The empowerment of women is one of the concepts that has taken place in the whole business world recently. So why is it so important for women to find a place in business life?
Women face much discrimination in the workplace, from unequal salaries to not getting the promotions they deserve. Understanding these barriers is the first step toward empowering women in the workplace.
What Does Gender Discrimination Look Like at Work?
Gender discrimination in the workplace begins with the inequality in the number of female and male employees. Especially the number of women working as senior managers is very few in Turkey as in the world. Among the reasons for this situation, women's withdrawal from business life after life events such as marriage and childbirth and difficulties in getting promotions can be shown. In addition, the low number of educated women emerges as one of the most important reasons for the imbalance between men and women, especially among white-collar workers.
Gender discrimination in the workplace can manifest in many ways. The fact that individuals doing the same job do not receive the same salary due to their gender, women's difficulties in getting promotion, and prejudices about the role of the mother can be given as a few examples of gender discrimination in the workplace.
Unequal Salaries
Studies conducted in the United States revealed that women aged between 25-34 earned 83 cents for every dollar earned by men. 1 Looking at European countries, the difference in earnings between male and female employees is 17%. 2 In Turkey, the difference is 15.6%, so the imbalance between salaries is a global problem. 3
Another factor to be considered about unequal earnings is the situations such as cleaning, cooking, caregiving a child or a family member that women do without any financial gain in their home life. Studies have revealed that unprofitable household work is done by women 3 times more than men, and the majority of women who do these jobs continue to work full-time or part-time in line with their careers.
Promotion Barriers
In a global context, it has been revealed in many studies that women and men do not have equal opportunities.
Although getting a promotion seems to be a very natural process that comes with experience for men, this process can take a long time or not happen in women due to many different factors. To summarize these factors briefly:
? Difficulty getting an education
? Thoughts of having a child
? Anxiety and lack of self-esteem
? Social networking challenge
? Gender roles
? Gender bias
? Men are more assertive in promotion
The “Motherhood” Bias
Although motherhood is considered sacred, “motherhood” at work may not be sacred for women. Employees who are mothers are faced with prejudices by other employees that they are not sufficiently committed or passionate about their work due to having children.
Women, who are already exposed to many prejudices on the grounds of gender, may be exposed to discrimination in the workplace, such as smaller assignments and not being sent on business trips, with the thought that they will become a mother as soon as they get engaged.
Interestingly, it is not only women who face motherhood prejudice, but also men who have children, after taking leave at work for family reasons, are exposed to this prejudice and must deal with less responsibility in their work life.