Sex Discrimination Basics

Sexual discrimination is one of the most common problems in modern society. Its roots lie deep in the history of mankind, history of family and the social roles of man and woman. While during the most of the history of mankind women hand no rights, today the struggle for equality is really raging on. Of course sex discrimination sometimes exists against men, but mostly victims of the discrimination are women, so this article will be devoted to female discrimination.

The basis for gender discrimination can be very different from stereotypes to religious beliefs, but the result is one – less rights, less possibilities and unequal treatment. Of course equality is protected by numerous laws and amendments in most of the countries, but mostly this protection comes up after unequal treatment already took place.

Gender discrimination can occur in various situations. The official number one is employment. For example in the United States the 97% top managers from the Fortune 500 are white males. This clearly shows that women are just not treated equally as candidates for top managers. The second problem is sexual harassment it is one of the worst forms of discrimination and pressure and it occurs very often. The other side of sexual harassment is that it is sometimes impossible to prove and a woman can use it to discriminate a man for some personal reasons. Other problems can also include discriminatory questions based on gender during the interview process, refusal to hire or to promote, wrongful termination based the gender and unequal payment. Also pregnancy is a big problem during employment, some contracts even have sections that forbid women to have children in the first years of work or don’t have children at all. The number two is education, women are often unequally treated during the education process and sexual harassments are also present here. Spheres like housing, borrowing and credit can also be touched by sex discrimination.

In Canada there were two cornerstones in the history of women rights the Human Rights Code in 1962 and Canadian Human Rights Act in 1977. Also the Valentine's Day 1981 is an important date. On this ay more than 1,300 Canadian women, almost spontaneously gathered for a conference in the Parliament buildings. This protest ensured that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms included the rights of women. One of the biggest places where the gender discrimination occurs is a casual family. In Canada the new set of laws presented only in 1985 cancelled things like "Unity of legal personality," (when a wife was considered one with the husband and married woman could not enter into contracts nor sue or be sued). Also married women had no right to custody of their children and were duty-bound to give the husband sexual and domestic services and he was protected against loss of his wife's services. Even though the laws are working equality in family still remains one of the biggest problems, but the roots of this problem lie deep in the history of humanity and in social traditions.