IDS400FinalProject.docx

Amanda Naeem

7-1 Project Submission: Gender Inequality in the Workforce

IDS 400 SNHU

6/18/2024

Introduction: Topic Description

When looking into the history of diversity and how it impacts individuals as well as

society it is important to understand that we are just now starting to gain a larger understanding

and knowledge of the effects of the lack of diversity, inclusion, and discrimination have had over

elevates thinking, stimulates creative thinking, enhances career preparation and career success as

well as many other numerous benefits.” (Thompson, 2009)

Throughout this paper I am going to focus my research and evidence on my topic of

Gender Inequality in the workplace. Specifically, I am going to focus on how women have been

treated unfairly throughout history while comparatively their male counterparts on average have

had many more advantages leading to large amounts of success. These differences will be

supported with outside resources as well as facts about the discrimination women have dealt with

such as things like the wage gap, discriminatory hiring practices/barriers to entry, sexual

harassment problems, lack of equal roles in leadership compared to male counterparts and many

other issues that have plagued the female workforce for a millennium. While everyone has

Describe apopulationsignificant to your topic. Include information such as demographics,

This paper focuses on the female struggles and inequalities that they have faced in the

workplace over previous years. “Roughly four-in-ten working women say they’ve experienced

occupational segregation, and a disproportionate burden of cost associated with caregiving.”

(U.S. DOL, 2024)

Another key factor that is important when identifying the population of women in the

workforce is that of mothers in the workforce and the inequalities they have faced as well.

“According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics about 71% of mothers with children at home

are working.” (BLS, 2024) While this is an interesting demographic of this population being

studied it is even more interesting to not that, “Research has shown that hiring mangers are less

likely to hire mothers compared to women who don’t have kids, and when employers do make an

offer to a mother, they offer her a lower salary than they do other women.” (AAUW, 2024) What

is even more staggering is the fact that women, and mothers on top of that don’t just get pay

couple’s first child and a year after, the earnings gap between opposite sex spouses’ doubles.”

Articulate how the topic has shaped thelives and experiencesof your chosen population.

Gender inequality in the workforce has greatly changed women’s lives as well as their

long-term futures. Having all these barriers and issues that limit them in comparison to men

fundamentally affects how they live their lives and experience things. Women have faced many

difficult barriers in the workplace such as the barrier to enter, fighting for their right to equal pay,

as well as fighting for equal roles in leadership compared to men in the workplace. According to

the U.S. Department of Labor Blog, “Since the new millennium, the total labor force

participation rate and the women’s labor force participation have both fallen, while the women’s

labor force peaked around 1999 with women making up 60 percent of the workforce.” (U.S.

Department of Labor, 2023)

with like leadership roles and pay equality. Certain stereotypes and biases affect these women

because people judge them off their irrational beliefs. One such stereotype that has hindered

women’s ability in the workforce to get their equal pay, promotions, and job offers in the first

(Correl, Bernard, Paik, 2007) With statistics like this readily present it is clear after just a limited

amount of research that these biases and stereotypes have very negatively affected women

throughout the years which is why we must bring light to this information.

women face employment gaps in comparison to both the general population and disabled men.

Disabled women’s employment rate was record high 20.5% yet substantially lower than the

general population, at 60.3%, and that of disabled men, at 24.8%.” (Rublee, Neal, 2024) I think

while it is obvious there are certain jobs disabled women would not accel at there are numerous

jobs out their disabled people women included could do just as well as most of their nondisabled

counterparts. For example, any work from home remote job on the computer would be ideal for

people with disabilities and they could fill the role and do just as good a job as anyone else.

While making these arguments there are always potential obstacles that we face in getting

the general population to have an open and honest discussion about issues like this. One potential

obstacle that could be a challenge would be that of people not seeing this as much of an issue as

closed but is still very prevalent today. Some people are simply ignorantly uninformed and must

The four lenses are history, humanities, natural and applied sciences, and social science.

For my choice of a general education interdisciplinary lens for analyzing my topic I have

chosen the history lens. My research studies gender inequality in the workplace particularly the

struggles that women have faced over the years whether it has been the right to work, fight for

equal pay, as well as all the other numerous issues they have faced. I have studied this subject by

using this history lens because this is something that has plagued our world since the start of

time. Through this I have used sources such as articles, newspapers, and oral testimonies of

people who lived and experienced these hardships. This lens helps paint a larger picture of the

problems and issues faced overall gathering the story of the tribulations many faced rather than

just one person. “The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes

women’s rights as can be viewed by famous authors such as John Stuart Mill who published the

essay on the equality of the sexes that was titled, “The Subjection of the Sexes”. We know that

this became a prominent issue at hand around the mid 1850’s as there was also the first women’s

right convention. “On July 19th, 1848, the Seneca Falls convention convened. Heralded as the

Congress to pass a law guaranteeing equal pay for women employed as federal employees.”

(Barrett, 2017)

1) That is the reason I chose to study and examine this topic with the lens of history.

Construct athesis statementthat combines your topic, population, cultural situation, and

choice of general education interdisciplinary lens.

Diversity and inclusiveness are crucial to the progression of the workplace, employers,

and people. Inequality in the workforce is something that continues to this day but has been

known about for hundreds of years; people must be educated on it and taught how to combat it

through means of diversity, and inclusiveness breaking down the gender barriers in the

workplace.

Critical Analysis

Discuss how you wouldconstructively collaboratewith your population to encourage their

engagement with your chosen topic.

actively, educating and informing them, addressing intersectionality, and promoting continuous

learning and adaptation among other methods as well. I believe combining these different

methods would greatly encourage their engagement garnering a more inclusive talk about how to

improve gender inequality in the workplace, doing so would foster a workforce where diversity,

inclusion, and equality flourish.

Describe at least onepositive elementwithin your topic that supports transformation.

While discussing the positive elements of gender equality in the workplace there are

numerous benefits that can be listed. One key statistic that can be seen as positive is that

“companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21% more likely to

outperform on profitability.” (AAUW, 2024) This is one key statistical fact that has been proven

but there are many positive elements that support the transformation of the workplace to promote

equality. Some of the benefits include: a wider talent pool, different perspectives, enhanced

collaboration, improved retention, better reflection to customers, improved recruitment and

payment of different sexes. “Women earn an average of 16 percent less than men, meaning they

make 84 cents compared to every dollar earned for man.” (Haan, 2024) Women and mothers

should not get paid less when doing the same duties as their male counterparts and having no

discernable difference other than their reproductive parts and children. Evening the playing field

to say and making sure women and mothers get paid what they have earned would be a huge

improvement on this topic but there would still be a large amount of progress to be made.

fear of backlash and negative consequences against them. Some people may likely be hesitant to

speak up when situations arise because they fear the backlash of what their employer may do to

them because of speaking out. “A survey found eighty-seven percent of whistleblowers revealed

that all but one had experienced retaliation.” (Hale, 2021) These women sometimes fear open

discussion because they will be labeled as troublemakers and experience prolonged problems

with certain employers.

Stanford. (2022, July 19). Stanford scholars examine gender bias and ways to advance equity