This years International Women’s Day followed the theme #BreakTheBias, which encouraged people to call out gender bias in all parts of life.
Discussions of gender bias in the workplace often lead back to the widely misunderstood ‘gender pay gap’, which is calculated by looking at the difference between the average hourly earnings of men versus women as a proportion of men’s average hourly earnings in the UK. The statistic is frequently disputed by right-wing commentators such as Jordan Peterson due to its lack of nuance, but its value really lies in the way in which it is able to expose a base level of inequality within the workforce.
Whilst the gender pay gap has been slowly declining over the last decade, there remained a 15.4% gap of median gross hourly earnings in 2021. The imbalances don’t end there. Women also remain highly under-represented in positions of power making up just 6% of CEOs within FTSE companies. Of this 6%, none are women of colour. An intersectional approach is essential when attempting to #BreakTheBias in the workplace.
Research has found that ethnic minority candidates have to send 60% more job applications to receive an equal amount of call backs as White people, meaning that many women are faced with the double-edged sword of gender and racial bias. Furthermore, a 2018 study found that a staggering 1 in 3 employers in the UK admitted to be ‘less likely’ to hire a transgender person. These statistics highlight just a few of the barriers that exist for women in the UK job market, but only only illuminate one part of the story. I spoke to two University of Sheffield Students to find out what it’s really like working as a woman in professional and service industries.
Rosie, 20, has experience working as a waitress in a popular chain restaurant and as a bartender at a smaller venue in Sheffield. “I think especially in the waitressing community, it’s seen typically that women are the waitresses and men are the chefs, and chefs have more authority and can speak down to the waitresses for doing anything wrong, and I’ve noticed especially throughout the years that if you have a male waiter who makes a mistake in a food order or something the chefs are more likely to be nicer to them than if it was a woman. I think it’s an authority thing that they have. Typically waitresses are quite young females that chefs who are older males can have this authority and power over.”
She says that there is also an imbalance in the way female workers are treated by customers. “When working in a bar the way that especially drunk customers would approach you was very different, especially coming out of the first lockdown men would surge their way forward and say quite explicit things to you and try and get away with it because they were drunk or whatever, and I think a lot of men see a young female worker, especially when alcohol is involved, and view that as an opportunity to try and get with them or make a move.”
Emily, 21, is completing a year in industry and is currently working in a private sector mental health organisation. “In our workplace we’ve got a lot more women in manager roles, we have a lot of female senior staff…there’s always women in finance roles which is really nice to see, that hasn’t been seen in the past. There seems to be a lot of the men taking on lesser roles. However, I think in certain teams there is still a slight imbalance where it’s not necessarily sexism, but there’s middle aged men making these comments and passing judgements especially to young girls.”
“I find that when you have a 40 year old man in charge of 20/21 year old girls and he’s making it known that he’s quite enjoying the situation, I think it’s not quite right.” She describes a contrast in the way in which different generations of women view less obvious forms of harassment in the workplace. “You only notice it, I would say, if you’re a younger girl because all the middle aged women are so used to it that they become almost desensitised to it over time…a ‘men will be men’ kind of attitude.”
Emily and Rosie’s experiences highlight that gender imbalances in the workplace run deeper than equal opportunity and payment. Whilst progress has been made, it remains to be ensured that women are treated with the same degree of respect and professionalism as their male colleagues. There’s a lot more to be done to make sure that women are able to feel comfortable in the workplace, and a long way to go to #BreakTheBias.
