We have not yet achieved gender equality in the UK workplace. We know this to be indisputably true thanks to statistics that reveal a stubbornly persistent wage gap between men and women and show that women continue to be underrepresented in top jobs. The Home Office website, citing data from the Office for National Statistics, states that "The pay gap between full-time men's and women's median earnings stands at 10.5%, whereas the overall gap when comparing the pay of all men and women in work is 20.2%." It goes on to acknowledge that "discrimination may still be an important factor" in explaining the disparity.
Meanwhile, a study by the Chartered Management Institute just last year revealed that the gender pay gap between male and female managers had more than doubled to £10,546 in a single year. According to BBC research, women hold less than a third of top jobs in the UK, making up a paltry 13.2% of the most senior judges and holding only 16% of directorships at the UK's 100 largest-listed companies. The Chartered Management Institute study predicted that it would take 98 years at current rates for the gender pay gap to close. Roll on 2109.
What we don't know for certain is the cause of these facts. Countless 'reasons' are flung around to try to explain the disparities, from unsupported theories about gender-based skill sets, to frustratingly simplistic claims that women are to blame for not being tenacious or ambitious enough, to over-generalised stereotypes about childbirth and family life. The latter frequently fail to take into account the enormous influence of provisions for maternity and paternity leave, support for working parents and more, thus conveniently blaming parents whose careers are adversely affected instead of critiquing the system that has created this result in the first place.
None of these theories alone is sufficient to explain the enormous disparity between men and women's professional achievements and earnings. It is likely that several of the more considered and balanced ideas may hold some merit and account for some part of the problem.
But there are other factors at play. While it may not be convenient or popular to acknowledge it, the huge number of women who have written to the Everyday Sexism Project to document their experiences of sexism in the workplace strongly suggests that this is another important influence.
Of course, like all the other theories, it is over-simplistic to suggest it is the sole cause of the problem. But the thousands of accounts we have collected which pertain specifically to gender prejudice at work strongly suggest that this is a large part of the problem and one that we need to acknowledge and tackle.
The reports we have gathered range across every career stage, starting from the job interview:
"Male bosses used to rate us waitresses out of 10 for looks at job interview," read one, whilst another described how it was "Recently 'suggested' at a job interview that if I had a second interview that I might like to wear more make-up". Another told how "The male recruiter preferred commenting on my CV picture than asking me questions on my experience", whilst countless more documented being asked about marital status, pregnancy and plans for future children, despite this being illegal in the UK.
One applicant for a post at an art gallery described how "the (male) owner asked how old I was and whether I had a boyfriend/husband as he "didn't want me to leave the job too soon to go off and have loads of children"". Many reports described behaviour ranging from sexual harassment to outright assault at interview stage: one related how "Boss during a part time job interview asks if it's a problem for him to "occasionally trip and touch" me" and several others even described enforced sexual activity such as kissing and demands for oral sex during interviews.
Next come descriptions of sexism suffered in the workplace, from the insidious (my managers would always put me in the drive-thru because "pretty faces make more money") to the outrageous ("I had [a boss] whose trick was to stand behind seated women staff and rest his groin on their shoulder!"). Countless entries testify to being ignored in meetings or having male colleagues' ideas more readily accepted: "continually had proposals rejected to find the same proposals offered later by male colleagues accepted and adopted". Others describe behaviour that can categorically be defined as sexual assault being endured by female employees on a regular basis: "I used to get my butt slapped by the male managers at work, once with a fly swot by the deputy manager - all a joke you know".
When we asked about this problem on Twitter, some women's experiences were so numerous they had to ask us to be more specific: "From colleagues & bosses, or clients & customers?" One teacher told how "A 17-year-old male student once told me my teaching didn't convince him because I'm a "girl." He would trust a man more." Countless female technicians, electricians and computer support staff have written to describe discrimination from customers: "on tech support desk; guy phones up 'can I speak to one of the technicians please, one of the guys'", or "at Curry's male customers always wanted to speak to a man about TVs even though I knew just as much."
Worryingly, we have received many reports from women describing sexual assault and even rape in the workplace being swept under the carpet or dealt with inappropriately by their employers: "once raped by a colleague on a night out. Guess who lost their job? (not him)," read one, while another describes how after she was sexually assaulted at work "This was brushed under the carpet, the police weren't called and I was moved 'off-site'."
And there is strong evidence that (partly due to the frequency and normalisation of these problems) the safeguards in place to protect female employees from such behaviour simply aren't working. One woman told us "Went to HR about sexist/flirty CEO. Was told to put up with it as I'm 'young and pretty and they're men, what do you expect?'" Another explained "Reporting things like this simply isn't done if you want to go far within the firm." She added "The firm does run a women's networking day annually - in fact the men in my office cheerfully waved me off when I went to it last year - saying "have fun burning your bras"."
So how might this evidence of sexism in the workplace contribute to gender disparity in professional pay and success? Apart from the obvious impact that dealing with such prejudice, harassment and assault on a regular basis might have on the professional performance of victims, many of the situations described could certainly have a clear effect on women's career trajectories.
From frequent descriptions of contempt for female staff and unwillingness to assign them to important tasks to tales of refusal to accept ideas and proposals from women in meetings and clients specifically requesting the service of male staff, all these issues would have a negative impact on the career success of the women in question.
Another clear indicator of the correlation between sexism suffered at work and female professional performance lies in the many sad reports we have received of women who have eventually chosen to leave jobs they loved when sexual discrimination became too much: "In my first post-college job, the owner of my company frequently invited me to "client dinners" only to inform me once there that the client had cancelled. He once texted me directly asking what dollar amount it would take. I finally had to leave the job, because I was unable to juggle the responsibilities of my position and the confusing manipulation from my boss."
Yes, of course there are workplaces with great equality records. Yes, there are instances where men are discriminated against too. Yes there are laws in place that should be working to prevent some of these problems, though in practice it appears that in many cases they do not. I don't suggest that sexism in the workplace is the sole reason for the gender pay gap or the hugely lopsided numbers of men and women in the very top jobs.
But I believe that these accounts are important. These are not a few isolated incidents. We have collected thousands of accounts of women suffering prejudice in workplaces from restaurants and bars to offices and newsrooms. Numerous accounts repeat and support evidence of the same problems, with a clear suggestion that the normalisation and acceptance of these attitudes and prejudices is making it extremely hard for women to tackle them without endangering their careers. As with the gender pay gap itself, excuses, explanations and victim-focus cannot disguise the fact that this problem is very real, and it isn't going to go away on its own.
Follow Laura Bates on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EverydaySexism
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THAT'S MEN: It's not just men, women give other women hassle
If men had a higher level of *innate* interest in mechanical things, for example, they might gravitate towards jobs like engineering in greater numbers than women would. In which case, a policy of enforcing equal numbers of female and male engineers, would mean having to provide *extra* incentives to women to qualify and work as engineers, and/or restrict men from doing so. We'd end up with more expensive engineers, a whole bunch of women doing jobs they don't really want to do, and a whole bunch of men unable to pursue what they do want to do.
Isn't the real issue only that if a woman wants to become an engineer (say), and as an individual, has the ability to be one, she should be treated no differently from a man with the same aspirations, abilities and circumstances?
Women and men (as do most mammals) have a different set of constraints to each other. Most obviously (but not solely), the female has far more "investment" in reproduction, starting with a minimum of 9 arduous months, whereas the man has barely anything invested, unless he so chooses.
It would seem almost certain that the evolutionary development of women and men would therefore follow slightly different paths, and that differences between the sexes would go beyond the obvious physical ones. Differences in attitudes, drives, likes and dislikes, temperament, abilities, and behaviours.
To be sure, the differences are small when compared to the general similarities, since most environmental circumstances are common to men and women. Even more significantly, the differences between *individuals* of either sex is much, much greater than the *average* difference between women and men. In other words, if women are discovered to have, on average, a greater ability to forge successful relationships than men, there will nonetheless be a huge overlap, with a great number of men above the women's average, and a great number of women below the men's average.
There was somewhat respondent hostility when I dared to suggest more scientific approaches.
Still, waning interest reveals the fickleness of human nature.
Unless she has verified each story submitted to the ESP, then clearly the 'evidence' she is describing is not evidence at all but just hearsay. The phrase in the piece - 'He once texted me directly asking what dollar amount it would take' - is a good example. The article is describing gender equality in the UK workplace but we do not use dollars as currency. So where does the comment come from - the US, Canada, Australia etc? Why is this used in an article regarding the UK?
I am sympathetic to the point being made by the author that sexism does still exist in the UK, to both sexes, and as well as other prejudices, but feel a little uncomfortable due to the disingenuous nature of the evidence she cites.
Should women have an equal shot at getting high-paid jobs as men? Of course.
The problem is that the majority of the wage gap is not explained by these factors, it's because men and women make different choices about their careers. Men generally work longer hours, take less time off to raise a family, work in more dangerous jobs and are at much greater risk of workplace injuries, for example.
Comparing average male earnings to average female earnings is meaningless unless the two groups are making the same choices, which they aren't.
First of all, I'd like to direct your attention to this report from the ONS:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_256900.pdf
It makes for interesting reading, this is what I take away from it:
Across industries, there is a gender pay gap of around 10%
Even across similar roles, there is still a gap.
So what explains this?
Even though the workforce is almost 50:50 male to female workers, 88% of men work full-time, whereas this is true for 58% of women.
This is why a direct comparison is meaningless – saying that on average men earn more tells us nothing unless we take hours worked into account. Thus, tables such as 'Gender pay gap for median and mean hourly earnings, excluding overtime' are more hard to interpret. With full-time workers being paid a higher hourly rate than part-time workers, and males making up the majority of full-time workers (61% of them), this will skew the average in their favour. An interesting side note is that in part-time work, where women make up the majority of the workforce, the pay-gap is reversed, with males trailing by 5%.
Next, direct your attention to The make-up of earnings, Components of full-time mean weekly earnings. This table show how a much larger share of men's earnings are made up of overtime, bonuses and shift work, than women.
Below this, we also see how the average hours worked for full-time employees is 40.2 hours for men and 37.4 hours for women, a 7% difference in favour of males. We also see how 22% of men worked paid overtime, compared to 11% of women.
As for workplace dangers, please see here:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/tables/index.htm
Specifically 'Age and gender of injured person'
Figures for 2010/11 show that 119 men died at work. This compares to a single female. It also shows that injury numbers are roughly double for men than women, at almost double the rate. If this is not a clear indication that men are in more danger at work, then I don't know what will convince you. Naturally I wish we could eliminate ALL workplace injuries and accidents, but why are men so much more affected?
Could it be because they dominate trades such as construction, and agriculture, which are some of the most dangerous?
I don't have figures for taking family leave to hand, but I hope this goes a little way to explaining my position.
Sexism works both ways, and is as big a problem as you make it. There is no legislation that prevents any one gender from attaining any professional position. Stand up for yourself when the situation requires it, rather than moaning in hindsight. That will win you respect in the long run.
Once the war was over and the men returned, women generally reverted to becoming housewives once again whilst the men took over their traditional role(s)!
In the 1970 and 80s women began to enter full time work in ever increasing numbers and quite rightly expected equal rights! But the main stumbling block is in reality the way that men actually get to the top within most companies!
Its all about retention of power, not necessarily ability. Bosses promote people under them they can control, that way they feel their position cannot possibly be threatened. They often act like overgrown school children, and they perpetuate the process ad infinitum!
Harassment is a fact of life in the workplace, both for men and women, its just the form of harassment that differs.
Only the directors and managers that are good at their job and confident in their own abilities will allow those who are similarly endowed to enter the senior ranks!