Working approaches of modern women became closer to men’s: today, many of them are career-dedicated, and the number of female employees and entrepreneurs increases globally. However, inequity among men and women at workplaces still exists and often is shown by the level of salaries: male workers receive higher amounts for the same volume of work. This essay aims at reviewing an article related to the issue and discussing its social construct of professionalism.
The article I chose to reflect on is 7 Lessons from the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team’s Fight for Equal Pay by Ruchika Tulshyan. It concerns the pay gap among male and female soccer players and provides a reader with outcomes useful for the business world. In 2019, The U.S. women’s national soccer team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for an unequal payment system based on gender. The lawsuit declared that, although women won more matches than men, they received 38% less than the latter (Tulshyan, 2019). The author’s perspective is that such cases inhibit humanity’s pathway to equity that becomes crucial in the twenty-first century, and I agree with this statement.
The standards of professionalism must include the rules that respect gender diversity at a workplace and do not define the salary by a person’s gender. The article advises employees to be aligned with a team, collect evidence, choose strong leaders, and seek allies in discrimination cases at the workplace (Tulshyan, 2019). In my opinion, such approach is useful for big companies’ standards, yet in smaller businesses, the gender issue might not be solved with these procedures. The author also created suggestions for employers and company leaders who deal with the gender gap protests. The described method requires to value honesty, be transparent, admit the issue, and find ways of solving it on a win-win basis (Tulshyan, 2019). These statements need professionalism and can help eliminate the pay gap in a company.
The fact the salaries of men and women soccer teams depended on the broadcasting incomes surprised me the most. The companies I worked for or read about have never published the data about salaries, and I did not think if the payments are high or low depending on a gender factor. I knew the gender pay gap existed worldwide, yet I did not analyze it from the female workers’ perspective.
If I establish my own company, I can challenge the salary gap by evaluating employees’ professional qualities and achievements, not gender, race, or other diversity-based factors. Casabianca et al. (2020) state that: “women receive a higher wage premium when engaged in cognitive tasks and experience more contained wage losses when performing manual activities” (p. 197). Considering these findings, I can set the rules to employ men for physical labor and let women perform at more intellectual jobs with an equal salary. If I work for a company where the salary gap exists, I will try to influence its policy-makers by sharing approaches that can help them in achieving equity.
Jesuit-educated business students can have a positive impact on solving the workplace oppression challenges related to gender inequity. Such education motivates to cultivate integrity and apply cure personalist in personal and professional communications (Murphy, 2017). We can recall employers’ and employees’ spiritual values to remind them that all people were born equal, and the labor is valuable regardless of their diverse qualities.
References
Casabianca, E. J., Lo Turco, A., & Pigini, C. (2020). Equal pay for equal task: Assessing heterogeneous returns to tasks across genders. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 59(2), 197-239. Web.
Murphy, M. P. (2017). A spirituality of citizenship: Cultivating the Ignatian charism of dialogue [PDF document]. Web.
Tulshyan, R. (2019). 7 Lessons from the U.S. women’s soccer team’s fight for equal pay. Harvard Business Review. Web.