Sexual Harassment

If you look around you will be surprised to see that even in this 21st century in which humans boast of a global village, discrimination on various grounds is still practiced. The most happening in the world is gender discrimination. The gender issue is not something new. Sociologists, feminists, and scholars in other branch of studies have fought on the issue of gender bias and have succeeded in its elimination to some extent. Yet there is lot more to do.

It is shocking to see that even in developed countries with so much promotion and enactment of laws for equality of work, discrimination against women still happens in workplaces. They are denied economic equity, promotion opportunities, and a better working environment by employers.

Though it is observed that women have gained executive and managerial positions, yet their ratio compared to the male dominated world is less. In a survey conducted, it was found that 95% of the senior or managerial posts in the US are still occupied by males.

Literally, the word discrimination means rejection of undesirable qualities and acceptance of good qualities, but when it is used with the term Â'againstÂ', it takes a different meaning. It means depriving someone of his/her rights or humiliating the person.

By gender discrimination, we mean the denial of equal rights to women that they deserve like every male citizen of the country in every sector. In the broader sense, it encompasses many other factors too like sexual harassment, derogatory remarks, and preventing wilfully from gaining higher posts in a workplace.

Gender discrimination is nothing, but unjustified differentiation between males and females, exclusion of females from certain activities with presumptions that they won't be capable of without a practical outlook and limiting their opportunities of growth and income. In any sector, political, social, economic, or cultural denial of rights based on gender is against human rights and a violation of all the norms of laws relating to the equality of citizens.

A traditional outlook has always considered women as the weaker and inferior section destined to perform certain tasks which the males are not supposed to do. These traditions are still followed in many religions and countries. A narrow mental outlook prevents gender equality.

According to the UN there is no place in which women enjoy the same opportunity and often they experience a glass ceiling. A 'Glass ceiling' means a process that creates an invisible barrier because of which women cannot get a promotion to a higher post. This glass ceiling method has found that 95 to 97 % of managers in the US are men.

There are laws and Acts for redressal of such discrimination. But the practical implementation is very less. Women still suffer from harassment in their workplace. Gender discrimination will not be eradicated from the society till we accept the equality norms properly and women fight for their rights.