WST 101: Women’s Studies Learning Unit 7: Handout

Employment Issues – Segregation, Pregnancy, and Sexual Harassment

There are two types of segregation that happen to women in the work place.

Some women are subjected to horizontal segregation. This is where women are segregated or pushed to enter professions traditionally dominated women like nursing or K-8 education. Jobs that are traditionally dominated by women are considered “pink collar professions.”

Some women are subjected to vertical segregation. This is where women have entered a profession typically dominated by men but then run into gender barriers when they try to advance to higher levels within the organization or professional field. Women subjected to vertical segregation may find that there are salary caps for women employees in the organization or in the professional field.

Glass Ceiling The lack of advancement and the salary caps may be a result of a glass ceiling put in place by men in power to prevent the professional and economic advancement of women. The concept of “glass ceiling” was first used in 1986 when two Wall Street Journal reporters coined the term. The phrase describes the invisible and artificial barriers that impede women from advancing to senior leadership positions in their organizations. The Glass Ceiling is not only a barrier to individuals but to a society as a whole because it reduces the potential pool of corporate leaders by ignoring, or even worse discriminating against, over half the population – WOMEN!

Examples of the glass ceiling and vertical segregation include the fact that female doctors in the U.S. currently earn 70% less than male doctors with the exact same education and experience levels in the exact same hospitals. Looking beyond the medical profession to all professions, women earn 77% of earnings of men.

The term glass ceiling has now come to be applied to the advancement of minorities, deaf, blind, disabled, and sexual minorities. A couple of examples are the Bamboo Ceiling and the Celluloid Ceiling. Bamboo Ceiling is the exclusion of Asian-Americans from executive and managerial roles. Celluloid Ceiling refers to the small number of women in top positions in Hollywood.

Generally, these are some common types of glass ceilings:

 Lack of management commitment to establish systems that promote all employees equally  Pay inequities for work of equal or comparable value  Sex, race, and ethnic-based stereotyping and harassment is tolerated  Lack of family-friendly workplace policies  Limited opportunities for advancement positions

There are a couple of variations on the Glass Ceiling:

The glass elevator is when there is a rapid promotion of men over women especially into management in a “female dominated” fields or “pink collar” professions. The glass cliff is where someone has been

Page 1 of 3 WST 101: Women’s Studies Learning Unit 7: Handout promoted into a risky or difficult job and the chances for failure are high. Women are often victims of the glass cliff syndrome when they are set up for failure in a job promotion or are put in position as the “fall guy” in a situation where there is no win predicted.

Does pregnancy affect hiring? Pregnancy is not supposed to affect the hiring process for a job. However, in most cases women try to keep a potential employer from knowing that they are pregnant. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed in 1978 prohibits discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or other related medical conditions. However the pregnant employee must produce evidence against their employer to win the case and most pregnant employees that file a claim will lose their job due to the lawsuit. To make matters worse, many women are fired or passed over for a promotion after they announce their pregnancy. In 1997, The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) received 3,997 complaints about pregnancy discrimination and this was a 30% increase since 1991.

Sexual Harassment Some studies suggest that if they increase numbers of women in higher level positions it will reduce the amount of sexual harassment cases. The EEOC’s defines sexual harassment to be unwelcome sexual advances, requests for favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. There are two basic types of sexual harassment: Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment.

Quid Pro Quo: This is a Latin term meaning “this for that” or when a person of authority withholds, demands and/or promises benefits by pressuring a target to submit to unwelcome sexual conduct. This type of sexual harassment results in uncomfortable employment action and can be committed only by someone who can make/influence employment actions (firing, denial of promotion, demotion, etc). The targeted person may be harmed emotionally, mentally, and physically. An example of Quid Pro Quo would be a supervisor telling an employee that he/she must be sexually cooperative with the supervisor or he/she will be fired, and then usually the supervisor does fire the employee if the supervisor meets rejection.

Some common behaviors of Quid Pro Quo:

 unwelcome sexual remarks  display of graphic descriptions of pornography  requests for dates  demands or requests for sexual favors  unnecessary touching  forcing a kiss or public humiliation

Hostile Environment: This is the most common form of sexual harassment. It occurs when someone interferes with a person’s work, academic performance or creates a “BAD” environment. This form usually has a pattern of repeated behavior and can occur with anyone that the victim may have interacted with, intentionally or not. Usually is gender-based and happens with the male being the harasser to the female victim. Hostile environments can be difficult to recognize because men and

Page 2 of 3 WST 101: Women’s Studies Learning Unit 7: Handout women, as a general rule, have different levels of sensitivity. Conduct that may not offend a man may offend a woman.

Some behaviors contributed with Hostile Environment:

 Granting job favors to those who do participate in sexual activities  Use crude or offensive language  Unfulfilled threats to impose a sexual quid pro quo  Discussing sexual activities  Telling off-color jokes  Unnecessary touching  Commenting on physical attributes  Displaying sexual suggestive pictures  Using demeaning or inappropriate terms like “Babe”  Using indecent gestures  Sabotaging victims work

© Jennifer Terry Boyenga and Indian Hills Community College

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