As the world moves a step closer towards gender-equality, working woman still experience a torment of injustices at workplaces and beyond.
According to the UN Women, only 5% of the lead Fortune 500 companies are headed by women CEOs, indicating the prevalent gender-gap in the entrepreneurial sphere.
While, globally, a shift in trends and perceptions towards women employment is noticeable, the plight of working women persists, specifically in Pakistan. Amongst many other factors, a lack of opportunities, wage-gaps, workplace harassment and stigmatisation of women employment contribute to the aforementioned issue.
Through Project Kaavish, a community service initiative and awareness campaign, Anoud Naeem, Areesha Tauseef and Halimah Mian, students of Lahore Grammar School, surveyed over 400 women working in factories, hospitals and colleges and interviewed various employed women to identify the nature and severity of discrimination regarding opportunities and employment. The survey focused on women from lower socio-economic groups. These responses indicated that a major problem faced by working women is that of unfair wages and wage gaps between male and female counterparts. Globally, women earn 23% less than their male colleagues (UN Women), indicating that this issue is not just faced in Pakistan, a developing country but also in the developed world.
Furthermore, women are unable to attain positions of authority in their workplaces either because of deliberate discrimination or an implicit bias that exists against women workers.
Zainab Adnan, an employee at NHS in UK, stated during an interview: “The issue is not the perception of women working – that’s very common here.
The issue is with women in positions of authority, or rather the lack thereof. It’s acceptable for women to work in low profile jobs such as nursing or healthcare assistance. But the second women start to go into positions of authority, when they start to become doctors and consultants; they begin to face more issues.”
What Zainab refers to here is a sociological phenomenon known as the Glass Elevator – the precipitous promotion of men over women into management positions in female-dominated fields such as nursing - and hence, it becomes clear that in workplace, women are considered subordinate to male colleagues, making them face a variety of challenges, reduced wages and lack of promotional opportunities being on top of the list.
Most of the problems regarding female-employment stem from societal perceptions of women working alongside men, holding equal power and earning equal wages. Particularly in the Indian subcontinent and in Africa, stigmatisation of women working outside home is common. A representative from Dream Women’s Foundation, a non-profit organisation working in Tanzania, told us in an interview that ‘culture and taboo make it very difficult for women to work.’
Project Kaavish is working to change these perceptions towards female employment in Pakistan and has effectively managed to accumulate followers in Pakistan, Australia and Zimbabwe amongst many other places. Through small steps like these, working women can be empowerment and other women can be encouraged to take up jobs.
In order to make workplaces friendlier for female employees and to ensure equality in terms of wages and opportunities, a change in attitude towards working women is pivotal. The educational system has a cardinal role in shaping societal attitudes, therefore; school curricula should encourage equality of both genders and should promote the employment of women. Organisations such as ‘Women’s Equality Party’ working in England, Scotland and Wales are campaigning against gender pay gap and are an effective way of changing attitudes of the masses and ensuring gender equality. While, our interviews and survey results highlight an improvement in perceptions, there is still a long way to go.
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