Category: Workforce Discrimination

Gender study finds 90% of people are biased against women

A new UN report has found at least 90% of men and women hold some sort of bias against females.

The “Gender Social Norms” index analysed biases in areas such as politics and education in 75 countries.

Globally, close to 50% of men said they had more right to a job than women. Almost a third of respondents thought it was acceptable for men to hit their partners.

There are no countries in the world with gender equality, the study found.

Source: Gender study finds 90% of people are biased against women – BBC News

Overcoming disproportionate interruptions faced by female judges

Ms Loughland joins host Jerome Doraisamy on this episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show to unpack the findings of her research paper, “Female Judges, Interrupted”, which suggests that the volume of interruptions faced by female judges on the High Court of Australia far exceeds that of their male counterparts.

Source: Overcoming disproportionate interruptions faced by female judges – Lawyers Weekly

The legal solution to prevent sexual harassment at work

With more than a quarter of women reporting experiencing sexual harassment at work, new legislation could go a long way to address inappropriate behaviour.

Anti-discrimination laws (ADL) have been prohibiting sexual harassment in workplaces for over three decades. However, sexual harassment still remains prevalent, with rates of the offences increasing or increasing rates of self-reporting.

ADL is limited because of four main features: the rule it imposes is negative prohibition rather than a positive duty to prevent; it is enforceable by individual victims; any of the enforcement is primarily through a private, confidential conciliation process and all the remedies granted are ordinarily individual and compensatory in nature.

Source: The legal solution to prevent sexual harassment at work – Lawyers Weekly

Sexism in the Academy

Given that women have been the majority of the undergraduate student body in many countries for the last three decades, one can no longer argue that equality can be achieved by simply waiting for young female scholars to emerge at the end of the academic “pipeline.”

Given that so many female scholars drop out, they often become overqualified research assistants for their partners, which may be a reason why married men actually publish more than single men or women and achieve tenure faster. That men rarely make sacrifices to help their scholarly wives is possibly why so few tenured female professors ever marry or stay married. More than half are divorced or have never wed, and few have children. Yet 70 percent of their male peers are married and have children. Childless single women are actually more likely to get tenure than childless single men.

Source: Sexism in the Academy | Issue 34 | n+1

Why the figures on women’s super are not always what they seem

While a number of measures appear to show that the superannuation balance gender gap is closing, a look at the the raw figures will show you the opposite.

[W]omen in Super CEO Sandra Buckley said there were still significant problems for many women in building super.

“The structural inequities in the superannuation system that make it harder for women to accumulate super have not been removed or improved,” Ms Buckley said.

“Namely, the $450 monthly threshold before super is payable still exists, super is not paid on Paid Parental Leave, and super is based on income earned so unpaid work (caring responsibilities) does not attract super or ‘caring credits’ as they are referred to in other countries.

“One-third of women are retiring with no superannuation and single women aged 55 and over are the fastest-growing cohort of homeless.

“These facts do not indicate that there will be any improvement in the gender super gap for many years.   

Source: Why the figures on women’s super are not always what they seem

Barack Obama: ‘Women are better leaders & old men need to stand aside’

Obama said that during his time in the White House, he’d regularly mused about what a world run by women would look like.

“I’m absolutely confident that for two years, if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes.”

Source: Barack Obama: ‘Women are better leaders & old men need to stand aside’

Finland picks world’s youngest PM to head women-led cabinet

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s new prime minister – about to become the world’s youngest serving premier – will have a finance minister two years her junior in a new women-led coalition cabinet, party officials said on Monday.

The new government, consisting of 12 female and 7 male ministers according to media reports, will be nominated on Tuesday.

Source: Finland picks world’s youngest PM to head women-led cabinet – Reuters

‎The Gender at Work Podcast: Episode 12: Patriarchy Impeached – Is this what justice looks like? The Catherine Claxton story on Apple Podcasts

‎This episode walks us through Catherine Claxton’s story, which has been assembled by G@W Senior Associate Joanne Sandler and Julie Thompson, both long time UN staffers. Catherine’s lawyers — Mary Dorman and Ellen Yaroshefsky — recount the events that led Catherine, a junior UN staffer, to charge an Undersecretary General with sexual abuse. What unfolded in response mirrors the Me Too stories of today. Patriarchy closed ranks around the perpetrator and demanded allegiance to authority from those in the system; attempts were made to discredit the complainant – in this case, Catherine – and bury her in bureaucratic legalese as she sought to use the existing mechanisms and processes of adjudication to seek justice; and when all the evidence was in and a third party judgement came in favoring her, the UN buried the report. Finally the perpetrator was fired and was given a glorious send off. Sound familiar? Is this what justice looks like in cases of sexual harassment and abuse? How do we impeach patriarchy and hold it accountable?

Source: ‎The Gender at Work Podcast: Episode 12: Patriarchy Impeached – Is this what justice looks like? The Catherine Claxton story on Apple Podcasts

Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ

Gimbutas argued that the “Kurgan” people introduced Indo-European languages into the lands they conquered, as well as new cultural systems based on domination of warriors and kings over the general populace and the domination of men over women. She stated that the Kurgan invasions of Europe began about 4400 BCE and lasted for several millennia.

[I]n declaring Marija Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis “magnificently vindicated,” Lord Colin Renfrew, considered by many to be “the grand old man” of his field, opened the floodgates. He implicitly gave permission to other scholars to reconsider all of Gimbutas’s theories and perhaps eventually to restore her to her rightful place as one of the most–if not the most–creative, scientific, ground-breaking archaeologists of the twentieth century, “the grand old lady” of her field.

Source: Marija Gimbutas Triumphant: Colin Renfrew Concedes by Carol P. Christ

Women feel better when they work with other women

Our results clearly show that the unpleasant feelings during work are not merely a by-product of being a numerical minority. Because work organizations and the wider society value men and qualities associated with masculinity more than they value women and femininity, women’s affective well-being suffers from being a minority, whereas men’s affective well-being is not affected.

Source: Women feel better when they work with other women