Perspective on the phenomenon that women are repeatedly discriminated against in job hunting.

Perspective on the phenomenon that women are repeatedly discriminated against in job hunting.

"About one in four female respondents has been rejected because she is a woman." This data comes from the Research Report on Gender Discrimination in the Workplace in China released by the Women's Legal Research and Service Center of Peking University Law School on June 12.

This is the first survey report in China that systematically reflects the situation of gender discrimination in the workplace. The report shows that at present, women encounter serious gender discrimination in job hunting. Therefore, how to deal with gender discrimination in the workplace deserves in-depth discussion.

Discrimination is everywhere.

In many enterprises, female employees have been pressured to resign voluntarily because they are pregnant or disagree with their superiors at work. In this regard, Zhang Qian, human resources manager of a catering enterprise in Beijing, said, "Because of voluntary resignation, the company does not have to bear liquidated damages, not to mention medical expenses and wages during pregnancy and childbirth. This is a hidden rule within many enterprises. "

Cui Yan, an associate professor at a university in Wuhan, listed all kinds of gender discrimination in the workplace around her, such as the requirements for women's marital and reproductive status, different pay for equal work between men and women, and raising the recruitment threshold for women. She believes that professional women have no less work pressure than men and have to take care of family members. "Their efforts and sacrifices should have been affirmed and recognized, but they actually suffered from gender discrimination in the workplace, which is unreasonable and unfair."

Nowadays, gender discrimination in the workplace has been condemned by public opinion, and relevant state departments have also introduced or improved some laws and policies. However, gender discrimination in the workplace has not weakened, but has become more subtle. Many women are worried about this.

Wang Rui, the business director of a company in Beijing, said that although some companies do not indicate that they are limited to men in recruitment, they often give priority to men in actual recruitment. Even if some industries need women, they often consider their age. In order not to violate laws and policies, enterprises will formulate various restrictions on women, and will lay a "foreshadowing" when signing contracts. "After a woman is pregnant, the company can reduce her salary, transfer her post or even dismiss her for reasons other than pregnancy."

According to lawyer Zhang Shuai, the main author of the Research Report on Sex Discrimination in the Workplace in China, the research report shows the current situation of sex discrimination in the workplace in China from five aspects: recruitment, position, salary, promotion in the workplace, sexual harassment in the workplace and retirement. Among them, women accounted for 63. 1% who said they had been discriminated against because of their sex at work. "This shows that it is more common for women to suffer from workplace discrimination."

Highlight the lack of law

Many women say that gender discrimination in the workplace is a general gender denial of women, not just a denial of the ability of individual female employees. In this regard, Zhang Qian believes that the traditional psychology of discriminating against women and the division of labor between men and women are the main reasons for this discrimination.

Wang Rui said that a foreign-funded enterprise prefers to recruit female employees, but the reason turned out to be that female employees are easy to manage, dare not resist, and can work overtime unconditionally. The company has also formulated a system for pregnant female employees, "the purpose is to force them to resign voluntarily. This situation exists in many companies. "

Mars, deputy director of the Women's Legal Research and Service Center of Peking University Law School, said that although relevant departments have introduced policies and laws to restrict gender discrimination in the workplace, the impact is limited. Taking the maternity insurance system as an example, she analyzed that although maternity insurance is a social security insurance that enterprises must participate in according to the law, there are regional discrimination in many urban maternity insurance policies. In this case, women with foreign hukou cannot enjoy it. This has led many enterprises to exclude women in the recruitment stage. At the same time, if a female employee is pregnant at work, the enterprise will try its best to force her to resign voluntarily.

Professor Liu Minghui of China Women's University believes that "the non-social contradiction between enterprises' pursuit of maximum benefits and women's reproductive costs is one of the objective reasons for gender discrimination in the workplace."

Regarding the hidden discrimination in the workplace, Ms. Lin, the boss of an economic and trade company in Beijing, told the reporter that enterprises now know the law, so there is generally no gender distinction in the company's rules and regulations. "But driven by practical interests, many companies will still choose more men, but the form is more legal, and it is difficult for job seekers to find evidence that women are not hired under the same conditions."

In addition, the imperfection of existing laws and policies and ineffective law enforcement have also given some enterprises an opportunity. Wo Xingwei, a member of the Beijing Public Welfare Law Committee, pointed out that although China's Constitution, the Labor Contract Law, the Employment Promotion Law, the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests, and the labor protection regulations for female employees all stipulate that men and women enjoy equal employment rights, and have made special provisions on women's "three-phase" labor protection, in practice, due to lack of operability and unclear legal responsibilities, the implementation effect is not ideal.

Need system governance

According to the survey data provided by the Research Report on Gender Discrimination in China, most women are in a weak position in the face of gender discrimination in the workplace.

The survey found that after encountering gender discrimination in the workplace, 25.6% of women chose to endure it helplessly, 26.5% chose to talk with the unit, 32.4% chose to complain to the relevant departments, and 16.9% chose to bring a lawsuit to the court. Some interviewees said that they would choose to leave the company if they encountered gender discrimination, while others said they would seek help through the media.

Front-line practitioners and experts and scholars have given their own suggestions on how to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace. Most people think that legal weapons should be taken up in the end.

Wang Rui was fired by a company for no reason because she was pregnant. To this end, she consulted the women's Federation, the labor inspection brigade and other institutions for help. But after a phone call, she found that women's federations and other institutions can only provide policy guidance and have no law enforcement power; The labor inspection brigade needs to produce evidence that its rights and interests have been violated. "But I can't produce any evidence." Wang Rui said, "The most direct feeling is that it is difficult for these departments to solve the fundamental problems, and finally they can only go through legal channels."

Liu Minghui believes that gender discrimination in the workplace should be regulated by legislation, the responsibility for illegal acts should be clarified, and a punitive compensation system for illegal acts should be established to give priority to women. In addition, we should increase the propaganda against gender discrimination in the workplace, raise the anti-discrimination awareness of the whole people, and change the traditional understanding of women from the concept.

Zhang Shuai believes that anti-discrimination theory and knowledge should be integrated into the current education system, "which has long-term and far-reaching significance for raising the anti-discrimination awareness of the whole people and promoting anti-discrimination work at the national level."

Wang Fengxian, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that "the government should actively guide and strengthen the law enforcement of relevant functional departments, standardize the gender discrimination in the workplace of employers, strengthen supervision and inspection of units, and improve the complaint relief mechanism."

"Anti-sexism in the workplace is a long-term systematic project." Guo, director of the Women's Legal Research and Service Center of Peking University Law School, said, "It is necessary not only to formulate special anti-employment discrimination laws and regulations, but also to clarify the responsibility of the government, the burden of proof, the forms of responsibility of discriminatory actors and the compensation standards. It is also necessary to improve the specific procedures and measures of legal relief for women who suffer from gender discrimination in employment, and it is also necessary for the whole society to establish a sense of equality between men and women in employment. Only in this way can we better protect the equal employment rights of workers. "

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