Excuse me: My denied promotion owed to managerial kindness?

On Behalf of | Jun 14, 2021 | Employee Discrimination

A candid workplace-linked admission compels acknowledgement that COVID-19 dislocations and related life disruptions over the past year-plus have affected male and female employees in different ways.

Not all of them, of course. Legions of members from both sexes have similarly suffered from a multitude of adverse job impacts. Many companies have downsized, pointing to diminished profitability, shrunken customer demand and other overwhelming pressures tied to the unprecedented pandemic.

As a result, high numbers of both men and women have foregone raises they would have otherwise received. Many have lost out on expected job promotions. Many too have been relegated to lower-prong positions or been laid off or simply terminated.

Truly, those and other disheartening outcomes have negatively impacted both male and female workers in the government employment realm.

But is there something else that needs to be added here? Namely, is there evidence – both anecdotal and empirical – to buttress claims that work-placed blows to women have generally been more severe than are the dislocations suffered collectively by male colleagues?

Indeed, there is.

Sex-tied workplace disparities in wages and other matters

One authoritative national source on gender-based workplace discrimination recently published a blog post noting “persistent research findings underscoring a material variance in paycheck amounts for male and female workers.”

The wage gap has long been noted. What is perhaps of even more interest currently is a type of managerial paternalism falsely masked as kindness and deference to women.

Its result: Company actions specifically aimed at women workers that are couched in caring and solicitous terms are actually nothing more than egregious acts that harm only the female workforce.

An example: A female employee is laid off or denied meaningful work because she is pregnant, nursing or occasionally unavailable at work owing to child care demands. A manager obviously targeting her on gender-based grounds might deliver adverse employment news in a slanted way that emphasizes the company’s caring nature and concern for her welfare.

How many women would feel empowered and appreciated by such treatment rather than being patently insulted and even demeaned by it?

Moreover, there is this: How many men as compared with women bear the brunt of adverse job impacts flowing from pandemic uncertainties? (Again, and as noted above, well-vetted research underscores that comparatively few do).

Gender discrimination: secure proven legal counsel

Workplace discrimination targeting female employees is not always clear but, even when it isn’t, many women instinctively know it is rearing its ugly head.

Unfair workplace treatment need never be tolerated. Women in the federal sector who suffer from gender-based discrimination can take strong and purposeful action by reaching out without delay to a proven and results-oriented discrimination law legal team.