Gender discrimination is alive and well across California and the rest of the nation, with a high number of today’s working women reporting experiencing gender discrimination in various forms in the workplace. When gender discrimination occurs, it has the potential to create a hostile work environment, and it may, too, impact an employee’s emotional health and well-being.
Per the Pew Research Center, 42% of working women today say they experienced one or more types of on-the-job discrimination relating to their gender. Often, gender discrimination manifests in one of the following ways.
As unequal pay
A quarter of modern working women report having earned less than an equally qualified man who performed the same job. To put this in perspective, one in 20 working men reported having earned less than an equally capable female who performed the same job.
As mistreatment
Female employees are also four times more likely than male employees to report having others treat them as incompetent due to their gender. They are also three times as likely as their male colleagues to say they are regularly subjected to minor slights in the workplace because they are female.
As reduced support
Many working women also say they receive less support from their supervisors and bosses than male employees. About 15% of women say they do not get the same degree of support from senior leaders as men working in the same role. Meanwhile, only 7% of working men report receiving less support than their female colleagues.
It is also worth noting that women with bachelor’s degrees or higher levels of education report experiencing gender discrimination at much higher rates than working women with less education.
