Women continue to fight against double standards in the workplace.
SInce the 19th century, when females first started to enter the workforce in appreciable numbers, women have been restricted from many of the professional opportunities available to men. Women were relegated to lower level jobs, with less pay and fewer opportunities for advancement and making decisions. Many laws have been passed over the last century to try to combat gender discrimination, and yet women still struggle for equality in the workplace.
19th Century Restrictions
During the colonial era, when labor was in short supply, some women worked a variety of jobs, including being doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers, singers and entrepreneurs. However, in the 19th century, attitudes shifted about the kinds of work women could and should perform so that women began to be excluded from almost all professions other than writing and teaching.
Early 20th Century Struggles
Throughout the 20th century, women fought for their rights, beginning with the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in 1920. The National Women's Party first proposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923. During WWI and WWII, women by necessity took on a variety of jobs that would have otherwise been filled by men when those men joined the armed services. Some setbacks occurred with the National Recovery Act (1932), which allowed only one person per family to hold a government job, causing many women to get fired, and Goesaert v. Cleary (1948), which prohibited women from working in certain occupations, such as as bartenders, in order to protect women's morals.
Equal Pay for Equal Work (1963)
The Equal Pay for Equal Work Act was passed by congress to bar wage discrimination not only against women, but also on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity. It was followed by the Civil Rights Act (1964), forbidding any discrimination based on sex, religion, race or ethnicity. By 1967, President Johnson ordered that federal agencies and contractors actively work to ensure that women are not discriminated against in education or employment.
Sexual Discrimination and Harassment Cases (1980s and 1990s)
By the late 1980s, women constituted almost half of the workforce, yet they had only a small share of the jobs that involved decision-making. Women were often held back from advancing and gaining raises based on the belief that because they were married or likely to become married, they would not be permanent workers. In the late 1990s, retail chain Home Depot was charged with sexual discrimination against over 7,000 female employees. The Supreme Court runed that employers can be held responsible for sexual harassment of employees by supervisors regardless of whether they knew about the specific misconduct.
Contemporary Situation
Despite these various laws and cases, women are still treated differently than men in the workplace. According to Ann Daly, executive coach and author, women are underpaid, receive less feedback and do not get the benefit of the doubt as men do. Mothers are seen as potential risks to the organization and therefore unworthy of support and investment. Women must therefore continue to be strategic and fight for their rights to equal pay and career opportunity.
