Sometimes employers can play a role in keeping women from professional advancement through challenges like exclusion and lack of safe workspaces. In this article, we discuss five ways in which employers are still failing women in the workplace.
As women, we already experience enough challenges when it comes to advancing our careers. With that in mind, the last thing you need is for your workplace to make it hard for you to do your job effectively. After all, this can give people more reasons to question whether you actually deserve a seat at the table in the first place. These obstacles for women in the workplace are all connected causing a domino effect.
It’s the employer’s job to make the work environment better for employees so that everyone can perform efficiently. However, some employers still simply refuse to acknowledge this fact, despite the fact that they can easily eliminate some of these challenges for women in the workplace.
So what are some of the ways employers are still failing women in the workplace?
Issues surrounding motherhood and pregnancy
Unfortunately, women’s absence from work for childcare purposes is most likely to affect their career advancement. Working mums typically bear the brunt when it comes to childcare responsibilities, which can impact their work-life balance making it harder to work and grow professionally. Employers who don’t provide supportive working conditions for working mothers such as breastfeeding stations at work and flexible work options are severely failing women in the workplace. Professional flexibility helps parents achieve a work-life balance so they don’t have to choose between career growth or their family lives.
Read also: 5 top companies with the best maternity leave policies
Pregnancy discrimination also falls under this umbrella when women are discriminated against, not hired, or fired because they are expecting. This also includes making offensive comments to pregnant women because of their medical and physical condition. Unfortunately, this discrimination by employers against pregnant women in the workplace includes forcing them to take time off (unpaid or paid), refusing to promote them, changing their benefits, or reducing their working hours and pay. Do you see how these changes can make it hard for women to grow at work? Women should not have to suffer professionally because of pregnancy or motherhood. It is part of the journey of life after all so employers should be more accommodating.
“Time of the month” troubles
Period shaming is nothing new, even in the workplace. You might hear it when someone says, “Time of the month, yes?” whenever a woman passionately voices her opinion or has a valid emotional reaction during a heated conversation. I’m sure we all experience emotions such as disappointment, excitement, stress, and frustration at work, but women should not be required to suppress them for fear of being labelled as “overly emotional.” Period shaming is a tired trend and it’s time to retire it, even those snide comments.
Periods come with significant physical pain yet menstrual leave for women is still an unwelcome topic for many employers and that is where they go wrong. In fact, some women experience severe symptoms due to menstrual disorders like amenorrhea, polycystic ovary syndrome, and endometriosis. The taboo and lack of awareness regarding health issues surrounding menstruation can be harmful and pose potential health risks for women. It’s time to do some research and update your working policies to reflect these issues.
We’ve seen how successful remote work can be, so why not be more flexible with the idea of giving women menstrual leave on days when period symptoms become overwhelming?
Interview gender biases and discrimination
Unfortunately, both male and female recruiters are sometimes guilty of this. Gender biases usually manifest in interviews through questions like, “Do you plan to have children?” or “Are you married?” Such questions end up redirecting the interview from the skills and value you can bring to the company to your family plans.
Sometimes employers might be asking these questions to get to know the candidate a bit more, but consciously or subconsciously it takes away from the matter at hand, their qualification for the job. An interview is a wrong place to ask about interviewees, family and marital status and this can be an obstacle for women to get hired for jobs they are qualified for.
Read also: Red flags to look out for while interviewing for a job
Exclusion from high-level projects and assignments
If you look at images of the top leadership teams in most companies, you’ll find that they are primarily male-dominated. This is not by accident. Usually, men will be given high-profile assignments that are critical to the company mission and professional stepping stones. This pattern could be the result of internal biases, it is a huge obstacle to women’s career paths.
This makes it more challenging for female professionals who put in the work to earn the recognition they deserve compared to their male counterparts. Thus, if a woman wants to get meaningful assignments allowing her to make significant contributions to the organization, she ends up having to take the reins and reach out to an empathetic supervisor. At some point, employers need to take control of the situation and address the imbalance in opportunities for women in the workplace.
How? By encouraging women to engage in significant organizational projects instead of giving them busy work. They can also do this by mentoring and engaging female employees, giving them opportunities to perform, holding them accountable for their responsibilities, and assigning them to project teams.
Sexual harassment
Lastly, we cannot fail to mention sexual harassment and sexism when having this conversation. This is an issue that has plagued women in the workplace for years. The #MeToo movement has helped to expose the widespread sexual harassment, abuse, and violence, particularly against women in professional environments and beyond.
Sexual harassment manifests in various forms - from unwelcome non-verbal actions and physical advances to sexual remarks about one’s clothing, appearance, or body. It creates an intimidating, offensive, and hostile environment that makes it hard to come to work every day knowing it can happen again.
We’ve all heard the stories of women being sexually harassed at work by male colleagues and even superiors who make it hard for them to advance in their careers. Unfortunately, this issue is rampant in some workplaces spanning many if not all industries. What does this tell you? The women speaking up are either being silenced or their careers are threatened. Not to sound like a broken record, but employers need to do better when it comes to creating safe work spaces for women.
As much as there are laws to reprimand these behaviours, victims of sexual harassment usually find that reporting their cases ends up jeopardizing their careers. This is due to the predominant culture of blame-shifting and victim-blaming. If the women in your company are experiencing sexual harassment and the work environment does not allow them to speak up, then something needs to be done. Wake up! The call is coming from inside the house.
In conclusion
The playing field is more level than it was a few decades ago, but employers still have a long way to go in ensuring they’re not failing women in the workplace today. Some people might dismiss these issues believing we have already achieved more gender equality than our “foremothers” ever had. However, a little can go a long way to help women also climb their career ladders to break glass ceilings and have seats at the table.
