9.5: Discrimination in the Workforce
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Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a serious problem disproportionately affecting women in the workplace. It is defined by the federal Equal Opportunity Commission guidelines as:
It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.
Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general. 288
However, sexual harassment varies widely, and there are often misconceptions of what actually does constitute as being harassment. In 1986 the first case concerning sexual harassment reached the Supreme Court with Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson . The Court established that sexual harassment incudes the creation of an abusive or hostile work environment and the victim identifying the harassments as “unwelcome advances.”
People of all sexes and genders can (and do) experience sexual harassment in the workplace. However, women outnumber men in these experiences; many working women will experience sexual harassment at some point in their careers. While some report this harassment, some leave their jobs to escape the harassing environment, which can have lasting effects on career attainment and create financial stress. 289
LGBTQ+ Employees, Workplace Discrimination and Harassment
8.1 million LGBTQ+ workers (16 and over) live in the U.S. 290 In recent years, there have been increased efforts for the advancement of LGBTQ+ rights at work in the United States. For example, 2020 saw a landmark Supreme Court ruling that protected LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination stating 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. However, there has also been some pushback. For example, some states have filed lawsuits seeking to overturn directives allowing transgender workers and students to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
According to a report from UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, almost 30% LGBTQ+ employees reported experiencing at least one form of employment discrimination (being fired or not hired) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives. And LGBTQ+ employees of color report this form of discrimination at a slightly higher rate than White LGBTQ+ employees. 291 The study states:
Transgender employees were also significantly more likely to experience discrimination based on their LGBT status than cisgender LGB employees: Nearly half (48.8%) of transgender employees reported experiencing discrimination (being fired or not hired) based on their LGBT status compared to 27.8% of cisgender LGB employees. More specifically, over twice as many transgender employees reported not being hired (43.9%) because of their LGBT status compared to LGB employees (21.5%). 292
In addition, LGBTQ+ employees reported having experienced harassment at a higher rate than non-LBGTQ+ employees with almost 38% reporting they had experiences either physical, verbal, or sexual harassment in the workplace.
There have been some efforts to dismantle systemic barriers to employment, work performance, and career progression for trans* employees. In Being Transgender at Work the authors suggest employers and businesses offer LGBTQ+ affirming benefits, craft inclusive policies or programs (i.e.: HR reviewing policies and removing gender-specific language from things like dress codes), foster inclusive environments through normalizing the use of pronouns (i.e.: in emails or zoom screens), and providing gender neutral bathrooms. 293
Age Discrimination
61% of U.S. workers at or over the age of 45 reported witnessing or experiencing ageism in the workplace. 294 72% of women say they have experienced age discrimination in the workplace, compared to 57% of men. 295 Ageism is prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age, and it can occur in subtle ways like being removed from projects, replaced by younger coworkers, or not offered professional development opportunities. The impact of age discrimination (like other forms) can have harsh effects in a person's career. Gendered ageism refers to differences in ageism faced by women and men. 296
From 1990 to 2017, there was a 15% increase in the number of Age Discrimination in Employment Act charges by women at or over the age of 40, and charges by men within the same age bracket decreased by 18%. 297 Older women face marginalization based on gendered youthful (and literally impossible for any aging person to maintain) beauty ideals in addition to the unfounded societal biases that older employees are less innovative, dedicated, capable, adaptive, or generally less qualified. Here, the intersectional marginalizing factors of age and gender merge.
When searching for employment, older women experience more employment rejections than older men. 298 A study found that younger women (under age 45) are more likely to be called back for another interview (almost double the rate for older women). 299
The wage gap between men and women actually increases with age. One effect of corporate downsizing is the increased number of older, more experienced workers being laid off. Often times, this group is seen as too young to retire but too old or too experienced (expensive) to hire. For women over 40, age can complicate securing a job. Women over 40 typically earn even less than the average of the wage disparity between men and women, and if they are returning to the workforce after an absence, they often return to lower paying or part-time jobs.
Gendered Discrimination against People with (Dis)abilities
Women with disabilities are often labeled as being too dependent, passive, incapable, or incompetent. Work disabilities are more common among older women than young women. At the same time, many women who are unable to participate in the workforce continue to do their own cooking, cleaning, and home maintenance (“unproductive work”). Women with disabilities, in general, have lower educational attainment than do women who do not report having disabilities, which often times can exclude them from applying for higher paying jobs. There is a lengthy list of reasons why women with disabilities have lower educational attainment: being too ill to complete school, missing a lot of school, not having fair access to adequate educational programs, etc.
Added to these challenges is discrimination from the prejudices of employers. Women with disabilities often have to make special (and costly) arrangements to be able to participate in the workforce, having sometimes to arrange transportation, or extra support in the home or with childcare.
288
United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-harassment
289
McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2017). The Economic and Career Effects of Sexual Harassment on Working Women.
Gender & Society
, 31(3), 333–358.
290
Kerith J. Conron & Shoshana K. Goldberg, Williams Inst. (2020). LGBT People in the US Not Protected by State Non-Discrimination Statutes.
291
Sears, B., Mallory, C., Flores, A. R, & Conron, K. J. (2021). LGBT People’s Experiences of Workplace Discrimination and Harassment.
UCLA: The Williams Institute
.
292
Ibid
293
Baboolall, D., Sarah Greenberg, Maurice Obeid, and Jill Zucker. (2021). Being Transgender at Work. McKinsey Quarterly, McKinsey & Company.
294
Rebecca Perron, The Value of Experience: Age Discrimination Against Older Workers Persist (AARP, 2018).
295
(2017). 10 Things You Should Know About Age Discrimination.
AARP
.
https://www.aarp.org/work/age-
discrimination/facts-in-the-workplace/
296
Sophie Beaton, Gendered Ageism in the Canadian Workforce (Samuel Center for Social Connectedness, 2019).
297
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Chart Data for the State of Age Discrimination and Older Workers in the U.S. 50 Years After the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA);” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Age Discrimination.”
298
Noah Higgins-Dunn, “Older Workers Are America’s Fastest-growing Labor Pool—And the Least Protected from Workplace Discrimination,”
CNBC
, April 13, 2019
299
David Neumark, Ian Burn, and Patrick Button, “Age Discrimination and Hiring of Older Workers,”
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
, February 27, 2017.