WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN

Workplace Discrimination against Men

WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN

Introduction

Gender equality is a fundamental right, a common value of every country and a necessary condition for the achievement of country's employment, social cohesion and growth. Although the inequalities or discrimination still exist in the system, but as the time has passed significance progress has been made towards the achievement of equality between men and women. This has basically happened because of the equal treatment laws passes by the legislation, gender mainstreaming and measures taken for the advancement of both the genders. (Hurst 2010, 09)

Though gender discrimination exists everywhere, our prime focus will be workplace. The workplace or a business organization can be described as a place where professionals, be it male or female, meet to accomplish a goal under organizational structural settings. Here people come together to work for the goof of the company where in exchange they get salary, wages, earning or income keeping it free from gender discrimination. However, since humans are error prone, therefore the discrimination occurs in the workplace. In organizations throughout the world, emphasis has always been on gender equality and laws are made in order to prohibit employers from discriminating against the job seekers or employees. (Cotter, Joan and Reeve 2000, 87)

Regardless of the fact that majority of the workplace discrimination in an organization is about women, does not mean that men cannot become the victims of discrimination. Therefore, for this reason, the law of gender equality or discrimination is extended to men also. Actually, it is an equity law that is made to protect both sexes. But because the discrimination cases happen against women more, it seems like the law is protecting women only; however, this is not the case. Just like there are cases of women being discriminated, there are cases where men have to face discrimination in the workplace. (Massey 2007, 98)

Ethnicity also has an impact on gender discrimination. It refers to a group's culture and race. For example, India has a homogenous race of people but has varied cultural differences and many of them are bases on religion. For example there are Sikhs, Hindus, Gujratis etc. SO religion is one of the factors of ethnicity where other factors being Language, food preparation, preferences and gender roles. The difference between ethnicity and race is that, race covers a larger subset of people than ethnicity; In other words, you can be in the same race, with a different ethnicity. Coming back to ethnicity, gender roles vary from one ethnic group to other. In some ethnic group, women stay at home and take care of children while in some groups both men and women are allowed to work. Infact it is seemed as a sign of oppression if women do not work in some cultures. So the cultural heritage defines gender roles in a society. This then gets reflected in the organizations also, where men are considered to be more eligible in higher positions than women. (Jacobs 2007, 98)

Gender Roles and Organizational Behavior

Gender plays ...