. (Workplace Gender Equality, 2015)

This figure shows the ratio of attainment of education till graduation & in every country except
Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Chile, Germany & Poland; women have high proportion than men.
But still women discriminated in every country which is not fair with them. They should be
treated equally like men as they have high literacy rate than men. (Workplace Gender Equality,
2015)
If we talked about the seats of Parliament rather than any public or private organizational
positions then here are the results.

Not only in public or private organization; had women also treated the same in Parliamentary
seats which is drawback of every country. They should need to treat them equally which will
ultimately help in the better of that country. Only Sweden, Mexico, Finland, Iceland & Spain
have more than 40% proportion. (Workplace Gender Equality, 2015)
According to the above mentioned different figures which show the dominancy of men in every
aspect except attainment of education. Women are rising & coming forward but still a lot of

difficulties they have to face. It is observed that in developed countries, gender discrimination
rate is bit low because of their high literacy rate where they respect each other. But if we look in
couple of decades back then this proportion was much low as compared to today’s proportion of
women at workplace.
(Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016)
Above mention figure shows the employment rate & gender discrimination which shows both
are in increasing trend. As in incident times women were not encouraged to perform any job but

as awareness is increasing day by day, females are not much encouraged to do some sort of jobs
which is also creating a lot of problems of gender discrimination.
Discrimination is a major issue for women which sometimes lead them to attempt a suicide.
There are a number of cases of discrimination & harassment at workplace which ended with the
death of that affected woman. Discrimination should be stopped at organizational level.
Organizations should need to develop some antidiscrimination rules & laws for its employee and
should be instructed to every employee that the person who breaks that antidiscrimination law;
should be fired or terminated. Every new employee should be trained according to the
antidiscrimination rules of that organization and once in a year training of overall employees
should be conducted on discrimination effects for a business organization. (Michael Arnold,
2016) Discrimination has to be stopped from employees end too and for this purpose employees
should need to respect their each colleague ether it’s male or female. They should avoid talking
on social discrimination; jokes can be shared with others but carefully. It is possible that your
joke can hurt someone easily. In diverse workplace, employees belong to different backgrounds,
religions or languages; rather than to make fun of anyone. Employee should need to learn his
colleague language which will encourage him or her; he should need to be open in terms of
religious talk. Employees should need to increase their social circle within the organization
which will create a positive image of you into others mind. Gender discrimination has a very bad
impact on the females which should be clogged & country’s government or law should need to
take stern action against the person or group who increases the wave of discrimination.
Bibliography
ACLU, 2016. Discrimination Against Muslim Women - Fact Sheet. [Online] Available at:
https://www.aclu.org/other/discrimination-against-muslim-women-fact-sheet [Accessed 30 September
2017].
Anon., 2017. Direct discrimination. [Online] Available at: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/wales/law-
and-courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/direct-discrimination/
[Accessed 28 September 2017].
Anon., 2017. Indirect discrimination. [Online] Available at: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-
courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/indirect-discrimination/ [Accessed
29 September 2017].
Claudia Olivetti & Barbara Petrongolo, 2016. The Evolution of Gender Gaps in Industrialized Countries.
pp.35 - 40.