Despite all the recent laws that have been accumulating to promote professional equality between men and women, it is clear that discrimination against women in the workplace persists. The ideal “image” of the worker has always been embodied by a man, which contributes to the marginalization of women (but also of certain men) in organizations, and thus contributes to a gendered division of labour. In this image, there is the idea of power, of virility of the man compared to the woman. Nowadays even if women are much more present in the job market than before (which is a progress), for professions with a strong male predominance this progress is very slow or even non-existent in certain cases. We can say that the law is a driver of change, even if this change may seem very slow.
So, despite the transformation and evolution of the job market, the changing roles (man is no longer the one who feeds the family and woman the one who takes care of the house), laws and programs to reduce inequalities… There is always an observation of gender inequality in work activity whether for functions, wage, benefits, promotions/developments, and job content. The gap between men’s and women’s wages is the most talked about phenomenon in our society. Inequalities are such that there is even a date every year from which women are considered to be working “for free”. This year (2021) it is from the 3rd of November that women work for free, this date even happens earlier than in previous years (in 2020 it was from the 4th of November for example).
There are several factors that can explain the persistence of this gender inequality. An important part of this professional inequality comes from the social representations that individuals have of women and their place in the society. These are stereotypes that people are constantly activating, whether conscious or not, and that are difficult to evolve. Persistence is related to deep-rooted stereotypes. Men and women are assigned to different social roles, which in fact are based only on a variety of stereotypes and prejudices. Norms related to the distribution of social roles and stereotypes are internalized by individuals who therefore produce and reproduce gender inequalities without necessarily being aware of it. This (re)production makes us observe the sustenance of gender inequalities, which contributes to strengthen the representations already present in our societies. Some authors believe that change must involve a change in men. Indeed, one of the barriers to more gender equality would be men’s behaviours and attitudes. Men don’t always recognize the existence of gender inequality because they don’t feel privileged or simply because they don’t face it, they don’t see it. One way could therefore be to make them a little more aware that this inequality exists and that it is common for a woman to be discriminated against, particularly in the workplace, compared to a man.
Despite everything that keeps gender inequality alive today, there is hope that a change will happen because social representations are evolutionary. Indeed, they are specific to our society and culture, and it is constantly evolving, new elements could come to challenge these representations, and thus lead to a change.
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