“A Study of Gender Discrimination in Workplace and

Its Impact in Employees and Organization”

By

Mary Charisse C. Antonio

PHI21

A research submitted in partial fulfillment of

Gender and Society

DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY – DASMARIÑAS

Social Sciences Department

May 2021
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction………………………………………………………………..……..…..1

a. Research Problems……………………………………………………...……..2

b. Potential Policy Contribution………………………………...…………………2

c. Literature Review……………………………………………...………...……...2

II. Methodology……………………………………………………………...………….4

a. Data Collection Methods…………………………………................…………4

b. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………..………..5

c. Research Instrument…………………………………………..………………..6

III. Results………………………………………………..………………………………8

IV. Discussion

a. Findings of the Study………………………………………………………….15

b. Conclusion……………………………………...………………………………16

c. Recommendation……………………………..……………………………….16

V. Reference………………………………………..…………………………………18
 INTRODUCTION

Women start to work in the 1950s independently. The prior years are the year of
slavery and degrading for women. There is a lot of rejection in professional and
education because of an assumption that women should just be at home. The revolution
starts in the 1940s to 1950s which grant them the right to do everything that they want
without judgment. However, this is not accepted by society so the history of degrading
has come back. Women are slowly claiming their rights for years until the 1960s which
made women be part of the working economy because of the poor economic status.
Even though it was made to be temporary, women revolutionized again the system and
demand to claim their rights and so, it continues. However, there is still one thing that
remains from history and that is gender discrimination.

According to the International Labour Organization (2018), there is a big global

gap with women at work which has a participation rate of 49% while men have 75%.
Pepperman (2019) stated in their research entitled, “Gender Discrimination in Hiring:
International Effects with Ethnicity and Cognitive Job Demands” that women are mostly
the ones who find hark to work than men because of the prejudice. Moreover,
Pepperman (2019) mentioned that even in the first process which is the resume, there
is already gender segregation based on the gender roles. Based on the statistics that
were shown in the research, men have the highest opportunity to get the job because
most of the jobs are suitable for their gender role. When both of the researches from the
International Labour Organization (2018) and Pepperman (2019) will be analyzed at the
same time, they would formulate a conclusion that there is really a gender bias at work.

As a factor of economy, a workplace is a place that creates both products and

service that is released in the marketplace and business. All genders are capable of
entering this place as long as they met the requirements in the job. However, the
questionable criterion that the workplace requires is gender. The purpose of this study is
to know how gender discrimination in the workplace is happening and what impact does
it do on the employees.

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  Research Problems

This study addresses these questions: (1) How do the employees experience
gender discrimination at work? , 2) How can it affect the employees’ attitude at work? ,
(3) To what extent does gender discrimination affect the employees?, and (4) What is
the result of the impact on the organization that they belong to? The research’s main
problem pertains to the employees who are mostly the creators and idea makers of a
workplace. This question is significant because it affects their attitudes and productivity
in a business. Moreover, when people think of gender discrimination, they would often
think of the person-to-person problem. However, there are actually a lot of factors that
can be related to this problem. This includes the business and economy. The
environment within the employees could affect the business's success and is also the
same with the economy since business is part of it.

 Potential Policy Contribution

The economic state of poverty could be lessened if only businesses will let most
of the gender roles be allowed to do the job that they want to. This is not just a problem
of a small sector of the community but it can also dominate the world if this is tolerated
and not stop. This can also help the people in expertise to solve the problems of gender
discrimination by determining the factors. Last, this will help the businesses to know
how important the issue is and encourage them to take action about it.

 Literature Review

According to Plickert (2017), employers have a reason why they mostly do not
hire women at work. Their sudden leave of absence for maternity issues is one of them.
Women are the ones who have the gender role in society to take care of their children.
It is very rare for women to do the work because of this. Although they do not have the
capability to produce a child yet, it is the assumption of most of the recruiters.

Tiwari (2018) stated that discrimination against women is also taking place in
decision-making. Women are being denied to take the superior leadership position

2
because of the amount of distrusts that they are having in terms of decision-making.
According to the study, this kind of approach to the majority of women has caused them
to take back of the position and get discouraged. This is the reason why there are rare
women who are in the top position. Most of them are never heard at all while some are
being ignored.

With these examples of gender discrimination, it is important to study this

because according to the United Nations, half of the world’s population are women. This
article also mentioned that only 1 in 3 senior middle management positions are held by
women. The factors that caused this are very alarming. United Nations stated that
women even at the young age of 15-19 are already entering the married life. This shows
how women are deprived of opportunities and rely on their husbands instead and so,
the research aims to break the stigma of it by doing research that will help to show how
important it is to prevent gender discrimination in a place where a woman is given an
opportunity.

3
 METHODOLOGY

The current study is using the qualitative research. According to Aspers & Corte
(2019), qualitative research is the type of research that involves collecting opinions,
experiencing the fields of the study and getting a result through the observation. This
research also uses non-statistical source as the source of data since it is pure
descriptive and it doesn’t involve any numerical data. With this, the researcher’s
instrument/ tool are interview which is consisting of 15 questions. The basis of these
questions is the hypothesis/ objectives that is presented in the introduction of this
research, this includes: (1) To what extent does gender discrimination affect the
employees? (2) How do the employees experience gender discrimination at work? (3)
How can it affect the employees’ attitude at work? (4) What is the result of the impact on
the organization that they belong to?

• Data Collection Methods

The researcher uses interview as a tool to gather data from the respondents. The
target respondents for this research are the women who work in professional workplace.
The respondents will be selected based on their level of experience that is related to the
objective of this research. Moreover, they could also be selected through the referrals of
the past interviewees. The number of target respondents for this research is 10
respondents. The data gathering is conducted through face-to-face and virtual interview
that will be done in messenger or any social media platform that the interviewees are
comfortable to use. The researcher will ask the respondents a total of 15 questions in
which they are required to answer it with honesty and in complete details. In the process
of data gathering, the researcher rest assured to the clients that she will protect the
privacy of the respondents by keeping the names and the individual answers of the
respondents as confidential. In addition, there will be no recorded documentation (like
pictures and videos) that will be shown in the research besides their general answers.
This process to be followed is for the data privacy act of the respondents.

4
• Data Analysis

The type of data analysis that is used in this research is the thematic analysis.
According to Clarke & Braun (2014), this is defined as the method of analyzing that is
appropriate only in qualitative research. Moreover, this analysis emphasizes the
process of identifying, decoding, analyzing and having a conclusion.

Clarke & Braun (2014) stated that there are two types of method in thematic
analysis: reflexivity journals and coding practice. In this research, it uses the reflexivity
journal. According to Newton et. al (2012), this is defined as a type of analysis that
considers the openness and reflection of the researcher. Newton et. al. (2014)
acknowledges the judgment that is needed to enhance the quality of research and to
make sure that the research provides a valuable truth.

5
 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

INTERVIEW

Research Objective 1: How do the employees experience gender discrimination at

work?

 Do you experience gender discrimination at work?

 What are the gender discriminations you experience at work?
 As a woman, do they give you equal loads of work than men?

Research Objective 2: How can it affect the employees’ attitude at work?

 In what way does your experience affect your relationship to your co-workers?
 In what way does your experience affect your performance at work?
 In what way does your experience affect your confidence in stating an opinion
that is supposed to be helping the organization?

Research Objective 3: To what extent does gender discrimination affect the

employees?

 In this section, the researcher would ask the respondents to rate from level 1 to 5
(1 as the lowest and 5 as the highest) the impact of gender discrimination to
them. The researcher suggests examples and after each rating, there is a follow-
up question for the reason.
o Declining your request of work in some projects or activities
o Not allowing you to participate in decision-making projects
o There is a salary gap among the same level
o There is different approach of boss between the two genders
o Being declined of opportunities that is supposed to be for them (like
trainings and promotion)

Research Objective 4: What is the result of the impact on the organization that they
belong to?

6
 Is your organization aware of the gender discrimination in your workplace?
 Did the organization do something to fix it?
 Based on what you have observed, how does it affect your organization?

7
 RESULTS

Research Objective 1: How do the employees experience gender discrimination at

work?

 Do you experience gender discrimination at work?

In this question, 7 of the respondents answer “yes” while 3 of the answer
“no.” There are a total of 10 respondents which means that there is a percentage
of 70% for “yes” and 30% for “no.” This shows that most women experience
gender discrimination at work.
 What are the gender discriminations you experience at work?
According to the respondents, the gender discriminations that they
experience at work are low pay, unequal loads of work, boss being subjective,
sexualizing women, not being heard in decision making, heavy words for women
only, and being left out since they portray women as weak. For the first
respondent, she shared that there is an unequal load of work and low pay in their
organization because their boss thought that women are doing less of the works
than men. She shared that her work as a cashier, according to the boss, is not
much of the works than men who carry stuff all the time. Although she wants to
help so that the salary will be fair to her, her boss declines her request and ask to
work harder in being a cashier instead.
For the second respondent, she declared herself as a freelancer.
According to her, her boss treats her unfairly when it comes to giving the task to
them. Her boss labels the women as “maarte” or someone that do the work
beyond the client’s request which is great but the boss condemns them to do so.
Moreover, her boss is also subjective when it comes to creativity. Girls, being
“maarte” make the boss give more clients with boys more since he thought of
them as minimalistic.
For the third respondent who is working as a sales clerk, she experiences
being sexualized most of the time in their work. She experienced this both with
the customers and her co-workers. According to her, the primary reason why
they are being sexualized most of the time is her clothing which a short skin and

8
 stockings. She really feels disappointed about it but she has nothing to do with
customers who do it but for the employee, the organization takes part.
For the fourth respondent, she shared that she is new to work along with
the three guys. According to her, in terms of decision-making, she feels like she
is losing confidence most of the time because they favor the men more than her.
Also, she shared that the most disappointing thing in that matter is her male co-
worker just said the same thing. She described it as an “obvious act of
discrimination.”
For the fifth respondent, she shared that her boss is a harsh talker but
only in women. According to her, the boss once said in the meeting that “women
are not applicable and trustworthy of position.” Although she just got from the
company, those words hurt her a lot. This respondent shared that after she heard
that, she wants to quit the company because it feels like they don’t want any
women to grow in any position. Even though the boss is just one of the board
members, she felt disappointed when no one tried to defend her and correct him.
According to her, this is already a red tag of how toxic the company is.
For the sixth respondent, she shared that most of her co-workers and
some of the bosses are misogynistic. According to her, most of them don’t know
the jokes are below the belt and would gaslight her if they correct them. And, for
the seventh respondent, she shared that she doesn’t really like it when the higher
management called the newbie or even someone they know in the company as
“pare” or “pre” because according to her, it alienates the women who are in the
call, and they enable men to speak out more because using “pare” in a formal
setting makes them comfortable.
 As a woman, do they give you equal loads of work than men?

In this question, three of the women answered that their bosses don’t give equal
loads of work to them than men. According to the first respondent, when she got to work
in their workplace as a cashier, the manager doesn’t give her the chance to do anything
other than that because she is portrayed as weak. While for the second respondent, she
shared that more of the secretarial jobs are given to women while the more heavy lifting

9
is given to men. For the third respondent, she noticed that the bigger projects were
given to men.

Research Objective 2: How can it affect the employees’ attitude at work?

 In what way does your experience affect your relationship to your co-workers?
There are two respondents who answered that their relationship is fine but
for the 5 respondents, they have a negative relationship to their co-workers. For
the three respondents, they all have the same reason when it comes to not
feeling confident when their co-workers. According to them, they are either shy or
afraid that they will say something wrong that will make them mad so it is better
for them to not speak up. For the fourth respondent, she shared that her
relationship with her co-workers makes it difficult for her to not go to work
because they add toxicity to her situation with her boss. For the fifth respondent,
she shared that she has nothing against her co-workers but she lose respect to
the leaders in her department which she expects them to know better for they
have bigger impact/ influence in the company’s culture.

 In what way does your experience affect your performance at work?

Four of the respondents answered that this experience makes more
productive work because according to them, they want to prove their bosses that
they got what it takes as a woman in their positions. For the fifth respondent, she
shared that she always get drained when she calls out just to discriminate her.
For the sixth respondent, she share that the she feel conscious over herself and
she feel tired during break and lunch which she said that she would rather be
alone in those times. For the seventh respondent, she shared that she would
often get quieter and she participate less because she would often think, “What is
the point in speaking out?”
 In what way does your experience affect your confidence in stating an opinion
that is supposed to be helping the organization?
Five of the respondents shared that this doesn’t hinder them to state their
opinion to their bosses. According to one of them, being a vocal woman would

10
 not make things worse but it is a way for an organization to know that there is
something wrong in their management. She also added that if the organization
will not accept, then it is their problem. On the other hand, the sixth responded
stated that she gets take back all the time so she choose to not speak up while
for the seventh respondent, she just choose to quit instead of wasting her time
speaking up.

Research Objective 3: To what extent does gender discrimination affect the

employees?

 In this section, the researcher asks the respondents to rate from level 1 to 5 (1 as
the lowest and 5 as the highest) the impact of gender discrimination to them.
o Declining your request of work in some projects or activities

4.5
4
4
3.5
3
3
2.5
2
2
1.5
1
1
0.5
0
0
1 2 3 4 5

Level of Gender Discrimination

Figure no, 1: This figure shows the rating of the respondents to the Question 3.1

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 In this question, there are three respondents in Level 1 which is equivalent to no
experience, there is one respondent to level 2 which is the low level, there are three
who answered the level 3 which are equivalent to average and there are four
respondents who think that experience gender discrimination in Level 5. The number
with highest respondents is the Level 5 which means that most of the women
experience gender discrimination at their workplace in highest level.

o Not allowing you to participate in decision-making projects

4.5
4
4
3.5
3
3
2.5
2
1.5
1 1 1
1
0.5
0
1 2 3 4 5

Level of Gender Discrimination

Figure no. 2: This figure shows the rating of the respondents to the Question 3.2
In this question, there are three respondents in Level 1 which is equivalent to no
experience, there is one respondent to the rate of 2 which is close to the lowest, there
are four who answered the number 3 which are equivalent to average, there is one
respondent who answers in Level 4 which is a high level and there is one respondent
who answer Level 5. The number with highest respondents is the Level 3 which means
that most of the women experience gender discrimination at their workplace in average
level.

o There is a salary gap among the same genders

6
5
5
4
3
2
2
1 1
1
0
0
1 2 3 4 5

Level of Gender Discrimination

12
 In this question, there are five respondents in Level 1 which is equivalent to no
experience at all, there is one respondent in Level 3 which is the average level, there
are two respondents in Level 4 which is high level and there is one respondent in Level
5. The number with highest respondents is the Level 1 which means that most of the
women do not experience gender discrimination in salary gaps.

Figure no. o
3 This figureisshows
There the rating
different of the of
approach respondents to the the
boss between Question 3.3
two genders
6
5
Figure
5 no. 4 This figure shows the rating of the respondents to the Question 3.4
4
3
3
2
2

1
0 0
0
1 2 3 4 5

Level of Gender Discrimination

In this question, there are three respondents in Level 1 which is equivalent to no

experience, there are two respondents in Level 4 which is the high level and there are
five respondents to Level 5 which is the highest level. The number with highest
respondents is the Level 5 which means that most of the women experience different
approach of the boss in highest level.

o Being declined of opportunities that is supposed to be for them (like

trainings and promotion)
4.5
4
4
3.5
3
3
2.5
2
2
1.5
1
1
0.5
0
0
1 2 13 3 4 5

Level of Gender Discrimination

 Figure no. 5 This figure shows the rating of the respondents to the Question 3.5
In this question, there are three respondents in Level 1 which is equivalent to no
experience, there is one respondent in level 2 which is the low level, there are four
respondents in level 4 which is the high level and there are two respondents in Level 5
which is the highest level. The number with highest respondents is the Level 4 which
means that most of the women experience being declined with opportunities in high
level.

Research Objective 4: What is the result of the impact on the organization that they
belong to?

 Is your organization aware of the gender discrimination in your workplace?

Five of the respondents answered that the organization is aware in gender
discrimination that happens in their workplace. According to one of them, since
the organization has a pretty solid department, they take care most of it.
However, for the others, the organization is aware but they do not take care of it.
While for the other two respondents, they are unsure if the organization is aware
of it.
 Did the organization do something to fix it?
Three of the respondents answered “yes” while four of the answered “no.” The
other three is excluded since in the first place, they answered “no.” In this question,
there is a total of respondents so the percentage is for 42.6% for “yes” and 57.14% for
“no.” This shows that most of organizations do not do anything to fix it.
 Based on what you have observed, how does it affect your organization?

Three of the respondents answered that it makes the organization’s reputation

worse. One of the respondents shared that her company is once a talk of the town
because of bad treatment to the employees which she witness it herself. For the fourth
respondent, since she is working in a big company, she feels that it doesn’t affect the
organization at all because they are just in the small sector of the company yet the
company, according to her, told them that their concern is just the operations. For the
fifth respondent, she shared that it makes the workplace tense. She also added that

14
pressure makes her unmotivated and it slows down her work. For the sixth respondent,
she noticed that it has big difference since she saw her company to lose most of the
employees because of it and she said that she is planning to leave too. For the seventh
respondent, she shared that their company is the best in handling employees which
makes the workplace at ease after the company fixed it.

DISCUSSION

I. Findings of the Study

In the first objective which is, “How do the employees experience gender
discrimination at work?” the result of the study is 7 out of 10 answered have answered
“yes” which means most of the women experience gender discrimination at work.
According to the respondents, the gender discrimination that they are experiencing is
low pay, unequal loads of work, boss being subjective, sexualizing women, not being
heard in decision making, telling misogynistic jokes, and women being alienated at
work. Moreover, in terms of giving equal loads of work, there are 3 out of 7 women who
experience being given unequal loads of work than men because of the subjective
portrayal and biased preference.

The second objective is, “How can it affect the employees’ attitude at work?” 5
out of 7 respondents answered that their relationship with their co-workers is not fine
because of the toxicity that they add to them and their co-workers make them afraid or
shy to speak up. Moreover, the respondents share that 3 out of 7 of them are
experienced a negative performance at work because of gender discrimination. The
negative effects are getting drained, feeling conscious, and getting quieter to work to the
point that she won’t speak up.

For the third objective which is, “To what extent does gender discrimination affect
the employees?” the researcher uses the rating system here to know the level of impact
that the respondents are experiencing in their workplaces. First is the category of
“Declining their request of work in some projects or activities.” Most of the respondents
answered that this has a high level of impact on them. Second is the category of “Not

15
allowing them to participate in decision-making projects.” Most of the respondents
answered that this has an average level of impact on them. The third category is the,
“There is a salary gap among the same genders.” According to the respondents, most
of them do not experience it. The fourth category which is, “There is a different
approach between the two genders,” shows that most of the respondents experience
this at the highest level which means that it is really happening to most of the
workplaces. For the last category which is, “Being declined of opportunities that are
supposed to be for them,” most of the respondents answered that they experience it at
a high level in their workplaces.

For the fourth and last objective which is, “What is the result of the impact of the
organization that they belong to?” 5 out of 7 respondents answered that the
organization is aware of gender discrimination. However, most organizations don’t do
anything to fix it. Also, according to the respondents, 3 out of 7 of them think that due to
this, the organization’s reputation becomes worse. These three respondents shared that
the organization is losing most of their employees because of this and they become the
talk of the town However, some respondents, praise the organization for having a good
system of human resource management.

II. Conclusion

This research concludes that gender discrimination is happening for most women
in the workplace. The list of gender discriminations which includes low pay, unequal
loads of work, sexualizing and so much more that are provided in this research proves
that this is what most of the women are experiencing. This research also provides
evidence to some of the women who are not given equal loads of work because of the
weak portrayal. Moreover, this leads to women having unmotivated and drained in work
and not being able to speak up when needed. The research also concludes that despite
having the organizations aware of gender discrimination, most of them do nothing to fix
it. However, it also harms them since the respondents shared that some of them gain
worse reputations. While for some organizations are aware and doing something to fix
it, they gain the praise and trust of the employees.

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 III. Recommendation

The researcher would like future researchers to broaden the factors of gender
discrimination among women. She believes that there are so many things to know more
about in the workplaces that she didn’t cover. Moreover, the researcher would also
encourage future researchers to not just limit the location in the professional workplace
but extend it to other jobs as well. For the limitation of the researcher, she would like to
recommend to the future researchers that if they will have the respondents in an
interview, make sure that they are free to answer all of the questions. Moreover,
besides interviews, future researchers should do it in the form of observation because
the researcher believes that the research would be more effective with it. Last, the
researcher would like future researches to increase the number of respondents for more
effectiveness.

17
 REFERENCE

International Labour Oganization. (2018). “The Gender Gap in Employment: What

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https://www.ilo.org/infostories/en-GB/Stories/Employment/barriers-women#smarter-
solutions

Derous, E & Pepermans, R. (2019). “Gender Discrimination in Hiring: Intersectional

Effects With Ethnicity and Cognitive Job Demands”. Archives of Scientific Psychology.
Pp.2-5

Plickert, G. & Sterling, J. (2017). “Gender Still Matters: Effect of Workplace

Discrimination on Employment Schedules of Young Professionals.” pp. 5-22

Tiwari, M. et al (2018). “Gender-based Discrimination Faced by Males at Workplace: A

Perceptual Study of Working Females.”

United Nation Organization. “Gender Equality: Why It Matters?” Retrieved from

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Goal-5.pdf

Aspers, P., & Corte, U. (2019). What is qualitative in qualitative research. Qualitative

sociology, 42(2), 139-160.

Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2014). Thematic analysis. In Encyclopedia of critical

psychology (pp. 1947-1952). Springer, New York, NY

Newton, B. J., Rothlingova, Z., Gutteridge, R., LeMarchand, K., & Raphael, J. H. (2012).
No room for reflexivity? Critical reflections following a systematic review of qualitative
research. Journal of Health Psychology, 17(6), 866-885.

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