Unfair gender discrimination comes in various forms, and it affects people in different ways. Not all countries have anti-discrimination laws, but those that do usually define a set of "protected" characteristics and make it illegal to treat someone differently because of these characteristics.
Tackling unfair gender discrimination is everyone's responsibility. It involves reducing the likelihood of discriminatory treatment, recognizing when it happens, and knowing the right way to respond. It's the ethical and humane way to behave.
Taking a hard line on gender discrimination can have many other benefits for the organisation's culture, reputation, and overall success as well.
Preventing and addressing unfair gender discrimination is also a legal requirement in many parts of the world. Employers and managers have additional responsibilities to reduce the risk of gender discrimination, and to deal effectively with any complaints or concerns.
I. Overview of Google
Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specialises in internet-related products and services including: online advertising technology, cloud computing, search engines, hardware and software. The business is among the most valuable "Big Four" technology companies in the world along with: Apple, Facebook, Amazon.
The Google company was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In August 2015, Google decided to reorganise the company as a corporation called Alphabet Inc. and Google became a subsidiary of this group.
The company's headquarters is located in Mountain View, California, USA. Total equity is 131,133 billion USD (2014). The number of employees working at the company is 103,459 people, distributed all over the world. The official website of the business is: www.google.com. Google ranked 1 in the list of companies with the most traffic in the world according to Alexa statistics.
Google began as an online search firm, but it now offers more than 50 Internet services and products, from e-mail and online document creation to software for mobile phones and tablet computers. In addition, its 2012 acquisition of Motorola Mobility put it in the position to sell hardware in the form of mobile phones. Google’s broad product portfolio and size make it one of the top four influential companies in the high-tech marketplace, along with Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. Despite this myriad of products, its original search tool remains the core of its success. In 2016 Alphabet earned nearly all of its revenue from Google advertising based on users’ search requests.
II. Gender discrimination at Google
In recent years, technology giants have been forced to address the conditions of their industry, which are sexism, sexual harassment, a gender pay gap, and a lack of opportunities for women. The attention drawn to problems within the industry has prompted the question for employees – what does it look like for a company situated in the male-dominated, sexist, and often toxic technology industry to take meaningful action to combat and prevent sexual harassment?
Only 31% of Google’s workforce are women, and women hold only 25.5% of executive roles. Google workers have questioned the company’s attitude toward women and commitment to creating an equitable workplace by calling on Google for specific action, including ending its practice of private arbitration, publishing a report on sexual harassment complaints within the company, disclosing salaries and other compensation, providing a safe and anonymous global process for reporting sexual misconduct, and promoting the chief diversity officer to answer directly to the CEO and to make recommendations to the board. Organizers stated on their internal website: “While Google has championed the language of diversity and inclusion, substantive actions to address systemic racism, increase equity and stop sexual harassment have been few and far between”.
III. Relevant OB theories
1. Diversity
Surface-level diversity: Differences in easily perceived characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability, that do not necessarily reflect the way people think or feel but that may activate certain stereotypes.
Deep-level diversity: Differences in values. personality, and work preferences that become progressively more important for determining similarity as people get to know one another better.
2. Discrimination
Sexual harassment: Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that create a hostile or offensive work environment.
Stereotype threat: The degree to which we internally agree with the generally negative stereotyped perceptions of our groups.
3. The Big five personality model
Conscientiousness: The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organised, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganised, and unreliable.
Emotional stability: The emotional stability dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. High scorers are more likely to be positive and optimistic and experience fewer negative emotions; they are generally happier than low scorers. Emotional stability is sometimes discussed as its converse, neuroticism. Low scorers (those with high neuroticism) are hypervigilant and vulnerable to the physical and psychological effects of stress. Those with high neuroticism tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
Extraversion: The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. They are generally happier and are often ambitious. They experience more positive emotions than introverts, and they more freely express these feelings. On the other hand, introverts (low extraversion) tend to be more thoughtful, reserved, timid, and quiet.
Openness to experience: The openness to experience dimension addresses the range of interests and fascination with novelty. Open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the low end of the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
Agreeableness: The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. You might expect agreeable people to be happier than disagreeable people. They are, but only slightly. When people choose organisational team members, agreeable individuals are usually their first choice. In contrast, people who score low on agreeableness are cold and antagonistic.
4. Perception: Common shortcuts in judging others
Selective perception: The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of one’s interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
Halo effect: The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic.
Contrast effect: Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.
Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.