Women discrimination in a workplace setting has been evident since time immemorial. Though the practice has reduced significantly as a result of the implementation of the workplace discriminatory laws, the fact remains that women discrimination in a workplace setting is still evident. African American women have made significant progress, in terms of education, as well as taking tasks that were considered a preserve of the males (Gregory 20). In fact, in the society of today, women are not only highly educated but also professional than they were before. They are increasingly getting into tasks that were originally considered male dominated.
Nonetheless, despite robust progress made in there, education and other areas, such as getting into the jobs that were traditionally deemed male dominated, women still finds it rough when it comes to securing a position in the workplace, more so the executive position. Women are facing enormous challenges, which borders on racial and gender-based discrimination or sometimes both (Gregory 15). Women and particularly the black women continue to blame their quandary on three major reasons. They include the fact that they are women and living in a male dominated world or what is referred to as the patriarchy system, their gender, and their race.
As evident above, it is apparent that single mothers, more so blacks have faced it extremely rough when it comes to discrimination. For instance, the existing negative stereotypes of the African-American single mothers have been great as far as gender discrimination is concerned. Single mothers were greatly disrespected in society. In addition to earning less salary, they also received minimal benefits that were not in commensurate with the volume of work they performed in their respective workplaces.
Historically, employers relegated women to administrative and support positions, including secretaries, clerk-typists, and the administrative assistants (Mayhew 2). During this time, employers could engage in profound women discrimination practices because of lack of discriminatory laws. Additionally, most employers never trusted women as they considered them to lack the qualifications and skills vital in performing higher paid and non-traditional positions, something that was majorly attributed to their gender.
Even in circumstances where some managers or employers could promote women into the executive positions, such as management and the supervisory positions, they practiced the glass ceiling; preventing women from exercising higher level roles. Irrespective of their experiences and education levels, women were still prevented from rising to the higher level executive positions. This practice is still evident even now, where some organizations, such as Wal-Mart have faced many legal suits related to women based discrimination. Besides, these women are deterred from getting into the higher level positions of leadership.
To validate the assertion that women are still discriminated in various organizations, and their effort to rise to the top organization leadership thwarted. A professor by the name Dr, Richard Drogin from the University of California-Hayward conducted an extensive study geared towards ascertaining the number of women making up to the management positions at Wal-Mart (Mayhew 2). The findings of this study clearly demonstrated that despite women making a significant proportion of workforce at Wal-Mart (72%), it was unfortunate that only 32% of women made it to the executive management positions. This is a clear justification for women discrimination, which is still profound in the various workplace setting. Besides, Wal-Mart has faced various legal suits related to discrimination against women in the workplace.
One of the federal measures geared towards addressing the issue of unequal pay to men in similar positions with similar job description has been the implementation of the equal pay act. The implementation of the Equal Pay Act in 1963 compelled employers to pay similar wages to the employees performing similar tasks without necessarily taking into consideration the issue of gender (According to Parcheta Kaifi, and Khanfar 8). Despite the fact that some employees sometimes earn higher wages than others because of their seniority, performance, and work conditions, there is a need for pay equity to ensure that what women and men earn are equal. In some cases, it was found that male professors earned higher salaries compared to their female professors in higher ranks a clear indication of discrimination. Therefore, one can authoritatively conclude that the implementation of the Equal Pay Act played an incredible role as far as normalizing men and women pay was concerned.
Discrimination in the distribution of health care among African Americans has affected not only the quality of care offered, but also accessibility to quality care. African Americans have continuously experienced daily struggles and consequences of racial inferiority and discrimination in every facet of life (Davis 5). One of the areas in which African Americans have experienced discrimination is accessibility to quality healthcare. Gee (2) described racism as among the mechanisms explaining and expounding on healthcare, either directly or indirectly through factors, such as socio-economic. Different studies conducted on racial discrimination show that African Americans have profoundly been discriminated on health care ground.
African Americans experienced a higher percentage of hypertensive patients. Besides, the study reported that African Americans reported higher mortality rate when compared to their white patient’s counterparts. Such difference in healthcare outcomes has compelled researchers to explore the questions of how and why together with mechanisms responsible for the unequal distribution of severe medical outcomes and conditions among the blacks. Researchers have specifically been interested in the determination of the factors responsible for the poor healthcare outcomes among the blacks compared to their white counterparts.
Williams and Jackson (7) explored some of the factors they considered to be responsible for the differences in health disparities between African Americans and their Whites counterparts. Some of the documented factors included socio-cultural difference, political, economic, and geographic factors. Therefore, based on Williams and Jackson assertions, one can authoritatively conclude that effort to address discrimination in healthcare delivery should be geared towards fixing the above-documented causes.
Accordingly, socio-economic factors significantly influence variation in the accessibility of quality healthcare. American Psychological Association (6) contended that people with lower socio-economic often experience tremendous challenges concerning accessibility to quality healthcare services. People with lower socio-economic status tend to be economically disadvantaged, hence unable to access quality healthcare. Unlike Britain, the cost of healthcare in the United States is extremely high implying that the economically disadvantaged individuals may not be in a position to afford quality healthcare. Research shows that it is very challenging for the economically impoverished to gain accessibility to affordable health insurance plans.
American Psychological Association approximated that 26% of the African Americans population are presently living in poverty compared to only 8% of Hispanic whites. The statistics show that a large number of African-American living in the United States are in outright poverty. According to American Psychological Association, many studies have found that many people at lower socioeconomic status are likely to experience higher rates of mortality and morbidity. This could be attributed to their inability to access quality healthcare.
The federal and state governments play a vital role in addressing healthcare disparities. This is achieved through regulation, financing, and the provision of care. For instance, the Barack Obama administration played a major role in reducing healthcare disparities through enacting policies that not only improve the quality of healthcare delivered but also reduces healthcare disparities to all. The ObamaCare Policy played an incredible role in increasing accessibility to quality healthcare even to the economically disadvantaged.
- American Psychological Association. Socioeconomic status and health fact sheet, 2012.
- Davis, Rachel. A. Racial discrimination in healthcare among African Americans in America, 2013.
- Gregory, Raymond F. Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality. Rutgers University Press, 2003. Print
- Mayhew, Ruth. Hiring discrimination against women, 2017.
- Parcheta, Nicole, Belal A. Kaifi, and Nile M. Khanfar. “Gender inequality in the workforce: A human resource management quandary.” Journal of Business Studies Quarterly 4.3 (2013): 240.
- Williams DR and Jackson PB. Social sources of racial disparities in health. Health Affairs, 24.2 (2005): 325-334.
