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Employers must be particularly careful when drafting job descriptions to ensure that they do not use terms that discriminate – directly or indirectly – against people because of factors such as their sex, age, race, sexual orientation, religion or belief or because they have a disability,” said Elisabeth Kynaston, employment lawyer at B P Collins.
Sam Smethers, chief executive at the Fawcett Society, said: “This data shows how easy it is to be biased in our use of language without even thinking about it. It also shows why employers need to use positive action to target underrepresented groups. A passive approach won’t work. The fact is we need to strip away our biases if we want to get the best person for the job.”
“This means avoiding obviously gendered terms; for example, stating that the business is looking for a ‘salesman’ or ‘waitress’.”
Although using gender-biased language is not technically against the law, employers must be careful not to discriminate against a particular gender because they consciously or unconsciously believe that the role would be best filled by either a man or woman.
Fairness in the work place is an important factor as men and women are equal participants in job applications.
Many of us want to be our best in the jobs we apply for and are not given the position. Is there a reason for this? Yes because Men and women are different in many ways and in our daily skill-sets too. Precisely women are better secretaries than men because it is good to have women assist in the board meetings in a company, she brings colour and zest to the participants and the women serve and organise hospitality for the meetings well too. Sometimes businesses want to have good-looking female secretaries as this brings more people to the company and the client base builds up.
Now coming to the man being a secretary, yes he can and I am sure too, because he has a good mind too and can be given a fair chance in this profession only if employers and business think so. They are neat and proficient in their language skills hence a fair deal can be offered to them.
Among the adverts reviewed, 478,175 words were thought to carry a gender bias, with ads for social care and admin roles most likely to use female-biased language, at 87 per cent and 67 per cent respectively. By contrast, sales and management roles were among the ads most likely to use male-biased language, at 16 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
According to the U.S. Census, however, the most common job for women today remains the same as 60 years ago. Between 2006 and 2010, about 4 million people in the United States worked as “secretaries and administrative assistants” — and 96 percent of them were women. This skewed gender ratio.
A large-scale study of British recruitment adverts has revealed that that the use of gender-biased wording in advertising decreases the likelihood of job applications from female candidates. Sex discrimination in the workplace, whether conscious or unconscious, may begin at an even earlier stage than babies were born.
Historically, women were relegated to office support and administrative positions such as clerk typists, secretaries and administrative assistants. Employers who ... Some employers believed women lacked the skills and qualifications necessary to perform nontraditional and higher-paid positions simply because of gender.
evidence of a bias against men in jobs for chartered accountants and computer analysts, which are already considered more gender neutral than some. While women are being passed over for engineering jobs because of their gender, men are even more likely to be turned away from secretarial posts.
The study also showed that a third of managers claim that women are not as good at their jobs when they come back from maternity leave. Employment relations minister Jo Swinson said: "Pregnancy discrimination is illegal, immoral and completely unacceptable. There is no excuse for such attitudes from the public and employee management staff.
