Ethics and Legal Issues on Gender Discrimination on Workplace

Ethics and Legal Issues on Gender Discrimination on Workplace

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Introduction

In the recent time, the issues of gender discrimination in the workplace have continued to be a great problem. It problem irks a lot to many people more so to the affected people such as women who are not allowed and included in various corporate work and also various working government institutions among others. Notably, Federal Law in the United State of America protects women and other minorities from unjustified and unlawful gender discrimination. For example, of such law is the ‘The Equal Pay of 1963 whose main aim is to ensure that both genders received equal payments for the same duties. More to that in the year 1964 the Civil Rights Acts deed reduce the gender discrimination by extending their protection to the minor people. The gender discrimination is a matter to be taken in a lot of seriousness as it has affected most of the employees and this has led to a great effect on the people.

Some of the activities such as sexual harassment, giving information that makes one inferior to others. To reduce this the USA government came up with federal law which prohibits the offensive actions that lead to workplace harassment. It is worth noting that the Civil Service Reform Acts provide support to all the Civil Rights Acts and this is through declining the punishment of people who are bold enough to report the ethnic discrimination acts. Some may argue that is ethical to discriminate against gender since there are some positive results. For example, they argue that women who get pregnant do not much time dedicated to jobs since they will have many breaks during labor and also during breastfeeding their kids. They also have a stereotype that some jobs are meant to be for specific genders.

Background

In the United State, gender discrimination is real. The discrimination based on gender and overall on people is based on their racial or cultural and ethnicity orientation. Like I have underlined in the introduction, the gender discrimination is forbidden by the Federal and also state laws (Cascio, 2018). Many types of research have been carried and it indicates that approximately, seventy percent of people in the country believe that there is discrimination based on gender. In some companies, they allow women to work in them while other allow men to have a bigger advantage. Some people will argue that it is morally justified hence ethical while another clam that it is retrogressive, barbaric and uncouth (Bartlett, 2016).

Gender discrimination has created a huge obstacle for people’s professional growth in various careers and the inequalities are haunting individuals and also the firms or corporate sector at large. It is worth noting that has been fought vehemently since time memorial and in 1963, the government passed the ‘Equal Pay Act’ where before, it was very legal to have different remuneration based on different genders and this act disallowed people in the workplace to be paid different rates based on the gender. This was backed by passing Civil Rights Act in 1964.

In the workplace, many women are much time subjected to various subtle discrimination and this is by both sexes. Some women are never promoted or employed permanently employed since they become pregnant and this is called pregnancy discrimination and the jobs are passed to less qualified males by virtue of them being men. This has led ethical issues since people are supposed to be treated equally regardless of their gender (Barak, 2016). Many women are subjected to discrimination because of their physical outlook, how they wear and their completion. Some women will be employed because of their beauty and their expensive wear despite the fact that they are not qualified and this closes out many qualified men who may not have that favor. This is more so if those employing or recruiting are men. Equally, other women are not employed or promoted by women who may think the former has good outlook than them. It is unethical and illegal to discriminate people in workplace whatsoever. This can be supported by the passing of the ‘Equal Pay Act of 1963’ (Barak, 2016).

‘Equal Pay Act of 1963

This act came to demystify the vice of gender discrimination and it stated that no employer will subject any employee to discrimination based on their sex be it on employment, promotion or any other employee’s benefit. Everyone needs to be paid and remunerated equally for an equal job done, performance and equal skills under any similar working condition (Barak, 2016). Equally, there will be no labor organization, representative of employees or agents shall expose the employee to discrimination. Generally, the act clearly states or prohibit the discrimination of people in the workplace on account of their sex (Cascio, 2018).

Effects of Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination is a vice and it’s unethical since it goes against people which is right to equal pay, treatment, appraisals among others. In this case, the discrimination lead to people who are fewer skills being employed or being promoted to a management position and this will lead to losing productivity since unskilled labor employed will not perform and those discriminated in the workplace will feel unmotivated and also lose morale (Stamarski, 2015). There might also be the promotion of unskilled manages who will not manage the production process well and this lead to low productivity. There will be self-destruction since those discriminated against will have strong resentment and they will have loss of self-worth.

References

Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.

Bartlett, K. T., Rhode, D. L., & Grossman, J. L. (2016). Gender and law: Theory, doctrine, commentary. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.

Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Stamarski, C. S., & Son Hing, L. S. (2015). Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers’ sexism. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1400.