President Obama seems to hold the key which unlocked the door to his victory. What is the key to his success you ask? Simply addressing long lasting social issues. Close to two times as many women than men find concerns like same-sex marriage, abortion, and Employment Discrimination as the most important issues that determined their vote, based on recently reported polling information.
When it comes to discrimination in the workplace, Presidents over the years have issued orders to protect workers against it. In 1941 President Roosevelt issued an order that prevented discrimination against any worker because of their race, creed and national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was released two decades later, which outlaws employment discrimination based on religion, sex and race. Since Obama has been in office, he has addressed issues of employment discrimination and in 2011 he agreed to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He abolished “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and openly supports the gay community and same sex marriage. That’s great for Obama, but what about the rest of the country? As it stands today, 21 states have outlawed sexual-orientation discrimination, while 16 also forbid gender-identity discrimination, and many cities and counties have similar nondiscrimination laws. But only about half of the population of the United States lives in places with such laws, which leaves millions of workers undefendable against discrimination.
Who is being Discriminated Against?
Nowadays, even though the world has widely accepted individuality and self expression, discrimination against women in the workplace still occurs. It is also distributed amongst lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. A recent research study found that in the last five years, 27% of lesbian, gay or bisexual people had been harassed at work or lost a job because of their sexual orientation. In addition to that, half of transgender people had experienced discrimination in hiring, promotion or job retention. Discrimination can also be found in their paychecks. Studies also show that they earn less than heterosexual men with the same qualifications. Pay discrimination can also be found with women who, despite holding the same positions as men, are receiving less pay than men for doing the same job. Even though studies also show that there are more women attending colleges than men, women are still given less of a chance at flourishing financially in comparison to men in the workplace.
What Can Be Done?
There is currently a Democratic bill that has long been sitting in Congress, which Obama supports, called the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act would require employers to show that any salary differences between men and women doing the same job are not gender-related. The bill also would have prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers. The bill never passed because it could not gain the support of the Republican party.