Women workers face different challenges in the workplace like gender based
discrimination, harassment, domestic restriction, work and family issues and
unequal pay
In the past few decades, the role of women in our society has been
drastically changed. Women can be seen as fighter-jet pilots, educationists,
customer services head, company executives, admin heads, banking, HR and
telecom sector. Women are making a tremendous contribution in each sector. Men
are no longer considered as the only bread earner of the house. Women of the
family are now also financially supporting their family. Though the number of
working women is increasing day by day but still there are certain barriers
that they have to cross to prove themselves beneficial for the job market.
Gender based discrimination:
Working men are usually given unfair advantage in comparison to the working
women. In this male dominating society, men are considered more hardworking,
intelligent and better employees than women. This gender discrimination result
in increased level of stress and job dissatisfaction. It also decreases
motivation to work and commitment towards the job.
Basically women are given lesser opportunities for quality education which
in turn results in lack of knowledge regarding technological advancement.
Domestic Restrictions:
Earlier women were restricted to their home and their primary role was to
take care of household chores. With time, due to increase in economic pressures
on families this restriction has been released. Now in most of the families
women are also allowed to get higher education and do paid jobs but under
certain restrictions. The maximum percentage of working women can be seen as
health workers, educationist, clerks or any other low paid job that are not
much preferred by men because of the lack of growth opportunities and low
pay-scale. Women are allowed to do such jobs because of the female dominant
environment. This thing has restricted the woman's exposure to other available
opportunities and limited their growth in the developmental sector. After all
day of work at office, no matter how tired they are, they also have to look
after domestic chores.
Harassment at work place:
Harassment is another main problem faced by working women, as they are
considered an easy target by the male colleagues. Most of the women in Pakistan
came out of their house to earn money only at the time of extreme need, they
are much vulnerable and colleagues and higher management harass them by passing
inappropriate remarks or making fun of them or in extreme cases they harass
them sexually.
Usually women remain silent on such acts or ignore them or put up with it
in fear of losing their job. They are reluctant to make allegations against the
culprits. Some of them resign to get rid of all this because they know that it
is of no use to make a complaint against them. Corrupt officers and higher
authorities do not support them. Strict laws are there to support working women
but only if all this gets reported. This is one of the major reasons why
families do not allow women to work.
Lower Pay-scale:
The employer should ensure that uniform wages should be paid to both men
and women on an equal amount of work done. In many workplaces, employees are
not allowed to discuss their salaries because of which no one ever comes to
know if they are paid less or not. Bullying, harassment and abusing are vivid
acts but lower wages is a silent offense, no one makes any complaint and the
problem continues.
Women are paid less because employer has this preset concept that she will
quit the job after marriage or after having children. Women earn low also
because they have to choose a less challenging job for themselves so they can
spend more time at home. Parenthood affects the woman's career adversely in
contrast to men.
The organization should offer some family-friendlier policy and also make
sure equal wages should be given to the employees without gender
discrimination. Remaining silent on such act means that we are silently
supporting this crime.
Married Working Women:
Most of the married women are not allowed to do a job and also, it becomes
difficult for them to maintain work and household chores equilibrium because of
increased responsibility. Traditionally, men are the bread earners of the house
and it is not appreciable if women support the family financially or if women
earn more than men.
Married working women also face problems at work. It is not possible for
them to work in late hours. Most of the workplaces do not have nurseries or
daycare where mothers can keep their children.
Negative attitudes of male co-workers:
Attitude of male co-workers is sometimes really humiliating and biased. It
is considered that women are hired just to add colour to the office
environment. Lack of workplace social support, from colleagues and supervisors
leads to absenteeism, low turnover and job dissatisfaction. Higher authorities
should try to establish a supportive and conducive work environment.
Transport:
The transport system in our country is very poor. This is a big hindrance
for the women who have to go out for a job. Men and women both have to face
this problem. Despite the inadequate availability of the public transport,
women also have to face harassment. They are bound to travel on buses and vans
because taxis are expensive.
The government should address this problem on priority basis. Separate
public transport can solve this issue.
What they need to do?
To face challenges successfully, women need to be self-confident and should
keep herself up to date with the latest happenings in the world of technology.
The internet has now solved the problem of limited opportunities, as every internet
savvy person can access to the world of knowledge and information. So women
should keep surfing the internet to increase their knowledge. Good
communication skill is also a necessity; it helps in building social network
which in turn helps in appraising whenever there are new opportunities
available. Meeting deadlines is also important to prove yourself worthy.
Another most important thing is to maintain balance in work and personal life.
Also there is a need to educate men and tell them to respect other women
like they respect women in their family. They should show flexibility in their
attitude and should accept that women can perform even better than them.
