When it comes to surviving and advancing in the workplace, women still face challenges. Though there have been efforts to break norms and standards set by society, there is evidently still a long way to go. Gretta Ingabire, a poet and feminist says one of the biggest challenges is the misinterpretation with women’s actions at work. “When a woman stands up for an equal salary and rights at her workplace, it’s viewed as an inferiority complex, yet she is just trying to earn a living like everyone,” she says Ingabire noticed that when certain women arise to demand for a salary increment, it’s viewed as an act of defiance. At times, when they are given responsibility, there is fear of favouritism and when they are given positions of leadership, it’s seen as an act of trying to be superior. There is often misinterpretation of intention when it comes to women in the workplace. As she continued to note, Ingabire observes that women in different spheres are pressured to fit the beliefs and cultures of their respective workplaces, and that limits them to work and think outside the box. “To overcome the different challenges and obstacles would be to root out the gender stereotypes of how women should or shouldn’t be, to suit the idea of a working woman the world has established,” Ingabire says. Chantal Umuhoza is the Chief Executive Officer of SPECTRA, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to build a strong and well-coordinated movement of empowered young feminist leaders who contribute meaningfully to social justice; she notes that there is inability to balance work and domestic lives due to unpaid care work women do. That balance has manifested in the lives of many women across the globe and some reach the conclusion that they can’t have both and have to give up on one to have the other. “The numerous accounts of sex discrimination like pregnancy and maternity leave can be unofficial grounds for some women to lose their jobs or not get one, and unequal power to use productive resources like land, house to secure a loan due to social cultural power inequalities between men and women,” she says. With time, changes have been made to implement in different sectors of the economy to facilitate such women in their work lives as noted by Umuhoza; “more efforts should be set up to monitor accountable mechanisms and reporting processes to track and handle such discriminations.” Human Resources for Health released an article of a study of Gender Based Violence noting that female dominated sectors like health and social services are more at risk, 39% of those health workers had experienced some form of verbal or physical abuse. The study showed the patterns of perpetration, victimisation and reaction to violence; concluding that gender inequality influences workplace violence, addressing such stereotypes and discriminations should be a priority in workplace violence research to provide a safer and fairer environment for women to reach their full potential.
