Gender Bias--Discriminatory Ppractices Against Women

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People have roles within society and their communities. Generally, these roles are determined by one's occupation or contributions. However, there are also many accepted, and unspoken, roles determined by cultural values and tradition. These roles are used to identify individuals through social expectations, not by his or her potential or actual value to society. People are consistently judged based upon how they appear to another. Racism and discrimination is predicated upon physical, social, and mental appearances and affects the judgments of those who have not developed the ability to look beyond these trivial matters. An often overlooked form of discrimination not specifically related to appearances is gender.

Though not as overt as other forms of discrimination, gender bias is most visible in the professional world, in spite of governmental policies, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended in 1991, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (Sipe, Johnson, & Fisher, 2009). With such policies and safeguards in place, why are women still undervalued in the workplace?

Professional equality for women can be measured by three indicators which identify areas where bias can be, and often is, used to discriminate against women. Though these indicators are used to show that gender bias exists, they do not suggest that discrimination is the cause for all cases in which women have not excelled in their professional careers.
The comparatively low number of women who occupy top-level positions in their fields is one such indicator. According to Schaefer (2010), women only occupy approximately 15% of the executive roles in Fortune 500's largest corporations, and only 12 women hold the title of CEO in these companies. The inability for women to advance beyond a certain level in their professional careers is known as the glass-ceiling effect. The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier or unspoken rule which prohibits qualified workers from being promoted due to their gender or minority status.

In the world of management, women are generally viewed differently than men. Many stereotypes still abound which prohibit women's ascent up the corporate ladder. Terms such as the "mommy track" have been used to indicate that women are not as professionally focused as men and are more distracted by home and family. This line of thought assumes that men are not also interested in maintaining a balance between their families and careers.

The second indicator that identifies gender bias in the professional world is comparative pay disparities. Generally speaking, women tend to earn less than their male ...