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URL: https://twitter.com/ErikaForOhio/status/1562036181340082178?t=Bs9T0m55wuiOzPxewi1TcA&s=19

TITLE: #EqualPayForEqualWork

AUTHOR: Erika White
DATE: August 23, 2022

KEY INFO: Standing up for the underprivileged! In Ohio, family-sustaining wages and equal pay for women help to establish a thriving economy.

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URL: https://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2021/03/upper-right-hand-the-international-day-of-women-a-reminder-to-defend-the-victories-of-women-in-their-fight-for-freedom-and-democracy/
TITLE: UPPER RIGHT HAND: The International Day of Women: A Reminder to Defend the Victories of Women in their Fight for Freedom and Democracy
AUTHOR: Grace Mahinay
DATE: March 29, 2021

KEY INFO: The celebration of International Women's Day honors the successes and triumphs achieved by women in their fight for equal rights in society and better working conditions.

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DAVAO CITY (Mindanews/29 March) - For 50 long years, I observed the celebration of the International Women's Day or IWD every March 8. It was a one-day celebration but later on, the whole month of March became women's month in the Philippines.

The International Women's Day is a commemoration of the triumphs and victories of women's struggle for better working conditions and their participation in changing the society equally with men.

Looking back, it was on March 8, 1857 when thousands of women workers from textile and clothing industries in New York, USA, marched for the first time to protest against low wages, the mandatory 12 hours work per day, and poor and inhumane working conditions. Police dispersed the march, and many women were wounded and arrested.

On March 8, 1908, the first biggest women workers' mobilization against capitalist exploitation jolted New York and other capitalist counties. Around 30,000 women workers demonstrated against the same unfair labor practices in 1857 and demanded for legislation against child labor. This was also the first largest mobilization demanding for women's right to vote.

In 1910, Clara Zetkin together with leaders of the First Socialist International from 17 countries, proclaimed March 8 as International Working Women's Day to commemorate the struggles of women all over the world. IWD was first celebrated in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Since then, March 8 has been celebrated as IWD in many countries.

It was only in 1977 that the United Nations formally declared March 8 as International Day of Women.

In the Philippines, the first commemoration of IWD was on March 8, 1971. In Manila, women workers, students and professionals marched from Plaza Bustillos to Mendiola to protest government policies that worsened poverty and intensified the hardship of Filipino families and the whole nation.

Thus, the consciousness on women question was like a prairie fire that scattered in the academe, in workplaces, in farmlands and at homes. Researches and studies were made on the specific situation of Filipino women from pre-colonial period until the republic government.

Prior to this, women were invisible in our history as a fighting Filipino people. We only heard of "the wife" of Diego Silang and Andres Bonifacio and "the sisters" of Jose Rizal, as if they just accidentally took part in the anti-colonial revolution.

Deeper researches and studies taught us how outstanding was Filipino women's participation in the making of history, in producing and reproducing society.

The Center for Women's Resources in Quezon City, the Women Studies and Resource Center in Mindanao and the Cordillera Women's Education and Research Center in Baguio, produced study materials like Filipino women orientation, historical roots of women oppression and write-ups on various issues that concerned women. When studies were conducted in the communities and academe, workplaces and farms, women started to learn the roots of their oppression and the possibility of liberating themselves from their exploited and oppressed situations as proved by the heroism of women in our history.

One of the glaring parts of herstory was the bravery and strength of the Babaylans (or Balyans) who stood up against the cruelty of the Spanish conquerors. The Babaylans were considered important in every village because they were women advisers, healers, and priestesses. They were labeled as witches, satanic and heretics and their houses and prayer places were destroyed and set on fire. Undaunted, the Babaylans attacked the headquarters and the churches of the Spaniards.

We also learned of Gabriela Silang, Tandang Sora (Melchora Aquino), Gregoria de Jesus, Josefa Rizal, Teresa Magbanua and many more, not only as wives or sisters of men who fought against the colonial rulers - from Spanish to American colonialism, but as women who took part in the revolution, side by side with men. They were even armed fighters, leading men and women during combats. Salud Algabre from Cabuyao, Laguna, was a peasant who became a General of the Sakdal Revolt in 1935. In 1934, Narcisa Paquibitan led the two-month workers' strike in an American tobacco factory and confronted the American governor general on their plight. She was arrested and jailed after the strike.

Filipino women fought for the right to suffrage until they succeeded and were allowed to vote in 1937.

During the dark days of martial law, countless women fought against Marcos' dictatorship, participating the armed and parliamentary struggle. The national leader of MAKIBAKA. Maria Lorena Barros joined the New People's Army and gave her life as a commander in 1976. Women workers organized themselves in unions and peasant women set up their own cooperatives and associations in order to collectively fight for their rights to life and liberty.

During peace negotiations between the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front, women were ready to present their agenda through their official delegates.

During the national party-list elections, women had their own party-list to represent them in the house of Congress.

Filipino women were in the forefront in establishing and running women and children conferences in Asia and internationally. In fact, it was our women leaders who led the formation of the International Women's Alliance or IWA.

Undeniably, our unsung heroines shaped the history of our nation.

But sadly, on the 110th anniversary of IWD, women's rights still need to be recognized. Currently, there are more or less a hundred laws and policies for women yet women remain a minority and a small part of them are in the labor force.

On March 7, 2021, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines - UCCP Council of Bishops issued a statement of solidarity to all Filipino women and all women in the world in celebration of the 110th IWD. It said that from April 2019 to April 2020, 2.39 million women were unemployed or underemployed. Women get lower wages than their male counterparts with the same kind of work. Women still account for 53% of the unpaid family workers while they constitute only 37.7% of the wage and salary earners. With a very limited opportunity, the average household annual income of women-headed families is high. Thus, more women had to seek employment abroad even if there is a high social cost of migration.

In the time of pandemic, poverty is very widespread and women bear the brunt of finding ways and means to feed their family. While family members had to stay home due to lockdown, more cases of domestic violence were reported. Cases of violence against women and children remain high and continues to intensify with new forms like cyber pornography and prostitution. It is alarming to note that now more than ever, prostitution victimizes younger girls and we hear more cases of mothers or guardians pimping their own kids. According to the Foundation for Media Alternatives, online gender-based violence increased to 165% in 2020.

Worse, there are even reports of sexual abuses perpetrated by the police and soldiers like "sex for pass" in the checkpoints they set up.

A progressive nation is measured by its healthy women populace. If women remain malnourished, their children are also greatly affected. It must give attention to women's participation in the labor force, giving them work with living wages and benefits. The government should put more effort to taking care of women and children, not only ensuring food on their table but roof over their heads too. The state must educate more women by giving free education from primary to tertiary level. More than ever, the state must ensure the safety of half of its population by recognizing their rights as women. These rights were acquired by women through hard struggle, even sacrificing many lives in order to be recognized as human beings.

The Center for Women's Resources reported 27 cases of rights violation involving not less than 54 women human rights defenders, activists, peasant leaders, and youth activists from January 2020 to February 2021. In Southern Mindanao region, there are 12 women political detainees in five different jail facilities and nine were arrested during President Duterte's government. These women rights defenders, peasant leaders and members of farmers' associations were slapped with trumped up charges like murder, attempted murder, and other cases which are so far out of their real activities. There are even women teachers of Lumad schools charged with child abuse, kidnapping and illegal detention. These teachers were authorized by the parents as guardians of their children while in boarding schools. They took extra care of the schoolchildren and yet, they had to go through the difficult processes of defending themselves in court.

Women human rights defenders were tagged as terrorists because of their mere affiliation in militant people's organizations. Women from the media, doctors and lawyers and lately, a judge were included in the red-tagging scheme of the government and its military agents.

Many are asking what is happening after the century-old celebration of the international women's day? Why do women continue to be relegated to secondary roles? Why are women not given a bigger role in policy-making especially confronting Covid 19 when there are many experts and skilled in this area? Why are women still looked upon as objects of sexual pleasure and regarded as commodities?

The international women's day is not only a celebration. It is also a reminder for women to uphold their rights and take action for themselves, for their families and for the nation. It also impels women to work side by side with men to truly liberate themselves from all forms of oppression.
[MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Upper Right Hand is a revolving column of the Union of People's Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM). Grace Mahinay is an associate member of UPLM as a paralegal. She was with the First Quarter Storm and was detained for many years during martial law of Marcos and Cory Aquino's government. She is also a member of Gabriela, a national militant women organization.]

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UPPER RIGHT HAND: The International Day of Women: A Reminder to Defend the Victories of Women in their Fight for Freedom and Democracy

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DAVAO CITY (Mindanews/29 March) - For 50 long years, I observed the celebration of the International Women's Day or IWD every March 8. It was a one-day celebration but later on, the whole month of March became women's month in the Philippines.

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URL: https://mb.com.ph/2022/02/16/eleazar-vows-to-fight-discrimination-vs-women-in-work-places/
TITLE: Eleazar vows to fight discrimination vs women in work places
AUTHOR: Aaron Recuenco
DATE: February 16, 2021
KEY INFO: Eleazar noted instances where female cadets would graduate at the top of their courses at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and the PNP Academy (PNPA) as evidence that women have already demonstrated their value in fields where their male counterparts typically excel.

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Retired police general and senatorial candidate Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar vowed on Wednesday, Feb. 16, to fight discrimination against women in their workplaces.

Eleazar said women have already proven their worth in areas where their male counterparts usually excels, citing cases wherein female cadets would finish on top of their classes in both the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and the PNP Academy (PNPA).

Senatorial candidate Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar while campaigning in Batangas on Wednesday, Feb. 16. (photo: Gen. Eleazar campaign team)

"Female workers should be treated equally with their male counterparts in workplaces to ensure that Filipinos would enjoy the right to excel in their chosen career paths regardless of gender," he said.

He also cited the 2020 Grant Thornton's annual Women in Business report that was released in February last year which stated that the Philippines retained its rank and even improved its percentage when it comes to having more women in senior business leadership positions.

"These are but proof that if given the chance, women really make a difference, a big difference. But I also recognize that there are still a lot to be done in terms of leveling the playing field for women, especially those who came from poor families," said Eleazar.

According to Eleazar, ensuring gender equality in workplaces should include individuals that are part of the LGBTQ+ community and this would mean that women, as well as those who identify themselves as females, should be free from discrimination and abuse.

While there were already laws passed to ensure gender equality, he said some of them are not strictly implemented.

When he was still in the PNP, Eleazar initiated various reforms to level the playing field especially for the poor, notable of them was the implementation of the QR Code System in the police recruitment system that shattered the culture of padrino and corruption and eventually paved the way for more poor but bright and deserving youth to enter the police force.

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Eleazar vows to fight discrimination vs women in work places

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Retired police general and senatorial candidate Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar vowed on Wednesday, Feb. 16, to fight discrimination against women in their workplaces. Eleazar said women have already proven their worth in areas where their male counterparts usually excels, citing cases wherein female

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URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/25/gender-pay-gap-facts/
TITLE: Gender pay gap in U.S. held steady in 2020
AUTHORS: Amanda Barosso AND Anna Brown
DATE: May 25, 2021
KEY INFO: Over the past 15 years or so, the gender wage disparity in the US has been largely steady. According to a Pew Research Center estimate of the median hourly wages of both full-time and part-time workers in 2020, women made 84% of what men made. According to this calculation, it would take women 42 extra days of labor to make the same amount of money as males in 2020.

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URL: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-in-the-workplace-fight-for-equality/
TITLE: Women in the workplace and the unfinished fight for equality
AUTHOR: Caitlin Yilek
DATE: June 17, 2021
KEY INFO: In the workplace, women have long had to overcome obstacles as they campaigned for equality with their male coworkers. Women continue to fight for representation at the highest levels and equal pay.

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/ CBS News

Watch the CBS Reports documentary "Women in the Workplace: The Unfinished Fight for Equality" in the video player above.

Women have long battled barriers in the workforce as they fought for equality with their male colleagues. Those battles continue as women demand equal pay and representation at the highest levels.

"The Me Too movement and the Time's Up movement have really been at the forefront of uncovering and exposing the biases and inequalities that women have experienced," said Dr. Tsedale Melaku, a sociologist and author.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed women back into traditional gender roles, Melaku said. The COVID-19 recession was the first where more women lost jobs than men.

"2020 in particular has seen women being pushed back into these gender roles and narratives around their home life," Melaku said. "Being relegated back into the default caregiver status, nurturing status also kind of reinforces those old traditional stereotypes that women were already fighting against in order to break into the public sphere, in order to break into access to being in organizations and in these leadership roles."

Tina Tchen, the president and CEO of Time's Up Now, said, "In a single year, we wiped out three to four decades worth of progress on women coming into the workforce and being able to make a living for themselves and their families and being able to realize a career and a dream."

CBS News spoke with women about the difficulties they've faced advancing their careers.

Cate Luzio, CEO: "I realized that woman-ness was at a disadvantage for me"

"Women have a different road ahead of them, no matter how good they are. It's just societal norms and human nature," said Cate Luzio, the founder and CEO of Luminary, a membership-based growth and career accelerator focused on helping women advance their careers.

Before starting her own company in 2018, Luzio held executive positions at multinational banks, including HSBC and J.P. Morgan. As she progressed in her career, she said she felt that being a woman put her at a disadvantage.

"The first half of my career, it was just about doing well and doing better and being super competitive with my peers, which were mainly men, because I wanted to have that leg up. I wanted to be better and I wanted to be better because I wanted to aspire to be a leader," she said. "I aspired to be a manager as I sort of hit that second half of my career. That's when I realized that woman-ness was at a disadvantage for me."

Luzio also suggested that there was a double standard for how women are perceived in the workplace versus their male colleagues. She was labeled "emotional," "aggressive," "harsh" and "cold," which she said may have contributed to her being overlooked for promotions.

"I never, as a manager, gave any of that type of feedback to men. So why was I getting that? I think there were multiple times where I felt like others were being promoted when I wasn't, mainly because of those labels. And I just wouldn't stand for it. I was always the dissenter. Like, how could you say that to me? Like, what do you mean? Don't just give me a label, explain what that means. And, a lot of times that bit me in the behind," she said.

For every 100 men promoted to a managerial position in 2019, 85 women were promoted, according to a study from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org. In 2020, women held 38% of manager-level positions while men held 62%.

"We're raising our hands in our companies and saying, 'Give me more responsibility. Help me move up. Teach me.' And the reality is for most women, the excuse they get when they sit in that room with their boss is, 'You're just not ready yet. You don't have all of these...' OK. So teach me," she said.

Mita Mallick, diversity, equity and inclusion leader: "I don't have enough fingers to count ... how many times credit has been taken or stolen from me"

"I don't have enough fingers to count ... how many times credit has been taken or stolen from me. I'm sure many women of color can relate. You put in the work and you have great ideas and solutions and you're ultimately not the one who presents or gets credit," said Mita Mallick, a diversity, inclusion and equity executive.

Mallick, whose full name is Madhumita Mallick, said she has left jobs because of "excessive bullying." When she entered the corporate world, she went by her first name instead of her nickname, Mita. She said she was belittled by her boss who refused to learn how to pronounce her name and wouldn't call her by her nickname. Instead, he called her Muhammad.

"And so he would say, 'Muhammad, are we ready for the 4 o'clock call? Muhammad, are you ready to deliver the sales samples tomorrow? Muhammad, are you ready for lunch?' And that happened both privately and publicly. And I share that story because it's important to share, but it's painful to think that I responded to a name that was not my own for many months until I finally left that company," she said.

A McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org study found that women of color were a small percentage of the women in management roles in 2019.

To help women of color climb the ladder, Mallick said support from someone at least two levels above in an organization's hierarchy is needed.

"This individual will use their political capital, their social capital. They will have skin in the game and they will help me advance my career," she said. "We need more women of color to be sponsored so that they can get into the C-suite and board rooms."

Farida Mercedes, stay-at-home mom: "There is sacrifice"

"I was raised to be an independent woman. You go to school, you get a job, you make a career. Then you get married, you have children, but you always stay independent - never depend on anyone. Now I was leaving my job and I was going to have to depend on my husband and I questioned it every day," said Farida Mercedes, who left her career at L'Oreal after 17 years to be a stay-at-home mom during the pandemic.

Mercedes' last role at the company was an assistant vice president of human resources. When the pandemic struck, she and her husband, a corrections officer, decided that he would stay away from their home until they "figured out what the virus was, because there is no such thing as social distancing in the jail."

She worked from home with two young children who were learning remotely.

"I remember the day distinctly when I made the decision in my heart, that I just, something had to give. That night I spoke to my husband and I said, 'I think I need to leave L'Oreal.' When my husband and I talked about the decision of someone having to leave, it just was not a question of who that person would be. It was naturally that it would be me because of the role that I play in our family dynamic," she said.

As of March, there were almost 1.5 million fewer mothers of school-aged children in the workforce compared to February 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some women chose to leave their jobs, but many others were laid off.

"People have said to me, 'You're so lucky you get to leave. You have a husband who supports you.' But there is sacrifice. There's sacrifice in the sense that I'm not necessarily feeling the same fulfillment that I had before. There's a gap in my career right now. And will an organization understand why I made that decision?" Mercedes said.

Caitlin Yilek

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Women in the workplace and the unfinished fight for equality

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The last three years haven't closed the leadership gap for women. And with the COVID pandemic, the fight for equality may have become even harder.

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URL: https://ohr.dc.gov/page/genderequality
TITLE: Gender Equality Campaign and TEDx Salon

AUTHOR: Office of Human Rights - District of Columbia
DATE: November 16, 2015
KEY INFO: In October 2015, the DC Office of Human Rights began its two-month campaign to advance gender equality. The Metro system is now running an advertisement campaign with seven women till November 2015, and the TEDxMidAtlantic salon EVE: Everyone Values Equality took place on November 16, 2015.

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As part of its mission to eradicate discrimination in the District of Columbia, the Office of Human Rights has launched numerous awareness campaigns aimed at preventing discrimination and encouraging people to report discrimination when it happens. Below are the most recent campaigns.

TEDxMidAtlantic Salon - EVE: Everyone Values Equality

Watch talks from speakers at the TEDxMidAtlantic salon "EVE: Everyone Values Equality," presented by TEDxMidAtlantic in partnership with OHR. The talks from speakers explored the realities women face in the United States today, and how to move toward a 21st century of equal opportunity regardless of gender and gender identity. Watch the talks now.

#WomenAreEqualDC

The #WomenAreEqualDC gender equality campaign, launched in October 2015, features seven women from diverse race and ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations and gender identities. The campaign aims to raise awareness on civil rights protections for women in the workplace, including women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. See the campaign ads.

#DC19

In October 2014, OHR announced its #DC19 campaign, which highlights traits protected from discrimination in the District and informs people they can file a complaint with our office if they believe they've been discriminated against. Ads appeared in the Metro system to address discrimination based on age, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. See the campaign ads.

DC Websites Speak Your Language

In September 2014, OHR announced the completion of a yearlong initiative to provide critical service information in multiple languages on over 30 District government agency websites. Individuals who speak Amharic, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish or Vietnamese are now able to access a description of core services using an in-language hyperlink featured near the bottom of each agency homepage. To promote awareness of the language-specific pages, OHR has placed advertisements in local ethnic media outlets and alerted community partners who serve limited and non-English proficient residents. See the campaign ads.

AccessibleDC

In April 2014, we launched a year-long effort to encourage businesses to become more accessibility friendly. "Serving All: A Guide to Being Accessible for Your Customers and Community," is a guidebook that assists owners and managers improve accessibility in their restaurant, both for the benefit of the community and the restaurant's bottom line. Throughout the year, OHR staff will visit developing restaurant corridors to talk with restaurants and ask them to "Take a Pledge" to become more accessibility friendly. Read the guidebook and learn more about the campaign.

Safe Bathrooms DC

Public bathrooms are never enjoyable, but for transgender people and many others, using a public bathroom can be a highly stressful and even dangerous experience. The Safe Bathrooms DC campaign, launched in April 2014, aims to change that by making every single-stall public bathroom in the District gender-neutral. It's the law, but currently many businesses are unaware of the requirement, and OHR is asking for the community's help to let them know. If you see a public bathroom with one stall that is not gender-neutral, just tweet us the business name and location using #safebathroomsDC, or fill out our five question form. Learn more and see the campaign ads.

Immigrants Contribute: Fall 2013

Our Immigrants Contribute Campaign, launched in September 2013, aims to highlight the contributions of immigrants to the District and discourage incidents of discrimination. Developed over five months and with extensive guidance from immigrant advocates and diverse immigrant communities, the campaign will appeared in Metro stations, throughout the bus system and in newspapers and on radio during September. See the campaign.

Transgender and Gender Identity Respect Campaign: Fall & Winter 2012

The groundbreaking Transgender and Gender Identity Respect Campaign has been called by advocates the first government-funded campaign focused exclusively on the betterment of transgender and gender non-conforming people. The campaign aims to increase understanding and respect for the transgender and gender non-conforming communities, decrease incidents of discrimination and increase reporting of discrimination to OHR. The five campaign ads feature actual community members, and will appear citywide on bus shelters in the fall and winter of 2012. Learn more about the campaign and the transgender and gender non-conforming communities in the District.

Know Your Rights "I Speak" Campaign: Summer 2012

The 2012 Know Your Rights campaign aims to educate limited and non-English proficient DC residents about interpretation services that must be made available to them at government agencies if they speak Amharic, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish or Vietnamese. The seven public service announcements and six print advertisements released with the Know Your Rights campaign acknowledge the difficulty of being limited or non-English proficient, but that "I Speak" cards provided by the DC Office of Human Rights can make access to government services easier. View all the public service annoucements and download an "I Speak" card on the Know Your Rights campaign page.

Fair Housing Is Your Right Campaign: Summer 2012

The Office of Human Rights launched an ambitious advertising campaign in Summer 2012 aimed at educating DC residents about anti-discrimination laws in housing, in hopes of reducing discriminatory incidents and increasing reporting. The advertisements focused on five of the DC Human Rights Act's 19 protected traits: people with disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, source of income (such as the use of housing vouchers) and familial status (such as people with children). Learn more about the campaign, download a Fair Housing flyer and learn more about housing non-discrimination on our Fair Housing resources page.

Additional Campaigns

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As part of its mission to eradicate discrimination in the District of Columbia, the Office of Human Rights has launched numerous awareness campaigns aimed at preventing discrimination and encouraging people to report discrimination when it happens. Below are the most recent campaigns.

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8. Public Service Message or Promotional Video

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8. Public Service Message or Promotional Video

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URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4viXOGvvu0Y
TITLE: Gender Equality: Now
AUTHOR: WorldFish
DATE: September 26, 2014
KEY INFO: There is no rational explanation for gender inequality. Promoting gender equality may increase shared prosperity for girls and boys, women and men, all around the world, while reducing severe poverty and hunger.

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URL: https://www.peoplemattersglobal.com/article/leadership/womens-rights-at-workplace-24862

TITLE: Women's rights at workplace

AUTHOR: Sapna Khakharia
DATE: March 1, 2020

KEY INFO: We make deliberate steps to ensure that the workplace is welcoming to women while maintaining equality; whether it's equal pay or career advancement possibilities, we treat all of our employees equally and without regard to gender.

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Leadership

We make conscious efforts to ensure that the environment is amicable for women whilst ensuring equality is maintained, whether it is equal pay to opportunities of growth, we treat all our employees at par sans the gender bias.

The discussion around the rights of women at workplace and in society at large has gained momentum over the past decade and has been propelled by recent incidents in the corporate world. I personally however believe that this should not really be a subject of discussion. A woman's rights to express, grow, contribute, feel safe, etc. at the workplace should be a self-evident truth. We don't ask for special privileges or treatment, all we ask for is equal opportunities, equal encouragement and appreciation. Things like maternity leaves shouldn't be looked upon as a privilege, rather acknowledged as our birthright as we're giving birth to the next generation.

We make conscious efforts to ensure that the environment is amicable for women whilst ensuring equality is maintained, whether it is equal pay to opportunities of growth, we treat all our employees at par sans the gender bias. As mentioned by the recently crowned Miss Universe 2019 Zonzibini Tunzi, "Leadership is something we encourage every employee to take up, especially women. If you work hard, you truly deserve to reach for the stars."

We belong to a society which has labeled women to be the weaker sex, an archaic bias based on complete figment of superstition, one that women around the world have made a mockery of with achievements that on a daily basis propel our race to unimaginable heights. Pioneering and innovating are attributes that know no gender, and excellence can be achieved in spite of hurdles of discrimination and bias. If we can help every woman realize that, we can do so much in our work spaces.

We encourage that women support women in order to achieve new heights. Conversations & actions revolving around inclusiveness, teamwork and empathy are the order of the day to get the best out of the available resources within our country.

While discussions and debates have been ongoing over the subject in various forums for a while now, it's time to turn the good intentions into actions by the corporate world and various governing bodies. Concrete actions to ensure the safety of women within their offices have been incorporated like stringent policy making under an ICC -Internal Complaints Committee (mandatory under POSH Act 2013). We have an absolute zero tolerance towards any kind of harassment at the workplace, which we feel should be at the core of all organizations. One must ensure the safety of women, conduct various seminars and workshops that help foster awareness and dispel with discriminatory or predatory mindsets at the workplace.

Women breaking through ranks, shattering the proverbial glass ceilings of dogma and bias form inspiring stories every day. Rising to helm multiple spectra of industries and companies globally, luminaries like Indra Nooyi, Sheryl Sandberg, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Falguni Nayar are all trailblazers par excellence, to name a few. Nowadays, women are not only holding management roles but also leading projects and cracking deals but are also owners of the company. The policies are created to include the various roles and responsibilities in the life of a woman, as well as equal growth opportunities and remuneration for the woman employees.

Equal opportunities of growth and promotion that completely cleanse corporate policy of any discriminatory bias, providing an inclusive and meritocratic platform of progress for all, require a larger shift in mindset of employers. In most companies, Indian or MNCs, there are typically 35% women to 65% men on an average. Recent studies show that for every 100 men promoted, roughly 75 women were promoted and this was not attributed to skill or performance at work. This is indicative of the ills of prevailing mindsets, which the corporate world must work to rid. Last, but not the least, it's also important to mentor women at workplaces and help them grow and encourage each other. Once the mindset changes, everything changes.

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Leadership We make conscious efforts to ensure that the environment is amicable for women whilst ensuring equality is maintained, whether it is equal pay to opportunities of growth, we treat all our employees at par sans the gender bias.

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URL: https://wrp.lrfoundation.org.uk/2019-world-risk-poll/women-across-the-world-fear-violence-at-work/
TITLE: Women across the world fear violence and harassment at work

AUTHOR: LR FOUNDATION
KEY INFO: Women in Malawi and Swaziland show the most concern about violence and harassment at work, with up to 75% of female workers in some nations sharing this issue (75 per cent and 72 per cent respectively). Significant concerns about violence and harassment in the workplace were noted in many nations, even in high-income economies where strict regulation of workplace safety and women's safety issues is the norm.

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The Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll

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Introducing The Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll

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The Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll is the first global study of worry and risk across the world.

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URL: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/14/gender-discrimination-comes-in-many-forms-for-todays-working-women/
TITLE: Gender discrimination comes in many forms for today’s working women
AUTHOR: Kim Parker and Cary Funk
KEY INFO: In the United States, over half of working women (42%) claim to have experienced gender discrimination at work. According to a recent review of survey data from the Pew Research Center, they describe a wide range of personal experiences, from earning less than male counterparts for doing the same job to being passed over for significant tasks.

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About four-in-ten working women (42%) in the United States say they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender. They report a broad array of personal experiences, ranging from earning less than male counterparts for doing the same job to being passed over for important assignments, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center survey data.

The survey - conducted in the summer before a recent wave of sexual misconduct allegations against prominent men in politics, the media and other industries - found that, among employed adults, women are about twice as likely as men (42% versus 22%) to say they have experienced at least one of eight specific forms of gender discrimination at work.

One of the biggest gender gaps is in the area of income: One-in-four working women (25%) say they have earned less than a man who was doing the same job; one-in-twenty working men (5%) say they have earned less than a female peer.

Women are roughly four times as likely as men to say they have been treated as if they were not competent because of their gender (23% of employed women versus 6% of men), and they are about three times as likely as men to say they have experienced repeated small slights at work because of their gender (16% versus 5%).

There are significant gaps on other items as well. While 15% of working women say they have received less support from senior leaders than a man who was doing the same job, only 7% of working men report having a similar experience. One-in-ten working women say they have been passed over for the most important assignments because of their gender, compared with 5% of men.

The survey, which was conducted July 11-Aug. 10, 2017, with a nationally representative sample of 4,914 adults (including 4,702 who are employed at least part time), also asked about sexual harassment in a separate question. It found that while similar shares of women and men say sexual harassment is at least a small problem in their workplace (36% versus 35%), women are about three times as likely as men to have experienced it personally while at work (22% versus 7%).

In more recent surveys conducted by other organizations, the share of women reporting personal experiences with sexual harassment has fluctuated, depending in part on how the question was asked. In an ABC News/Washington Post survey conducted Oct. 12-15, for example, 54% of women said they have received unwanted sexual advances from a man that they felt were inappropriate whether or not those advances were work-related; 30% said this had happened to them at work. In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted Nov. 13-15, 35% of women said they have personally experienced sexual harassment or abuse from someone in the workplace.

The Center's survey asked about sexual harassment specific to the workplace. The survey was conducted as part of a broader forthcoming study on women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Differences by education

Among employed women, the share saying they have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace is roughly similar across racial and ethnic, educational, generational and partisan lines. But when it comes to specific forms of workplace discrimination tested in the survey, there are significant differences among women that are rooted mainly in their level of education.

Women with a bachelor's degree or more education report experiencing discrimination across a range of items at significantly higher rates than women with less education. And in some regards, the most highly educated women stand out. While 57% of working women with a postgraduate degree say they have experienced some form of gender discrimination at work, for example, the same is true for 40% of women with a bachelor's degree and 39% of those who did not complete college.

Roughly three-in-ten working women with a postgraduate degree (29%) say they have experienced repeated small slights at work because of their gender, compared with 18% of those with a bachelor's degree and 12% with less education. Similarly, working women with a postgraduate degree are much more likely than their less-educated counterparts to say they have received less support from senior leaders than a man doing the same job (27% of postgraduate women, compared with 11% of women with bachelor's degrees and 13% of women with less education). The pattern is similar when it comes to being passed over for promotions and feeling isolated at work.

When it comes to wages, working women with a bachelor's degree or more are much more likely than those with less education to say they have earned less than a man who performed the same job. Women with family incomes of $100,000 or higher stand out here as well - 30% of them say they've earned less than a man who was doing comparable work compared with roughly one-in-five women with lower incomes (21%). But overall, women with higher family incomes are about equally likely to have experienced at least one of these eight forms of gender-based discrimination at work.

There are differences by race and ethnicity as well. While roughly half of employed black women (53%) say they have experienced at least one type of gender discrimination at work, fewer white and Hispanic women say the same (40% for each group). One area in particular where black women stand apart is in their reporting of having been passed over for the most important assignments because of their gender - 22% of employed black women say this has happened to them, compared with 8% of whites and 9% of Hispanics.

Women's experiences with discrimination in the workplace also differ along party lines. Roughly half (48%) of working Democratic women and Democratic-leaning independents say they have experienced at least one form of gender discrimination at work, compared with a third of Republican and Republican-leaning women. These party differences hold up even after controlling for race. The partisan gap is in keeping with wide party differences among both men and women in their views of gender equality in the U.S.; a separate 2017 Pew Research Center survey found Democrats largely dissatisfied with the country's progress toward gender equality.

About the survey: These are some of the findings from a survey conducted among a nationally representative sample of 4,914 adults, ages 18 and older, from July 11-Aug. 10, 2017. The survey, which was conducted online in English and in Spanish through GfK's Knowledge Panel, included an oversample of employed adults working in science, technology, engineering and math-related fields. The margin of sampling error based on the 4,702 employed adults in the sample is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points. The margin of sampling error based on the 2,344 employed women in the sample is plus or minus 3.0 percentage points. See the for exact question wording.

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Gender discrimination comes in many forms for today's working women

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American women who say they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender report a broad array of personal experiences.

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URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4584998/
TITLE: Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers' sexism
AUTHORS: Cailin S. Stamarski and Leanne S. Son Hing
DATE: September 6, 2015
KEY INFO: Organizational structures, procedures, and practices all exhibit gender inequality, which is a complicated phenomena. Human resources (HR) practices are where some of the most damaging gender inequities for women are implemented.

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Abstract

Gender inequality in organizations is a complex phenomenon that can be seen in organizational structures, processes, and practices. For women, some of the most harmful gender inequalities are enacted within human resources (HRs) practices. This is because HR practices (i.e., policies, decision-making, and their enactment) affect the hiring, training, pay, and promotion of women. We propose a model of gender discrimination in HR that emphasizes the reciprocal nature of gender inequalities within organizations. We suggest that gender discrimination in HR-related decision-making and in the enactment of HR practices stems from gender inequalities in broader organizational structures, processes, and practices. This includes leadership, structure, strategy, culture, organizational climate, as well as HR policies. In addition, organizational decision makers' levels of sexism can affect their likelihood of making gender biased HR-related decisions and/or behaving in a sexist manner while enacting HR practices. Importantly, institutional discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices play a pre-eminent role because not only do they affect HR practices, they also provide a socializing context for organizational decision makers' levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. Although we portray gender inequality as a self-reinforcing system that can perpetuate discrimination, important levers for reducing discrimination are identified.

Keywords: hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, institutional discrimination, human resources practices, gender harassment, personal discrimination

Introduction

The workplace has sometimes been referred to as an inhospitable place for women due to the multiple forms of gender inequalities present (e.g., Abrams, 1991). Some examples of how workplace discrimination negatively affects women's earnings and opportunities are the gender wage gap (e.g., Peterson and Morgan, 1995), the dearth of women in leadership ( Eagly and Carli, 2007), and the longer time required for women (vs. men) to advance in their careers ( Blau and DeVaro, 2007). In other words, workplace discrimination contributes to women's lower socio-economic status. Importantly, such discrimination against women largely can be attributed to human resources (HR) policies and HR-related decision-making. Furthermore, when employees interact with organizational decision makers during HR practices, or when they are told the outcomes of HR-related decisions, they may experience personal discrimination in the form of sexist comments. Both the objective disadvantages of lower pay, status, and opportunities at work, and the subjective experiences of being stigmatized, affect women's psychological and physical stress, mental and physical health ( Goldenhar et al., 1998; Adler et al., 2000; Schmader et al., 2008; Borrel et al., 2010),job satisfaction and organizational commitment ( Hicks-Clarke and Iles, 2000), and ultimately, their performance ( Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001).

Within this paper, we delineate the nature of discrimination within HR policies, decisions, and their enactment, as well as explore the causes of such discrimination in the workplace. Our model is shown in Figure ​Figure1 1 . In the Section "Discrimination in HR Related Practices: HR Policy, Decisions, and their Enactment," we explain the distinction between HR policy, HR-related decision-making, and HR enactment and their relations to each other. Gender inequalities in HR policy are a form of institutional discrimination. We review evidence of institutional discrimination against women within HR policies set out to determine employee selection, performance evaluations, and promotions. In contrast, discrimination in HR-related decisions and their enactment can result from organizational decision makers' biased responses: it is a form of personal discrimination. Finally, we provide evidence of personal discrimination against women by organizational decision makers in HR-related decision-making and in the enactment of HR policies.

In the Section "The Effect of Organizational Structures, Processes, and Practices on HR Practices," we focus on the link between institutional discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices that can lead to personal discrimination in HR practices (see Figure ​Figure1 1 ). Inspired by the work of Gelfand et al. (2007), we propose that organizational structures, processes, and practices (i.e., leadership, structure, strategy, culture, climate, and HR policy) are interrelated and may contribute to discrimination. Accordingly, gender inequalities in each element can affect the others, creating a self-reinforcing system that can perpetuate institutional discrimination throughout the organization and that can lead to discrimination in HR policies, decision-making, and enactment. We also propose that these relations between gender inequalities in the organizational structures, processes, and practices and discrimination in HR practices can be bidirectional (see Figure ​Figure1 1 ). Thus, we also review how HR practices can contribute to gender inequalities in organizational structures, processes, and practices.

In the Section "The Effect of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism on How Organizational Decision Makers' Conduct HR Practices," we delineate the link between organizational decision makers' levels of sexism and their likelihood of making gender-biased HR-related decisions and/or behaving in a sexist manner when enacting HR policies (e.g., engaging in gender harassment). We focus on two forms of sexist attitudes: hostile and benevolent sexism ( Glick and Fiske, 1996). Hostile sexism involves antipathy toward, and negative stereotypes about, agentic women. In contrast, benevolent sexism involves positive but paternalistic views of women as highly communal. Whereas previous research on workplace discrimination has focused on forms of sexism that are hostile in nature, we extend this work by explaining how benevolent sexism, which is more subtle, can also contribute in meaningful yet distinct ways to gender discrimination in HR practices.

In the Section "The Effect of Organizational Structures, Processes, and Practices on Organizational Decision Makers' Levels of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism," we describe how institutional discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices play a critical role in our model because not only do they affect HR-related decisions and the enactment of HR policies, they also provide a socializing context for organizational decision makers' levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. In other words, where more institutional discrimination is present, we can expect higher levels of sexism-a third link in our model-which leads to gender bias in HR practices.

In the Section "How to Reduce Gender Discrimination in Organizations," we discuss how organizations can reduce gender discrimination. We suggest that, to reduce discrimination, organizations should focus on: HR practices, other closely related organizational structures, processes, and practices, and the reduction of organizational decision makers' level of sexism. Organizations should take such a multifaceted approach because, consistent with our model, gender discrimination is a result of a complex interplay between these factors. Therefore, a focus on only one factor may not be as effective if all the other elements in the model continue to promote gender inequality.

The model we propose for understanding gender inequalities at work is, of course, limited and not intended to be exhaustive. First, we only focus on women's experience of discrimination. Although men also face discrimination, the focus of this paper is on women because they are more often targets ( Branscombe, 1998; Schmitt et al., 2002; McLaughlin et al., 2012) and discrimination is more psychologically damaging for women than for men ( Barling et al., 1996; Schmitt et al., 2002). Furthermore, we draw on research from Western, individualistic countries conducted between the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s that might not generalize to other countries or time frames. In addition, this model derives from research that has been conducted primarily in sectors dominated by men. This is because gender discrimination ( Mansfield et al., 1991; Welle and Heilman, 2005) and harassment ( Mansfield et al., 1991; Berdhal, 2007) against women occur more in environments dominated by men. Now that we have outlined the sections of the paper and our model, we now turn to delineating how gender discrimination in the workplace can be largely attributed to HR practices.

Discrimination in HR Related Practices: HR Policy, Decisions, and their Enactment

In this section, we explore the nature of gender discrimination in HR practices, which involves HR policies, HR-related decision-making, and their enactment by organizational decision makers. HR is a system of organizational practices aimed at managing employees and ensuring that they are accomplishing organizational goals ( Wright et al., 1994). HR functions include: selection, performance evaluation, leadership succession, and training. Depending on the size and history of the organization, HR systems can range from those that are well structured and supported by an entire department, led by HR specialists, to haphazard sets of policies and procedures enacted by managers and supervisors without formal training. HR practices are critically important because they determine the access employees have to valued reward and outcomes within an organization, and can also influence their treatment within an organization ( Levitin et al., 1971).

Human resource practices can be broken down into formal HR policy, HR-related decision-making, and the enactment of HR policies and decisions. HR policy codifies practices for personnel functions, performance evaluations, employee relations, and resource planning ( Wright et al., 1994). HR-related decision-making occurs when organizational decision makers (i.e., managers, supervisors, or HR personnel) employ HR policy to determine how it will be applied to a particular situation and individual. The enactment of HR involves the personal interactions between organizational decision makers and job candidates or employees when HR policies are applied. Whereas HR policy can reflect institutional discrimination, HR-related decision-making and enactment can reflect personal discrimination by organizational decision makers.

Institutional Discrimination in HR Policy

Human resource policies that are inherently biased against a group of people, regardless of their job-related knowledge, skills, abilities, and performance can be termed institutional discrimination. Institutional discrimination against women can occur in each type of HR policy from the recruitment and selection of an individual into an organization, through his/her role assignments, training, pay, performance evaluations, promotion, and termination. For instance, if women are under-represented in a particular educational program or a particular job type and those credentials or previous job experience are required to be considered for selection, women are being systematically, albeit perhaps not intentionally, discriminated against. In another example, there is gender discrimination if a test is used in the selection battery for which greater gender differences emerge, than those that emerge for job performance ratings ( Hough et al., 2001). Thus, institutional discrimination can be present within various aspects of HR selection policy, and can negatively affect women's work outcomes.

Institutional discrimination against women also occurs in performance evaluations that are used to determine organizational rewards (e.g., compensation), opportunities (e.g., promotion, role assignments), and punishments (e.g., termination). Gender discrimination can be formalized into HR policy if criteria used by organizational decision makers to evaluate job performance systematically favor men over women. For instance, "face time" is a key performance metric that rewards employees who are at the office more than those who are not. Given that women are still the primary caregivers ( Acker, 1990; Fuegen et al., 2004), women use flexible work arrangements more often than men and, consequently, face career penalties because they score lower on face time ( Glass, 2004). Thus, biased criteria in performance evaluation policies can contribute to gender discrimination.

Human resource policies surrounding promotions and opportunities for advancement are another area of concern. In organizations with more formal job ladders that are used to dictate and constrain workers' promotion opportunities, women are less likely to advance ( Perry et al., 1994). This occurs because job ladders tend to be divided by gender, and as such, gender job segregation that is seen at entry-level positions will be strengthened as employees move up their specific ladder with no opportunity to cross into other lines of advancement. Thus, women will lack particular job experiences that are not available within their specific job ladders, making them unqualified for advancement ( De Pater et al., 2010).

In sum, institutional discrimination can be present within HR policies set out to determine employee selection, performance evaluations, and promotions. These policies can have significant effects on women's careers. However, HR policy can only be used to guide HR-related decision-making. In reality, it is organizational decision-makers, that is, managers, supervisors, HR personnel who, guided by policy, must evaluate job candidates or employees and decide how policy will be applied to individuals.

Personal Discrimination in HR-Related Decision-Making

The practice of HR-related decision-making involves social cognition in which others' competence, potential, and deservingness are assessed by organizational decision makers. Thus, like all forms of social cognition, HR-related decision-making is open to personal biases. HR-related decisions are critically important because they determine women's pay and opportunities at work (e.g., promotions, training opportunities). Personal discrimination against women by organizational decision makers can occur in each stage of HR-related decision-making regarding recruitment and selection, role assignments, training opportunities, pay, performance evaluation, promotion, and termination.

There is ample evidence that women experience biased performance evaluations on male-typed tasks. A meta-analysis of experimental studies reveals that women in leadership positions receive lower performance evaluations than matched men; this is amplified when women act in a stereotypically masculine, that is, agentic fashion ( Eagly et al., 1992). Further, in masculine domains, women are held to a higher standard of performance than men are. For example, in a study of military cadets, men and women gave their peers lower ratings if they were women, despite having objectively equal qualifications to men ( Boldry et al., 2001). Finally, women are evaluated more poorly in situations that involve complex problem solving; in these situations, people are skeptical regarding women's expertise and discredit expert women's opinions but give expert men the benefit of the doubt ( Thomas-Hunt and Phillips, 2004).

Women are also likely to receive fewer opportunities at work, compared with men, resulting in their under-representation at higher levels of management and leadership within organizations ( Martell et al., 1996; Eagly and Carli, 2007). Managers give women fewer challenging roles and fewer training opportunities, compared with men ( King et al., 2012; Glick, 2013). For instance, female managers ( Lyness and Thompson, 1997) and midlevel workers ( De Pater et al., 2010) have less access to high-level responsibilities and challenges that are precursors to promotion. Further, men are more likely to be given key leadership assignments in male-dominated fields and in female-dominated fields (e.g., Maume, 1999; De Pater et al., 2010). This is detrimental given that challenging roles, especially developmental ones, help employees gain important skills needed to excel in their careers ( Spreitzer et al., 1997).

Furthermore, managers rate women as having less promotion potential than men ( Roth et al., 2012). Given the same level of qualifications, managers are less likely to grant promotions to women, compared with men ( Lazear and Rosen, 1990). Thus, men have a faster ascent in organizational hierarchies than women ( Cox and Harquail, 1991; Stroh et al., 1992; Blau and DeVaro, 2007). Even minimal amounts of gender discrimination in promotion decisions for a particular job or level can have large, cumulative effects given the pyramid structure of most hierarchical organizations ( Martell et al., 1996; Baxter and Wright, 2000). Therefore, discrimination by organizational decision makers results in the under-promotion of women.

Taken together, we have shown that there is discrimination against women in decision-making related to HR. These biases from organizational decision makers can occur in each stage of HR-related decision-making and these biased HR decisions have been shown to negatively affect women's pay and opportunities at work. In the next section, we review how biased HR practices are enacted, which can involve gender harassment.

Personal Discrimination in HR Enactment

By HR enactment, we refer to those situations where current or prospective employees go through HR processes or when they receive news of their outcomes from organizational decision makers regarding HR-related issues. Personal gender discrimination can occur when employees are given sexist messages, by organizational decision makers, related to HR enactment. More specifically, this type of personal gender discrimination is termed gender harassment, and consists of a range of verbal and non-verbal behaviors that convey sexist, insulting, or hostile attitudes about women ( Fitzgerald et al., 1995a, b). Gender harassment is the most common form of sex-based discrimination ( Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Schneider et al., 1997). For example, across the military in the United States, 52% of the 9,725 women surveyed reported that they had experienced gender harassment in the last year ( Leskinen et al., 2011, Study 1). In a random sample of attorneys from a large federal judicial circuit, 32% of the 1,425 women attorneys surveyed had experienced gender harassment in the last 5 years ( Leskinen et al., 2011, Study 2). When examining women's experiences of gender harassment, 60% of instances were perpetrated by their supervisor/manager or a person in a leadership role (cf. Crocker and Kalemba, 1999; McDonald et al., 2008). Thus, personal discrimination in the form of gender harassment is a common behavior; however, is it one that organizational decision makers engage in when enacting HR processes and outcomes?

Although it might seem implausible that organizational decision makers would convey sexist sentiments to women when giving them the news of HR-related decisions, there have been high-profile examples from discrimination lawsuits where this has happened. For example, in a class action lawsuit against Walmart, female workers claimed they were receiving fewer promotions than men despite superior qualifications and records of service. In that case, the district manager was accused of confiding to some of the women who were overlooked for promotions that they were passed over because he was not in favor of women being in upper management positions ( Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 2004/2011). In addition, audit studies, wherein matched men and women apply to real jobs, have revealed that alongside discrimination ( McIntyre et al., 1980; Firth, 1982; Moss-Racusin et al., 2012), women experience verbal gender harassment when applying for sex atypical jobs, such as sexist comments as well as skeptical or discouraging responses from hiring staff ( Neumark, 1996). Finally, gender harassment toward women when HR policies are enacted can also take the form of offensive comments and denying women promotions due to pregnancy or the chance of pregnancy. For example, in Moore v. Alabama, an employee was 8 months pregnant and the woman's supervisor allegedly looked at her belly and said "I was going to make you head of the office, but look at you now" ( Moore v. Alabama State University, 1996, p. 431; Williams, 2003). Thus, organizational decision makers will at times convey sexist sentiments to women when giving them the news of HR-related decisions.

Interestingly, whereas discrimination in HR policy and in HR-related decision-making is extremely difficult to detect ( Crosby et al., 1986; Major, 1994), gender harassment in HR enactment provides direct cues to recipients that discrimination is occurring. In other words, although women's lives are negatively affected in concrete ways by discrimination in HR policy and decisions (e.g., not receiving a job, being underpaid), they may not perceive their negative outcomes as due to gender discrimination. Indeed, there is a multitude of evidence that women and other stigmatized group members are loath to make attributions to discrimination ( Crosby, 1984; Vorauer and Kumhyr, 2001; Stangor et al., 2003) and instead are likely to make internal attributions for negative evaluations unless they are certain the evaluator is biased against their group ( Ruggiero and Taylor, 1995; Major et al., 2003). However, when organizational decision makers engage in gender harassment during HR enactment women should be more likely to interpret HR policy and HR-related decisions as discriminatory.

Now that we have specified the nature of institutional gender discrimination in HR policy and personal discrimination in HR-related decision-making and in HR enactment, we turn to the issue of understanding the causes of such discrimination: gender discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices, and personal biases of organizational decision makers.

The Effect of Organizational Structures, Processes, and Practices on HR Practices

The first contextual factor within which gender inequalities can be institutionalized is leadership. Leadership is a process wherein an individual (e.g., CEOs, managers) influences others in an effort to reach organizational goals ( Chemers, 1997; House and Aditya, 1997). Leaders determine and communicate what the organization's priorities are to all members of the organization. Leaders are important as they affect the other organizational structures, processes, and practices. Specifically, leaders set culture, set policy, set strategy, and are role models for socialization. We suggest that one important way institutional gender inequality in leadership exists is when women are under-represented, compared with men-particularly when women are well-represented at lower levels within an organization.

We now consider institutional gender bias within organizational culture and how it relates to discrimination in HR policies. Organizational culture refers to collectively held beliefs, assumptions, and values held by organizational members ( Trice and Beyer, 1993; Schein, 2010). Cultures arise from the values of the founders of the organization and assumptions about the right way of doing things, which are learned from dealing with challenges over time ( Ostroff et al., 2012). The founders and leaders of an organization are the most influential in forming, maintaining, and changing culture over time (e.g., Trice and Beyer, 1993; Jung et al., 2008; Hartnell and Walumbwa, 2011). Organizational culture can contribute to gender inequalities because culture constrains people's ideas of what is possible: their strategies of action ( Swidler, 1986). In other words, when people encounter a problem in their workplace, the organizational culture-who we are, how we act, what is right-will provide only a certain realm of behavioral responses. For instance, in organizational cultures marked by greater gender inequality, women may have lower hopes and expectations for promotion, and when they are discriminated against, may be less likely to imagine that they can appeal their outcomes ( Kanter, 1977; Cassirer and Reskin, 2000). Furthermore, in organizational cultures marked by gender inequality, organizational decision makers should hold stronger descriptive and proscriptive gender stereotypes: they should more strongly believe that women have less ability to lead, less career commitment, and less emotional stability, compared with men ( Eagly et al., 1992; Heilman, 2001). We expand upon this point later.

Finally, gender inequalities can be seen in organizational climates. An organizational climate consists of organizational members' shared perceptions of the formal and informal organizational practices, procedures, and routines ( Schneider et al., 2011) that arise from direct experiences of the organization's culture ( Ostroff et al., 2012). Organizational climates tend to be conceptualized and studied as "climates for" an organizational strategy ( Schneider, 1975; Ostroff et al., 2012). Gender inequalities are most clearly reflected in two forms of climate: climates for diversity and climates for sexual harassment.

A positive climate for diversity exists when organizational members perceive that diverse groups are included, empowered, and treated fairly. When employees perceive a less supportive diversity climate, they perceive greater workplace discrimination ( Cox, 1994; Ragins and Cornwall, 2001; Triana and García, 2009), and experience lower organizational commitment and job satisfaction ( Hicks-Clarke and Iles, 2000), and higher turnover intentions ( Triana et al., 2010). Thus, in organizations with a less supportive diversity climate, women are more likely to leave the organization, which contributes to the underrepresentation of women in already male-dominated arenas ( Miner-Rubino and Cortina, 2004).

A climate for sexual harassment involves perceptions that the organization is permissive of sexual harassment. In organizational climates that are permissive of harassment, victims are reluctant to come forward because they believe that their complaints will not be taken seriously ( Hulin et al., 1996) and will result in negative personal consequences (e.g., Offermann and Malamut, 2002). Furthermore, men with a proclivity for harassment are more likely to act out these behaviors when permissive factors are present ( Pryor et al., 1993). Therefore, a permissive climate for sexual harassment can result in more harassing behaviors, which can lead women to disengage from their work and ultimately leave the organization ( Kath et al., 2009).

In summary, gender inequalities can exist within organizational structures, processes, and practices. However, organizational leadership, structure, strategy, culture, and climate do not inherently need to be sexist. It could be possible for these organizational structures, processes, and practices to promote gender equality. We return to this issue in the conclusion section.

The Effect of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism on How Organizational Decision Makers' Conduct HR Practices

In this section, we explore how personal biases can affect personal discrimination in HR-related decisions and their enactment. Others have focused on how negative or hostile attitudes toward women predict discrimination in the workplace. However, we extend this analysis by drawing on ambivalent sexism theory, which involves hostile sexism (i.e., antagonistic attitudes toward women) and benevolent sexism (i.e., paternalistic attitudes toward women; see also Glick, 2013), both of which lead to discrimination against women.

Stereotyping processes are one possible explanation of how discrimination against women in male-typed jobs occurs and how women are relegated to the "pink ghetto" ( Heilman, 1983; Eagly and Karau, 2002; Rudman et al., 2012). Gender stereotypes, that is, expectations of what women and men are like, and what they should be like, are one of the most powerful schemas activated when people encounter others ( Fiske et al., 1991; Stangor et al., 1992). According to status characteristics theory, people's group memberships convey important information about their status and their competence on specific tasks ( Berger et al., 1974; Berger et al., 1998; Correll and Ridgeway, 2003). Organizational decision makers will, for many jobs, have different expectations for men's and women's competence and job performance. Expectations of stereotyped-group members' success can affect gender discrimination that occurs in HR-related decisions and enactment ( Roberson et al., 2007). For example, men are preferred over women for masculine jobs and women are preferred over men for feminine jobs ( Davison and Burke, 2000). Thus, the more that a workplace role is inconsistent with the attributes ascribed to women, the more a particular woman might be seen as lacking "fit" with that role, resulting in decreased performance expectations ( Heilman, 1983; Eagly and Karau, 2002).

Furthermore, because women are associated with lower status, and men with higher status, women experience backlash for pursuing high status roles (e.g., leadership) in the workplace ( Rudman et al., 2012). In other words, agentic women who act competitively and confidently in a leadership role, are rated as more socially deficient, less likeable and less hireable, compared with men who act the same way ( Rudman, 1998; Rudman et al., 2012). Interestingly though, if women pursue roles in the workplace that are congruent with traditional gender expectations, they will elicit positive reactions ( Eagly and Karau, 2002).

Thus, cultural, widely known, gender stereotypes can affect HR-related decisions. However, such an account does not take into consideration individual differences among organizational decision makers (e.g., managers, supervisors, or HR personnel) who may vary in the extent to which they endorse sexist attitudes or stereotypes. Individual differences in various forms of sexism (e.g., modern sexism, neosexism) have been demonstrated to lead to personal discrimination in the workplace ( Hagen and Kahn, 1975; Beaton et al., 1996; Hitlan et al., 2009). Ambivalent sexism theory builds on earlier theories of sexism by including attitudes toward women that, while sexist, are often experienced as positive in valence by perceivers and targets ( Glick and Fiske, 1996). Therefore, we draw on ambivalent sexism theory, which conceptualizes sexism as a multidimensional construct that encompasses both hostile and benevolent attitudes toward women ( Glick and Fiske, 1996, 2001).

Organizational decision makers who are higher (vs. lower) in hostile sexism should discriminate more against women in HR-related decisions ( Glick et al., 1997; Masser and Abrams, 2004). For instance, people high in hostile sexism have been found to evaluate candidates, who are believed to be women, more negatively and give lower employment recommendations for a management position, compared with matched candidates believed to be men ( Salvaggio et al., 2009)1. In another study, among participants who evaluated a female candidate for a managerial position, those higher in hostile sexism were less likely to recommend her for hire, compared with those lower in hostile sexism ( Masser and Abrams, 2004). Interestingly, among those evaluating a matched man for the same position, those higher (vs. lower) in hostile sexism were more likely to recommend him for hire ( Masser and Abrams, 2004). According to ambivalent sexism theorists ( Glick et al., 1997), because people high in hostile sexism see women as a threat to men's status, they act as gatekeepers denying women access to more prestigious or masculine jobs.

In addition, organizational decision makers who are higher (vs. lower) in benevolent sexism should discriminate more against women when making HR-related decisions. It has been found that people higher (vs. lower) in benevolent sexism are more likely to automatically associate men with high-authority and women with low-authority roles and to implicitly stereotype men as agentic and women as communal ( Rudman and Kilianski, 2000). Thus, organizational decision makers who are higher (vs. lower) in benevolent sexism should more strongly believe that women are unfit for organizational roles that are demanding, challenging, and requiring agentic behavior. Indeed, in studies of male MBA students those higher (vs. lower) in benevolent sexism assigned a fictional woman less challenging tasks than a matched man ( King et al., 2012). The researchers reasoned that this occurred because men are attempting to "protect" women from the struggles of challenging work. Although there has been little research conducted that has looked at benevolent sexism and gender discrimination in HR-related decisions, the findings are consistent with our model.

Finally, organizational decision makers who are higher (vs. lower) in benevolent sexism should engage in a complex form of gender discrimination when enacting HR policy and decisions that involves mixed messages: women are more likely to receive messages of positive verbal feedback (e.g., "stellar work," "excellent work") but lower numeric ratings on performance appraisals, compared with men ( Biernat et al., 2012). It is proposed that this pattern of giving women positive messages about their performance while rating them poorly reflects benevolent sexists' desire to protect women from harsh criticism. However, given that performance appraisals are used for promotion decisions and that constructive feedback is needed for learning, managers' unwillingness to give women negative verbal criticisms can lead to skill plateau and career stagnation.

Ambivalent sexism can operate to harm women's access to jobs, opportunities for development, ratings of performance, and lead to stigmatization. However, hostile and benevolent sexism operate in different ways. Hostile sexism has direct negative consequences for women's access to high status, male-typed jobs ( Masser and Abrams, 2004; Salvaggio et al., 2009), and it is related to higher rates of sexual harassment ( Fitzgerald et al., 1995b; Mitchell et al., 2004; Russell and Trigg, 2004), which negatively affect women's health, well-being, and workplace withdrawal behaviors ( Willness et al., 2007). In contrast, benevolent sexism has indirect negative consequences for women's careers, for instance, in preventing access to challenging tasks ( King et al., 2012) and critical developmental feedback ( Vescio et al., 2005). Interestingly, exposure to benevolent sexism results in worsened motivation and cognitive performance, compared with exposure to hostile sexism ( Dardenne et al., 2007; Montañés et al., 2012). This is because women more easily recognize hostile sexism as a form of discrimination and inequality, compared with benevolent sexism, which can be more subtle in nature ( Dardenne et al., 2007). Thus, women can externalize hostile sexism and mobilize against it, but the subtle nature of benevolent sexism prevents these processes ( Kay et al., 2005; Becker and Wright, 2011). Therefore, hostile and benevolent sexism lead to different but harmful forms of HR discrimination. Future research should more closely examine their potentially different consequences.

Thus far, we have articulated how gender inequalities in organizational structures, processes, and practices can affect discrimination in HR policy and in HR-related decision-making and enactment. Furthermore, we have argued that organizational decision makers' levels of hostile and benevolent sexism are critical factors leading to personal discrimination in HR-related decision-making and enactment, albeit in different forms. We now turn to an integration of these two phenomena.

The Effect of Organizational Structures, Processes, and Practices on Organizational Decision Makers' Levels of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism

Organizational decision makers' beliefs about men and women should be affected by the work environments in which they are embedded. Thus, when there are more gender inequalities within organizational structures, processes, and practices, organizational decision makers should have higher levels of hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Two inter-related processes can account for this proposition: the establishment of who becomes and remains an organizational member, and the socialization of organizational members.

First, as organizations develop over time, forces work to attract, select, and retain an increasingly homogenous set of employees in terms of their hostile and benevolent sexism ( Schneider, 1983, 1987). In support of this perspective, an individual's values tend to be congruent with the values in his or her work environment (e.g., Holland, 1996; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). People are attracted to and choose to work for organizations that have characteristics similar to their own, and organizations select individuals who are likely to fit with the organization. Thus, more sexist individuals are more likely to be attracted to organizations with greater gender inequality in leadership, structure, strategy, culture, climate, and HR policy; and they will be seen as a better fit during recruitment and selection. Finally, individuals who do not fit with the organization tend to leave voluntarily through the process of attrition. Thus, less (vs. more) sexist individuals would be more likely to leave a workplace with marked gender inequalities in organizational structures, processes, and practices. The opposite should be true for organizations with high gender equality. Through attraction, selection, and attrition processes it is likely that organizational members will become more sexist in a highly gender unequal organization and less sexist in a highly gender equal organization.

Thus far we have argued that gender inequalities in organizational structures, processes, and practices, organizational decision makers' sexist attitudes, and gender discrimination in HR practices can have reciprocal, reinforcing relationships. Thus, it may appear that we have created a model that is closed and determinate in nature; however, this would be a misinterpretation. In the following section, we outline how organizations marked by gender inequalities can reduce discrimination against women.

How to Reduce Gender Discrimination in Organizations

The model we present for understanding gender discrimination in HR practices is complex. We believe that such complexity is necessary to accurately reflect the realities of organizational life. The model demonstrates that many sources of gender inequality are inter-related and have reciprocal effects. By implication, there are no simple or direct solutions to reduce gender discrimination in organizations. Rather, this complex problem requires multiple solutions. In fact, as discussed by Gelfand et al. (2007), if an organization attempts to correct discrimination in only one aspect of organizational structure, process, or practice, and not others, such change attempts will be ineffective due to mixed messages. Therefore, we outline below how organizations can reduce gender discrimination by focusing on (a) HR policies (i.e., diversity initiatives and family friendly policies) and closely related organizational structures, processes, and practices; (b) HR-related decision-making and enactment; as well as, (c) the organizational decision makers who engage in such actions.

Reducing Gender Discrimination in HR Policy and Associated Organizational Structures, Processes, and Practices

Organizations can take steps to mitigate discrimination in HR policies. As a first example, let us consider how an organization can develop, within its HR systems, diversity initiatives aimed at changing the composition of the workforce that includes policies to recruit, retain, and develop employees from underrepresented groups ( Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). Diversity initiatives can operate like affirmative action programs in that organizations track and monitor (a) the number of qualified candidates from different groups (e.g., women vs. men) in a pool, and (b) the number of candidates from each group hired or promoted. When the proportion of candidates from a group successfully selected varies significantly from their proportion in the qualified pool then action, such as targeted recruitment efforts, needs to be taken.

Importantly, such efforts to increase diversity can be strengthened by other HR policies that reward managers, who select more diverse personnel, with bonuses ( Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). Organizations that incorporate diversity-based criteria into their performance and promotion policies and offer meaningful incentives to managers to identify and develop successful female candidates for promotion are more likely to succeed in retaining and promoting diverse talent ( Murphy and Cleveland, 1995; Cleveland et al., 2000). However, focusing on short-term narrowly defined criteria, such as increasing the number of women hired, without also focusing on candidates' merit and providing an adequate climate or support for women are unlikely to bring about any long-term change in diversity, and can have detrimental consequences for its intended beneficiaries ( Heilman et al., 1992, 1997). Rather, to be successful, HR policies for diversity need to be supported by the other organizational structures, processes, and practices, such as strategy, leadership, and climate.

For instance, diversity initiatives should be linked to strategies to create a business case for diversity ( Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). An organization with a strategy to market to more diverse populations can justify that a more diverse workforce can better serve potential clientele ( Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). Alternatively, an organization that is attempting to innovate and grow might justify a corporate strategy to increase diversity on the grounds that diverse groups have multiple perspectives on a problem with the potential to generate more novel, creative solutions ( van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Furthermore, organizational leaders must convey strong support for the HR policies for them to be successful ( Rynes and Rosen, 1995). Given the same HR policy within an organization, leaders' personal attitudes toward the policy affects the discrimination levels found within their unit ( Pryor, 1995; Pryor et al., 1995). Finally, diversity programs are more likely to succeed in multicultural organizations with strong climates for diversity ( Elsass and Graves, 1997; Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). An organization's climate for diversity consists of employees' shared perceptions that the organization's structures, processes, and practices are committed to maintaining diversity and eliminating discrimination ( Nishii and Raver, 2003; Gelfand et al., 2007). In organizations where employees perceive a strong climate for diversity, diversity programs result in greater employee attraction and retention among women and minorities, at all levels of the organization ( Cox and Blake, 1991; Martins and Parsons, 2007).

As a second example of how HR policies can mitigate gender inequalities, we discuss HR policies to lessen employees' experience of work-family conflict. Work-family conflict is a type of role conflict that workers experience when the demands (e.g., emotional, cognitive, time) of their work role interfere with the demands of their family role or vice versa ( Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). Work-family conflict has the negative consequences of increasing employee stress, illness-related absence, and desire to turnover ( Grandey and Cropanzano, 1999). Importantly, women are more adversely affected by work-family conflict than men ( Martins et al., 2002). Work-family conflict can be exacerbated by HR policies that evaluate employees based on face time (i.e., number of hours present at the office), as a proxy for organizational commitment ( Perlow, 1995; Elsbach et al., 2010).

Formal family friendly HR policies can be adopted to relieve work-family conflict directly, which differentially assists women in the workplace. For instance, to reduce work-family conflict, organizations can implement HR policies such as flexible work arrangements, which involve flexible schedules, telecommuting, compressed work weeks, job-shares, and part-time work ( Galinsky et al., 2008). In conjunction with other family friendly policies, such as the provision of childcare, elderly care, and paid maternity leave, organizations can work to reduce stress and improve the retention of working mothers ( Burke, 2002).

Unfortunately, it has been found that the enactment of flexible work policies can still lead to discrimination. Organizational decision makers' sexism can lead them to grant more flexible work arrangements to white men than to women and other minorities because white men are seen as more valuable ( Kelly and Kalev, 2006). To circumvent this, organizations need to formalize HR policies relating to flexible work arrangements ( Kelly and Kalev, 2006). For instance, formal, written policies should articulate who can adopt flexible work arrangements (e.g., employees in specific divisions or with specific job roles) and what such arrangements look like (e.g., core work from 10 am to 3 pm with flexible work hours from 7 to 10 am or from 3 to 6 pm). When the details of such policies are formally laid out, organizational decision makers have less latitude and therefore less opportunity for discrimination in granting access to these arrangements.

To be successful, family friendly HR policies should be tied to other organizational structures, processes, and practices such as organizational strategy, leadership, culture, and climate. A business case for flexible work arrangements can be made because they attract and retain top-talent, which includes women ( Baltes et al., 1999). Furthermore, organizational leaders must convey strong support for family friendly programs ( Jayne and Dipboye, 2004). Leaders can help bolster the acceptance of family friendly policies through successive interactions, communications, visibility, and role modeling with employees. For instance, a leader who sends emails at 2 o'clock in the morning is setting a different expectation of constant availability than a leader who never sends emails after 7:00 pm. Family friendly HR policies must also be supported by simultaneously changing the underlying organizational culture that promotes face time. Although it is difficult to change the culture of an organization, the leaders' of the organization play an influential role in instilling such change because the behaviors of leaders are antecedents and triggers of organizational culture ( Kozlowski and Doherty, 1989; Ostroff et al., 2012). In summary, HR policies must be supported by other organizational structures, processes, and practices in order for these policies to be effective.

Adopting HR diversity initiative policies and family friendly policies can reduce gender discrimination and reshape the other organizational structures, processes, and practices and increase gender equality in them. Specifically, such policies, if successful, should increase the number of women in all departments and at all levels of an organization. Further, having more women in leadership positions signals to organizational members that the organization takes diversity seriously, affecting the diversity climate of the organization, and ultimately its culture ( Konrad et al., 2010). Thus, particular HR policies can reduce gender inequalities in all of the other organizational structures, processes, and practices.

Reducing Gender Discrimination in HR-Related Decision-Making and Enactment

Importantly, the level of personal discrimination enacted by organizational decision makers can be reduced by formalizing HR policies, and by controlling the situations under which HR-related decisions are made. We have articulated how HR-related decisions involve social cognition and are therefore susceptible to biases introduced by the use of gender stereotypes. This can occur unwittingly by those who perceive themselves to be unprejudiced but who are affected by stereotypes or negative automatic associations nonetheless ( Chugh, 2004; Son Hing et al., 2008). For instance, when HR policies do not rely on objective criteria, and the context for evaluation is ambiguous, organizational decision makers will draw on gender (and other) stereotypes to fill in the blanks when evaluating candidates ( Heilman, 1995, 2001). Importantly, the context can be constructed in such a way as to reduce these biases. For instance, organizational decision makers will make less biased judgments of others if they have more time available to evaluate others, are less cognitively busy ( Martell, 1991), have higher quality of information available about candidates, and are accountable for justifying their ratings and decisions ( Kulik and Bainbridge, 2005; Roberson et al., 2007). Thus, if they have the time, motivation, and opportunity to make well-informed, more accurate judgments, then discrimination in performance ratings can be reduced.

Reducing Organizational Decision Makers' Sexism

Another means to reduce gender discrimination in HR-related decision-making and enactment is to focus directly on reducing the hostile and benevolent sexist beliefs of organizational decision makers. Interventions aimed at reducing these beliefs typically involve diversity training, such as a seminar, course, or workshop. Such training involves one or more sessions that involve interactive discussions, lectures, and practical assignments. During the training men and women are taught about sexism and how gender roles in society are socially constructed. Investigations have shown these workshop-based interventions are effective at reducing levels of hostile sexism but have inconsistent effects on benevolent sexism ( Case, 2007; de Lemus et al., 2014). The subtle, and in some ways positive nature of benevolent sexism makes it difficult to confront and reduce using such interventions. However, levels of benevolent sexism are reduced when individuals are explicitly informed about the harmful implications of benevolent sexism ( Becker and Swim, 2012). Unfortunately, these interventions have not been tested in organizational settings. So their efficacy in the field is unknown.

Conclusion

Gender inequality in organizations is a complex phenomenon that can be seen in HR practices (i.e., policies, decision-making, and their enactment) that affects the hiring, training, pay, and promotion of women. We propose that gender discrimination in HR-related decision-making and the enactment of HR practices stems from gender inequalities in broader organizational structures, processes, and practices, including HR policy but also leadership, structure, strategy, culture, and organizational climate. Moreover, reciprocal effects should occur, such that discriminatory HR practices can perpetuate gender inequalities in organizational leadership, structure, strategy, culture, and climate. Organizational decision makers also play an important role in gender discrimination. We propose that personal discrimination in HR-related decisions and enactment arises from organizational decision makers' levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. While hostile sexism can lead to discrimination against women because of a desire to keep them from positions of power, benevolent sexism can lead to discrimination against women because of a desire to protect them. Finally, we propose that gender inequalities in organizational structures, processes, and practices affect organizational decision makers' sexism through attraction, selection, socialization, and attrition processes. Thus, a focus on organizational structure, processes, and practices is critical.

The model we have developed extends previous work by Gelfand et al. (2007) in a number of substantive ways. Gelfand et al. (2007) proposed that aspects of the organization, that is, structure, organizational culture, leadership, strategy, HR systems, and organizational climates, are all interrelated and may contribute to or attenuate discrimination (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia). First, we differ from their work by emphasizing that workplace discrimination is most directly attributable to HR practices. Consequently, we emphasize how inequalities in other organizational structures, processes, and practices affect institutional discrimination in HR policy. Second, our model differs from that of Gelfand et al. (2007) in that we focus on the role of organizational decision makers in the enactment of HR policy. The attitudes of these decision makers toward specific groups of employees are critical. However, the nature of prejudice differs depending on the target group ( Son Hing and Zanna, 2010). Therefore, we focus on one form of bias-sexism-in the workplace. Doing so, allows us to draw on more nuanced theories of prejudice, namely ambivalent sexism theory ( Glick and Fiske, 1996). Thus, third, our model differs from the work of Gelfand et al. (2007) by considering how dual beliefs about women (i.e., hostile and benevolent beliefs) can contribute to different forms of gender discrimination in HR practices. Fourth, we differ from Gelfand et al. (2007) by reviewing how organizational decision makers' level of sexism within an organization is affected by organizational structures, processes, and practices via selection-attraction-attrition processes and through socialization processes.

However, the model we have developed is not meant to be exhaustive. There are multiple issues that we have not addressed but should be considered: what external factors feed into our model? What other links within the model might arise? What are the limits to its generalizability? What consequences derive from our model? How can change occur given a model that is largely recursive in nature? We focus on these issues throughout our conclusion.

Our model does not consider how women's occupational status is affected by their preferences for gender-role-consistent careers and their childcare and family responsibilities, which perhaps should not be underestimated (e.g., Manne, 2001; Hakim, 2006; Ceci et al., 2009). In other words, lifestyle preferences could contribute to gender differences in the workplace. However, it is important to consider how women's agency in choosing occupations and managing work-life demands is constrained. Gender imbalances (e.g., in pay) in the workplace (e.g., Moss-Racusin et al., 2012; Sheltzer and Smith, 2014) and gender imbalances in the home (e.g., in domestic labor, childcare; Bianchi, 2000; Bianchi et al., 2000) shape the decisions that couples (when they consist of a woman and a man) make about how to manage dual careers. For instance, research has uncovered that women with professional degrees leave the labor force at roughly three times the rate of men ( Baker, 2002). Women's decisions to interrupt their careers were difficult and were based on factors, such as workplace inflexibility, and their husbands' lack of domestic responsibilities, rather than a preference to stay at home with their children ( Stone and Lovejoy, 2004). Thus, both factors inside and outside the workplace constrain and shape women's career decisions.

Some might question if our model assumes that organizational decision makers enacting HR practices are men. It does not. There is evidence that decision makers who are women also discriminate against women (e.g., the Queen Bee phenomenon; Ellemers et al., 2004). Further, although men are higher in hostile sexism, compared with women ( Glick et al., 1997, 2000), they are not necessarily higher in benevolent sexism ( Glick et al., 2000). More importantly, the effects of hostile and benevolent sexism are not moderated by participant gender ( Masser and Abrams, 2004; Salvaggio et al., 2009; Good and Rudman, 2010). Thus, those who are higher in hostile or benevolent sexism respond in a more discriminatory manner, regardless of whether they are men or women. Thus, organizational decision makers, regardless of their sex, should discriminate more against women in HR practices when they are higher in hostile or benevolent sexism.

Our model lays out two potential paths by which women might be discriminated against in HR practices: institutional discrimination stemming from organizational structures, processes, and practices and personal discrimination stemming from organizational decision makers' levels of sexism. In order for the potential stressor of stigmatization to lead to psychological and physical stress it must be seen as harmful and self-relevant ( Son Hing, 2012). Thus, if institutional discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices are completely hidden then discrimination might not cause stress reactions associated with stigmatization because it may be too difficult for women to detect ( Crosby et al., 1986; Major, 1994), and label as discrimination ( Crosby, 1984; Stangor et al., 2003). In contrast, women should be adversely affected by stigmatization in instances where gender discrimination in organizational structures, processes, and practices is more evident. For instance, greater perceptions of discrimination are associated with lower self-esteem in longitudinal studies ( Schmitt et al., 2014).

Furthermore, individual women can work to avoid stigmatization. Women in the workplace are not simply passive targets of stereotyping processes. People belonging to stigmatized groups can engage in a variety of anti-stigmatization techniques, but their response options are constrained by the cultural repertoires available to them ( Lamont and Mizrachi, 2012). In other words, an organization's culture will provide its members with a collective imaginary for how to behave. For instance, it might be unimaginable for a woman to file a complaint of sexual harassment if she knows that complaints are never taken seriously. Individuals do negotiate stigmatization processes; however, this is more likely when stigmatization is perceived as illegitimate and when they have the resources to do so ( Major and Schmader, 2001). Thus, at an individual level, people engage in strategies to fight being discriminated against but these strategies are likely more constrained for those who are most stigmatized.

Finally, possibly the most efficacious way for organizational members (men and women) to challenge group-based inequality and to improve the status of women as a whole is to engage in collective action (e.g., participate in unions, sign petitions, organize social movements, recruit others to join a movement; Klandermans, 1997; Wright and Lubensky, 2009). People are most likely to engage in collective action when they perceive group differences as underserved or illegitimate ( Wright, 2001). Such a sense of relative deprivation involves feelings of injustice and anger that prompt a desire for wide scale change ( van Zomeren et al., 2008). Interestingly, people are more likely to experience relative deprivation when inequalities have begun to be lessened, and thus their legitimacy questioned ( Crosby, 1984; Kawakami and Dion, 1993; Stangor et al., 2003). If organizational leaders respond to such demands for change by altering previously gender oppressive organizational structures, processes, and practices, this can, in people's minds, open the door for additional changes. Therefore, changes to mitigate gender inequalities within any organizational structure, policy, or practice could start a cascade of transformations leading to a more equal organization for men and women.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) awarded to Leanne S. Son Hing.

Footnotes

¹ In this study, candidates were identified with initials and participants were asked to indicate the presumed gender of the candidate after evaluating them.

References

Huffman M. L., Velasco S. C. (1997). When more is less: sex composition, organizations, and earnings in U.S. [firms.Work Occup. 24 214-244. 10.1177/0730888497024002005 [CrossRef] Google Scholar]

Schein E. H. (2010). [Organizational Culture and Leadership, Vol. 2 New York, NY: Jossey-BassGoogle Scholar]

Wright S. C. (2001). "Strategic collective action: social psychology and social change," in [Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Intergroup Processes eds Brown R., Gaertner S. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing; ) 409-430. 10.1002/9780470693421.ch20 [CrossRef] Google Scholar]

Articles from Frontiers in Psychology are provided here courtesy of Frontiers Media SA

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Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers' sexism

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Gender inequality in organizations is a complex phenomenon that can be seen in organizational structures, processes, and practices. For women, some of the most harmful gender inequalities are enacted within human resources (HRs) practices. This is because ...

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14. Non-Government Organization or Academic Institution Article

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14. Non-Government Organization or Academic Institution Article

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URL: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/women-arent-promoted-because-managers-underestimate-their-potential
TITLE: Women Aren't Promoted Because Managers Underestimate Their Potential
AUTHOR: Kelly Shue
DATE: September 17, 2021
KEY INFO: Why do women get promoted to senior roles less frequently than males do? Prof. Kelly Shue and her co-authors discovered that although women were consistently and mistakenly seen as having lower leadership potential, they received higher performance ratings than men in a study of assessment and promotion data from a major retail chain.

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At the large North American retail chain that was the subject of Professor Kelly Shue's new research, more than half of entry-level workers-56%-are women. But at each rung up the ladder, there are fewer and fewer women: women are 48% of department managers, 35% of store managers, and 14% of district managers-the glass ceiling at work. Why?

The study, co-authored with Alan Benson of the University of Minnesota and Danielle Li of MIT and based on assessment and promotion records for nearly 30,000 workers, finds that women are 14% less likely to be promoted at the company in each year, and that a major factor preventing women from being promoted is that they are consistently judged as having lower leadership potential than men. In a two-part annual assessment, according to the records, women's performance at the company is rated higher than men's, on average. But their potential is rated lower-a pattern than continues even when women exceed those expectations.

At the company in the study, managers use a "nine-box" grid-a commonly used tool at large organizations-to evaluate their employees, giving them a low, medium, or high score on their performance over the prior year and a low, medium, or high score on their potential for growth and development. The employees with high scores for both performance and potential-those in the upper right quadrant of the grid-are most likely to be promoted.

While managers can consider real-world metrics in evaluating performance, potential is more abstract-and that might make it more subject to bias.

"What is commonly talked about in terms of management and potential are characteristics such as assertiveness, execution skills, charisma, leadership, ambition," Shue says. "These are, I believe, real traits. They're also highly subjective and stereotypically associated with male leaders. And what we saw in the data is a pretty strong bias against women in assessments of potential."

Specifically, Shue and her colleagues found that while women receive higher performance ratings-they are 7.3% more likely than men to receive a "high" rating in performance-their potential ratings are 5.8% lower. The authors estimate that lower potential ratings explain up to 50% of the gap in promotions.

Could managers be correct in their assessment that women at the company are excellent performers in their current roles but lack the skills to be successful at a higher level? To the contrary, the researchers found that managers consistently underestimate women's ability to perform in the future. They identified women and men with similar performance and potential scores for a given evaluation period, then looked forward to the next period and found that women tended to have higher performance scores than men, whether or not they been promoted into a more senior role.

"It appears that they were held to a higher standard," Shue says.

And even when women have exceeded expectations, they still don't get the benefit of the doubt. Women continue to receive lower potential scores after they have demonstrated through their performance that the previous period's potential score was inaccurate.

"Women get progressively lower potential scores relative to their actual future performance as we rise up the corporate ladder. So this is going to contribute to a stronger and stronger glass ceiling."

This effect gets stronger for more senior positions, Shue points out. "Women get progressively lower potential scores relative to their actual future performance as we rise up the corporate ladder. So this is going to contribute, I think, to a stronger and stronger glass ceiling the higher up we go."

Not surprisingly, being shut out of more senior roles also keeps women from earning as much as men. The authors estimate that 70% of the gender pay gap at the company is attributable to gender differences in job levels.

What can companies do to combat this kind of bias in their evaluation systems? One solution would be to remove potential scores from annual assessments altogether, and simply promote employees based on their performance. But, as Shue explored in earlier research, the best performers don't always make the best managers. And, the authors point out, the data shows that despite the gender bias that they are subject to, potential scores do help the company in the study identify effective managers more accurately than performance scores alone.

The authors also wondered if having more women managers would help reduce bias in evaluating potential. "We thought the group that would be least likely to have these stereotypes of a male leadership in mind would be female managers," Shue says. But they found that women also give lower scores for potential to their high-performing women subordinates.

Shue and her colleagues suggest that to avoid this type of bias, companies should pay close attention to their own internal data. For example, companies can use algorithms to look for systematic gaps between performance and potential ratings of the kind found in the study.

Or they can look beyond manager evaluations and identify other metrics that predict leadership talent, Shue says: "Look at other available data and see what variables actually forecast being a good manager."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women Aren't Promoted Because Managers Underestimate Their Potential

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Why are fewer women promoted to senior positions than men? In a study of a retail chain, Prof. Kelly Shue and her co-authors found that women got higher performance ratings than men but were incorrectly judged as having less leadership potential.

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URL: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ezIEmC9dUOUDBdddtGmss?si=af472c1a35114717
TITLE: Episode 09: Gender at Work Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations
AUTHORS: Aruna Rao and David Kelleher
DATE: October 18, 2021
KEY INFO: The book Gender at Work: Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations is the result of four activists' commitment, expertise, and foresight in creating and implementing a comprehensive strategy to advance gender equality on a global scale.

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Episode 09: Gender at Work Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations

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Listen to this episode from The Gender at Work Podcast on Spotify. In 2015, Gender at Work founders and podcast hosts Aruna Rao and David Kelleher, along with Gender at Work Senior Associate, Joanne Sandler and Knowledge Strategist, Carol Miller, collaborated to write a book that has proven to be a must-read for feminists.

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URL: https://youtu.be/1iZkK5j2jHM
TITLE: Women in the Workplace: The Unfinished Fight for Equality | CBS Reports
AUTHOR: CBS News
DATE: June 17, 2021
KEY INFO: Even after the #MeToo movement sparked calls for more women in positions of power, the leadership gender gap has yet to close, and the pandemic’s impact on women in the workforce has set back progress even further. For the CBS News Reports' half-hour documentary, "Women in the Workplace: The Unfinished Fight for Equality," several women share their stories of combating harassment, toxic work environments, and gender expectations that keep women from reaching top positions in their field.

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Women in the Workplace: The Unfinished Fight for Equality | CBS Reports

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URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBrR5YgfC0
TITLE: It's Not You, It's Your Workplace  | Michelle Penelope King | TEDxChelseaPark
AUTHOR: Michelle Penelope King
DATE: July 30, 2019
KEY INFO: The FIX: Overcoming the Invisible Barriers that are Holding Women Back at Work, written by gender equality expert Michelle King, explains how gender denial makes it impossible to notice workplace inequity and how this restricts both women's and men's achievement.

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It's Not You, It's Your Workplace  | Michelle Penelope King | TEDxChelseaPark

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URL: https://www.amazon.com/Women-Workplace-Discrimination-Overcoming-Barriers/dp/0813531373
TITLE: Women and Workplace Discrimination
AUTHOR: Raymond F. Gregory
DATE: November 22, 2002
KEY INFO: Millions of women who believe they may be the victims of sexual discrimination are addressed by attorney Raymond F. Gregory, who also discusses federal legislation designed to support employees in challenging illegal company behavior. He uses genuine court cases to show how women have fought back against their employers.

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Attorney Raymond F. Gregory addresses the millions of women who think they might be facing sexual discrimination and explains federal measures enacted to assist workers in contesting unlawful employer conduct. He presents actual court cases to demonstrate the ways that women have challenged their employers. The cases illustrate legal principles in real-life experiences. Many of the cases relate compelling stories of workers caught up in a web of employer discriminatory conduct. Gregory has eliminated legal jargon, ensuring that all concepts are clear to his readers. Individuals will turn to this book again and again to obtain authoritative background on this important topic.

Topics covered include:

The increasing incidence of sexual harassment in the workplace

Common forms of sex discrimination

Discrimination against older women

Discrimination against women of color

Discrimination against women in the professions

Discrimination against pregnant women

Discrimination against women with children

Sex discrimination in hiring, promotion, termination

Employer liability for workplace sexual harassment

Employer retaliation against workers

Proving sex discrimination in the courtroom

Compensatory and punitive damages

Back pay, front pay, and other remedies

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Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality

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Amazon.com: Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality: 9780813531373: Gregory, Raymond F.: Books

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URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-014-0398-0
TITLE: Interpersonal Mistreatment of Women in the Workplace - Sex Roles
AUTHORS: George B. Cunningham, Mindy E. Bergman & Kathi N. Miner
DATE: July 25, 2014
KEY INFO: This essay serves as an introduction to the special issue's featured piece, Interpersonal Mistreatment of Women in the Workplace. By doing this, the authors create a multilevel conceptual model that demonstrates how the research presented in the special issue addresses the micro, meso, and macro-level causes and effects of interpersonal abuse.

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Interpersonal Mistreatment of Women in the Workplace - Sex Roles

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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the work included in the special issue: Interpersonal Mistreatment of Women in the Workplace. In doing so, the authors develop a multilevel conceptual model, illustrating how the research included in the special issue address causes and consequences of inter…