Why Women Still Aren't Equal In The Workplace

Many women eschew the traditional career path for entrepreneurship and they do so for a whole host of reasons. Some do it because it’s the only way in which they can assure themselves of a reasonable work/life balance, achieving their personal and professional goals while finding quality time to spend with their families.

Others do so because despite the appearance of opportunity and equality, their seemingly promising careers offer little but dead ends. And then there are many who choose to start their own business because they have had enough of the fundamental gender inequalities that still pervade in the workplace.

Rather than try and change their places of employment from within, and gain respect like in this post, they sever ties and start their own enterprises. Enterprises with equality and opportunity sewn into their very fabric.

Still, whether you run a business of your very own or are slowly but surely making your way up the career ladder, it behoves all women to know the fundamental inequalities of the workplace and what they can do about them…

Pregnancy discrimination

It is every woman’s right to start a family without fear of devastating repercussions for her job, her career or her income. Prospective employers are not legally allowed to ask candidates if they plan to have babies in the future nor are they allowed to treat employees any differently upon finding out that they are pregnant. Nonetheless, there are a number of different ways in which pregnancy discrimination is still rife in the workplace.

Make sure that all of your colleagues and employees know their rights, and don’t hold back when it comes to reporting this activity wherever it’s encountered.

200 more years of gender pay gap

More and more businesses are holding themselves to account when it comes to giving equal pay to men and women who do the same job. Nonetheless, there’s still a long way to go all over the developed world when it comes to addressing the gender pay gap.

In fact, experts at the World Economic Forum indicate that the gender pay gap is not only alive and well, it could take over 200 years to close. Women who run their own businesses are at the front lines in the battle for equal pay.

Low-key workplace misogyny

There’s no denying it, in many workplaces, there’s still a whispered undercurrent of misogyny from sexist jokes to “harmless” sexually inappropriate comments. And with one of the world’s premier misogynists in the most powerful office in the world, it’s fair to say that this has had an emboldening effect on low-key misogyny.

Make sure all of your employees or colleagues know their rights and how to contact a Civil Rights Law Group if they are the victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. There’s absolutely no excuse for this behavior in any workplace.

Lack of intersectional feminism

Finally, it’s important to ensure that your workplace embraces intersectional feminism. This means protecting the rights of all women. Straight or LGBTQ, black or white, cis or trans, able-bodied or disabled. A lack of intersectional feminism in the workplace is as bad as no feminism at all.