The Unfair Policy Against Women in Workforce

Women, for many years, have been deprived of many fundamental rights and opportunities. Women’s unwillingness to speak made men confident of their authority and power over society. And If a woman even tries to speak up, men crushes them into silence and intimidates them and eventually doubts herself and loses self-confidence (Solnit 12).

Race is also a big factor why women are at a disadvantage compared to men. In the US, the country is basically run by straight-white-male authority. If you’re not white, if you’re not straight and if you’re not a man, you are basically at a disadvantage. Gender has a big impact when it comes to choosing a career. Women can work in a male-dominated workplace but still, women’s career advancement and promotion are slow compared to men. Women are also prone to sexual harassment. A lot of feminists are pushing women’s rights and help to straighten justice and equality between men and women, but the system is not perfect. In the society, all gender has important roles, but these roles do not mean that a gender should be limited to such standards.

Believe it or not, women still get paid less than men. According to PayScale.com, a data company and a website that helps employers to manage employee compensation, in the uncontrolled gender pay gap, a woman earns 79 cents for every $1 a man earns. That is a 21% difference in men's salary. If a male employee makes $40,000.00 annual salary, a woman would make $31,600.00. That is $8,400.00 less and that is a huge difference. Race plays a role too when it comes to the wage gap. The largest uncontrolled pay gap is for American Indian, Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic women. Women with these races get paid $0.74 for every dollar a White man earns. If you do the math, that is 26% less than White men. Women work as hard as men and have more workload when they reach their homes. Women are not compensated at home and surely not compensated well at work either.

Women are working as hard as men and not getting the same pay. A woman can have the same qualifications as a man but still a second choice after the male candidate. A woman can have the highest score among all the male candidates but would still not get a position or job that she applied for. A man and a woman can have the same job but in the race of climbing the corporate ladder, the man is always ahead. Women may have to struggle more to get to that position compared to men. Dianna Chan, writer at the website Stars and Stripes, said that according to the women who responded to their poll, 68.5% of women who serve and served in the military had experienced discrimination based on gender. These numbers are just for one career paths women are trying to get rid of the stereotype.

Women are prone to sexual harassment in the military, office or at any other workplace. Is it because women are expected to be fragile and just an object of sexual desire or is it because women are subjected to society’s stereotypes that has been carved in mankind’s mind? Men in higher position with big ego, terrible work ethics and men who are abusive of their authority and power are usually the ones who offer indecent proposal or unwelcome sexual advances to women in exchange for a better position at the workplace, lighter workload, and favors. Some men just do it because they want to discriminate. Belittling women because of society's stereotypes labeled on them. Women in the military are no exception in this issue. According to the report given to SWAN also known as Service Women’s Action Network, a community that stands as the voice of military women, 20,500 service members were sexually assaulted in the FY18 with 6.2% of women and 0.7% of men experiencing sexual assault.