What Is Gender Discrimination in the Workplace?

All employees are presumed to be treated equal. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Employees have been excluded from hiring or promotion not because they were unqualified, but simply based on their gender. Under U.S. law, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits the discrimination of any employee based on gender. Learn more about gender discrimination, especially if you believe that you have been a victim.

Significance

All employees should be treated with the same level of respect and professional development. Gender discrimination is not permitted under U.S. law. An employer's Human Resources Department should have a gender discrimination policy available for review and should have staff available to discuss any potential infractions of the policy.

Identification

Gender discrimination has occurred when: (1) an employee has been treated differently because of his or her gender, (2) an employee has been excluded from consideration or participation in an opportunity because of his or her gender or (3) an employee has been eliminated from certain activities because of their gender. It can be difficult to determine when gender discrimination has occurred because it is not always as overt as other violations such as sexual harassment.

Types

Although there are more reported gender discrimination statistics related to female employees, men and women can both be victims of gender discrimination. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in fiscal year 2008, they received 28,372 charges of gender discrimination. They resolved 24,018 gender discrimination charges and recovered $109.3 million in monetary benefits for charging parties and other aggrieved individuals (not including monetary benefits obtained through litigation). These statistics are an indication that gender discrimination is a regular occurrence in the U.S.

Prevention/Solution

The Human Resources Department is the governing body of any discrimination of harassment in the workplace. An employee can seek help from the HR Department to determine if gender discrimination has occurred or to generate a gender discrimination complaint. An employee can request to meet with an HR representative to discuss what happened. It is the responsibility of the HR representative to take the necessary steps to investigate the claim and advise the employment on next steps. All of this is to be done in a confidential manner to avoid inciting any retaliatory actions against the employee.

Warning

Like other human rights policies, gender discrimination should be considered seriously because it is prohibited by law. In some unfortunate cases, HR staff may not be effective because of their reluctancy to taint the reputation of the suspected party or that of the organization. An employee has the right to document how they have been treated and to seek outside counsel from an attorney or agency like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).