Two and five female managers are subjected to sexism

Before actual progress is achieved, it invariably enters a weird growing pains period wherein public consciousness defies policy and legislation. The same way racism didn’t end when slavery did, sexism won’t simply go away because more women are given equal opportunities.  On several fronts, our laws are creating a false impression. Of course, it’s illegal to commit a hate crime in 2019, the same year that doing so is particularly in fashion.  

Visibility vs. equality

Ladders recently reported on the irony of two conflicting developments for members of the LGBTQ community that were separated by literal weeks. One was a study conducted by Burning Glass Technologies that reported an increased effort to employ LGBTQ friendly listings on behalf of recruiters and firms nationwide. The other, published in the Accelerating Acceptance Report, found that young Americans are less accepting of the queer community than they had been in previous years. Unfortunately, visibility does not, as a rule, mean equality, though it’s always the best start.  

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Similarly, new research presented by the charity organization, Young Women’s Trust found that sexist ideas are seeing professional women remain perpetually held back in the workplace. Despite the promotion of things like gender pay gap reporting, the results featured in this year’s paper mirror the dissapointing results published in years prior. Joe Levenson, Young Women’s Trust campaigns director, had this to say earlier this week to the Independent, 

“Many employers say they are aware of this, yet too few are doing anything to end it. From patronizing remarks to sexual harassment and gender discrimination, sexist cultures only serve to hold women back. This perpetuates gender pay gaps and disadvantages employers by limiting their organizations’ talent pools.”

The findings were derived from a pool of over 800 managers. One in 10 male respondents of this study sample said that men were better suited for management jobs than women, though one in five men admitted sexism is still prevalent in the professional world. Three percent of women reported agreeing with the 10% of men that felt they were biologically pre-dispositioned to run a business. This position is obviously unsound, but the fact remains only 4.9% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 2% of S&P 500 CEOs are women-and these numbers are actually decreasing worldwide. To the key point, biases and stereotypes that have long since been embedded into the national disposition, aren’t soon going to be repudiated by reason. 

According to an analyst of thousands of 350-degree reviews, women outperformed men on 17 out of 19  characteristics that suggest excellence in leadership roles. 

Nearly half of female managers surveyed in the new Young Women’s Trust survey said that they believe their workplace is sexist and a sizeable portion feels “shutout” of opportunities to progress because of it.  Levenson reports, 

“Unsurprisingly, women managers are more aware of it than men – no doubt because they too experience discrimination. Employers must root out sexism in their organizations and give women an equal chance to succeed. It can be particularly tough in male-dominated workplaces, where employers should help to bring more women in and change the culture through training days, mentoring and even targets.”