Sociology

Abstract
The paper defines and discusses the topic of gender discrimination in the workplace. The role and importance of the topic are discussed. The paper defines and evaluates the causes of gender diversity in the workplace and its effects on organizational performance. Recommendations are provided to help employers reduce the risks of gender discrimination in organizations.

Gender Discrimination in the Workplace
Gender discrimination in the workplace is a recurrent topic in professional literature that women and men are treated differently by their employers is a well-known fact. Despite the recent shifts in law and ethics, gender discrimination continues to be a relevant issue in organizations, producing significant influence on employees work lives and leaving them no chance to succeed in their professional endeavors. Gender discrimination in the workplace implies an action which employers, colleagues, supervisors, and or managers take against other employees based on their gender. The current state of knowledge about gender discrimination treats women as the most probable victims of gender discrimination in the workplace. To have a complete picture of the issue and to provide recommendations, this paper will analyze the meaning and the causes of gender discrimination, as well as its effects on employees and organizations for which they work.

Gender Discrimination in the Workplace The Current State of Knowledge
Discrimination involves action toward individuals on the basis of their group membership (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000, p. 158). Gender discrimination in the workplace is an action which individuals take toward other individuals based on their gender. Gender discrimination is rarely explicit more often than not, gender discrimination reflects in implicit resistance to the promotion of men or women in organizations because of their gender. The current state of literature treats gender discrimination in the workplace as an action, which men take against women and which makes it difficult for women to succeed in their professional endeavors. However, in real-life contexts, men cannot feel absolutely secure in their gender positions. Literature is lacking evidence about the effects of gender discrimination on men but it would be fair to assume that men, like women, can perceive the pressure of gender stereotypes on their work lives. That gender discrimination is about discriminative attitudes of male employers toward female employees is another misconception in reality, gender discrimination equally involves managers, subordinates, coworkers, customers, and clients (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000). Regardless of position which individuals occupy in organizations, everything that limits the target persons ability to enter, remain in, succeed, in, or progress in job as a result of the targets persons gender can be called gender discrimination (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000).

The topic of gender discrimination is important for several reasons. First, addressing gender discrimination issues in the workplace is impossible without understanding its significance and underlying meanings. Second, the systemic character of gender discrimination in the workplace influences thousands of employees lives and the effects of gender discrimination on the workplace processes, relationships, and performance in organizations should be considered. Third, for organizations to minimize the risks of gender discrimination in the workplace, its causes and predictors should be well understood. As long as gender contributes to the development of stereotypes and prejudice in the workplace and remains a serious barrier on employees way to professional highs, professionals in organization studies will keep searching for the reliable explanations and relevant solutions to the issue of gender discrimination in the workplace.

Gender Discrimination in the Workplace Possible Causes and Explanations
In the global business environment, scarce opportunities exist for women to succeed in their professional domains. Although relative progress has been made, barriers on womens way to career growth persist, and womens academic achievements and professional talents remain mostly unrecognized. The availability of jobs for women does not necessarily imply better opportunities for career growth and gender discrimination keeps women in lower positions, giving them no chance to move up the career ladder. Until present, gender role stereotyping has been the most popular explanation to gender discrimination issues in the workplace because some jobs are perceived as typically male, men believe that women do not have skills or personality traits needed to succeed in these positions. For example, the concept of management has an explicitly male coloring, and think manager, think male stereotype is still one of the major obstacles to successful professional and organizational self-realization in women (Michail, 2006). Gender stereotypes influence decisions about men and women in organizations, and men are still more likely to be hired for management and professional positions than women with similar or identical qualifications (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000). Employers either deny women a chance for a promotion or promote them at slower rates than men with similar qualifications and experience (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000). More importantly, the proportion of women in different positions decreases as the status and rank of the occupation increases (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000) and these difficulties are the direct result of stereotyped beliefs and biases which men hold about women.

Gender itself is the basic prerequisite for the development of gender stereotypes and gendered attitudes toward women in organizations. Michail (2006) writes that male employees traditionally hold negative stereotypes toward women, compared to their female counterparts. More importantly, gender is the determining factor in accounting for the difference in attitudes toward female and male workers (Michail, 2006). Thus, even if organizations implement equal opportunity policies and promote the value of gender equity in the workplace, overcoming these prejudiced attitudes for them will be difficult, unless they can address systemic cultural challenges and shape the new vision of organizational ethos in the workplace.

These prejudiced attitudes toward women in the workplace are just one element on gender schemas, which predetermine the quality of behaviors and reactions in individuals. Gender schemas are mental models that determine the gender role expectations of individuals based on biological sex (Lemons  Parzinger, 2007, p, 92). In other words, gender schemas are the complex conjunctions of beliefs and meanings that result from continuous cultural interactions between individuals, and between them and their communities. Under the influence of traditional gender roles and through repeated observations of similar gendered events, individuals create their gender schemas and later use them to interpret their own and others behaviors and reactions (Lemons  Parzinger, 2007). For example, in IT professions, male stereotyping and prejudices about women are still the two biggest factors that hold back womens careers (Lemons  Parzinger, 2007). Should male professionals in IT have been open in their organizational decisions, women would have had better chances to use their talents and to add value to the current state of IT profession in organizations. Needless to say, such gendered attitudes and prejudice toward women in different traditionally male professions produce significantly negative effects on their workplace performance and on performance in organizations, in general. These effects can range from stress and anxiety in employees to organizations failure to identify, hire and promote the best talents.

The Effects of Gender Discrimination on Employees and Organizations
A mountain of research confirms that despite a number of employment and equal opportunity acts and regulations, gender discrimination in the workplace persists and produces significant negative effects on employees and organizations (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000 Lemons  Parzinger, 2007 Michail, 2006 Smith, 2005). Perceptions of gender discrimination in the workplace are associated with stress, intentions to seek new employment, decreased satisfaction and reduced citizenship behaviors in employees (Regmi, Naidoo  Regmi, 2009). Discrimination also prevents discriminated individuals, mostly women, from accessing and using available labor market opportunities (Regmi, Naidoo  Regmi, 2009). Because of gender discrimination, employees experience pressures and stress from being unable to realize themselves in professional settings, while organizations fail to identify, hire, and successfully promote talented employees.

Gender stereotypes influence female employees in two ways. First, stereotyped attitudes discourage women and they limit their professional contributions second, gender stereotypes encourage men to ignore womens contribution, leading women to perceive their participation in workplace tasks and activities as unwelcome, unnecessary, and unimportant (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000). Even if women can preserve relatively high levels of self-esteem and self-respect, in male-dominated positions they will experience lower confidence and will hold doubts about the value of their knowledge and experience in specific tasks (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000). Gender stereotypes significantly limit womens professional behaviors and self-expression in the workplace. In the atmosphere of perceived gender discrimination, women are less likely than men to make contributions to their tasks (Cleveland, Stockdale  Murphy, 2000).

However, not always are women as weak, unconfident, and hesitating as proposed by Cleveland, Stockdale and Murphy (2000). Women can be perceived as less professional, less educated, less capable, and less suitable for particular positions but they often display better commitment to their profession and are more likely to perform organizational citizenship behaviors compared to men (Lovell et al, 1999). That means that women are more likely than men to make innovative suggestions, to propose company improvements, to help and support their co-workers with heavy task loads, and to orient new people to their work (Lovell et al, 1999). Yet, despite higher scores in organizational citizenship behaviors, the results of performance evaluations for women are mostly equal to those for men or even lower, and imply that performance evaluations can be an implicit tool of gender discrimination in the workplace (Lovell et al, 1999). There is no empirical evidence in favor of the assumption that women are less motivated than men and thus do not deserve promotion, but there is strong support for the belief that disproportionate representation of women in organizations and specific positions severely depresses their hopes for promotions (Smith, 2005). That is why gender discrimination in the workplace reflects in continuous stress, lower performance scores, organizational tensions, conflicts, and continuous dissatisfaction.

Employment policies and regulations cannot suffice to eliminate the risks of gender discrimination in the workplace. Given that gender prejudice and misbalanced gender attitudes in the workplace grow from within individuals cognitive functioning and are shaped by an array of cultural influences, the best employers can do is to educate their employees and themselves. Becoming aware of personal biases is the first step to reducing behaviors resulting from those biases (Lemons  Parzinger, 2007). Employers should place qualified and skilled women in observable positions within their companies, thus providing employees (both male and female) with cooperation experiences, which will help them to get rid of gender bias (Lemons  Parzinger, 2007). Because gender discrimination results in stresses, the lack of promotion opportunities, and emotional dissatisfaction proposed solutions will, most probably, enhance performance in organizations, giving talented and skilled women a chance to make their professional contribution to continuous performance improvement in organizations.

Conclusion
Gender discrimination is a recurrent topic in professional literature. Gender discrimination in the workplace implies any action toward individuals made on the basis of their gender. The roots of gender discrimination lie in gender role stereotyping and gender schemas in individuals, which develop as a result of repeated cultural influences. Gender discrimination in the workplace results in employee stress, lower job satisfaction, and reduced citizenship behaviors. Organizations which favor or do not address gender discrimination face the risks of lower performance. Discrimination awareness, education, and placing qualified women in observable positions within companies are among the basic instruments, which companies can successfully utilize to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace.