Fig Technologies Gender Issues and Gender Demographics

Despite the impressive strides the women’s movement has made towards equality in recent decades, women still struggle to achieve parity with their male colleagues in terms of pay and promotion at the managerial level. According to the Society for Human Resource Managers, although women and men may have roughly equal status during the early phases of their careers, this begins to change as the years go on, and both genders do not struggle equally to make progress on the career ladder. Women are less likely to be promoted to managerial roles then men, and their pay suffers accordingly (Miller, 2016). The influence of gender-based inherent bias cannot be discounted, as men may be more apt to promote individuals who seem more like themselves, even unconsciously. After or outside of work events at bars or golf courses can be uncomfortable and unintentionally exclude women, particularly women with pressing family responsibilities at home.
Even men admit that employers are doing little to overcome the hurdles of discrimination women may face. According to a survey of 80,000 workers by the Seattle-based research firm PayScal, only 17% of men said that their employers were taking proactive steps to reduce gender-based pay inequities, versus 10% of women (Miller, 2016). Part of the problem is due to the so-called second shift which women must often perform. In other words, once women arrive home (or are about to leave in the morning), there is an expectation that they engage in child care, elder care, and housework to a far greater degree than their male counterparts, even if they are working at paid employment (Parker, 2016). Women are still more apt to experience career disruptions due to family pressures (Parker, 2016). This is not limited to women with children, although children are obviously one of the most significant reasons for this.
Women are thus more apt to be pressured by themselves, their partners, and even by society to take on family rather than vocational duties (Parker, 2016). This can create a vicious cycle, in which women are able to participate less in the workplace, have less leverage to promote other women to positions of power, and thus women’s work is devalued, whether in the home or in the office. Women may feel because their work is valued less, financially and emotionally, that they are better off devoting their energies to the home rather than to the office.
One potential solution to this is offering flexible work schedules. The rise of telecommuting, particularly in light of the recent pandemic, but also simply because of the greater available recourse to doing so with technology, can make it easy for women to work from laptops at home while juggling work and family life. This can also reduce commuting time. On the other hand, the fact that women have no release from the pressures of the office or home due to being connected to both 24/7 can significantly increase stress levels. There are also concerns about the quality of the work performed at home during flexible hours.
On the other hand, as the world increasingly operates on a constant, never-ending grind in the new, global reality, women’s willingness to work flexible schedules could actually be helpful for them, rather than a hindrance. It also encourages employees to be evaluated on work quality, rather than socializing and facetime at the office, which could be helpful for female employees. Offering child and eldercare on premises is another solution, and could make the organization more attractive even to men as well as women.
Regardless, women clearly have untapped resources of talent at drive that our organization has a personal and social responsibility to mine to its greatest possible extent. Taking such measures as mentoring talented women employees, offering flextime to those willing and interested in it, and exploring onsite care-based facilities are all options which must be entertained if we are to succeed and move into the next millennium.
References
Miller, S. (2016). Gender gap pegged to lack of promotions. Society for Human Resource Managers. Retrieved from: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/gender-pay-gap-pegged-to-promotions.aspx
Parker, K. (2016). Women more than men adjust their careers for family life. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/01/women- more-than-men-adjust-their-careers-for-family-life/