Many years ago, since a distant 1985, the authors suffered gender discrimination when, upon finishing their studies in Industrial Engineering at the Technological Institute of Chihuahua, they found that in some places they were not candidates for work due to being women.
One of the first experiences and by the way very unpleasant was that in a maquiladora company in the City of Chihuahua they told one of them that she had taken the best exam, but because she was a woman they could not give her the position which finally was occupied by a man.
Another experience was in a company that sells electrical conductors where the interviewer told another of the authors that he liked her resume but could not hire her because that job had to travel and that it was not suitable for a woman in addition that he had to spend the night in a hotel and was open to misinterpretation.
That is why, after twenty years, they considered it interesting to carry out an analysis on the current situation regarding gender discrimination that occurs today.
The result of said analysis is the one that is presented to the consideration of the kind reader.
Despite the formal talk of equality in the current legislation in our country, in recent decades we cannot talk about real equality between men and women. It is not possible to erase in one fell swoop centuries and centuries of inequality that began to take shape since the time of Homo Sapiens. If history is reviewed we can find that being a man or being a woman has varied over time. And if we start to compare the current female role with that played by our ancestors (grandmothers) we would see that a lot has changed in a very short time. Our grandmothers were exclusively dedicated to taking care of the house and raising children, even in the days of our parents the vast majority of women had a social role as housewives and mothers,so it was impossible to see them playing a job or professional role. All of the above was due to the fact that the role of the man was to be the provider of the house and the woman to take care of everything domestic.
On the other hand, we observe that the concept of masculinity has remained as well as the gender role exercised by men. We also see that gender roles tend to remain the same, to fix and anchor the different behaviors that are considered correct for men and for women, that is why despite the formal equality between both sexes that a society can enjoy, it is possible to discover a very accentuated tendency to judge differently the actions carried out by women and those carried out by men. The control exercised by society is more severe and offers more resistance to feminine change. If in a company there is a vacancy for a managerial position, it is much more common to find that they prefer that it be filled by a man than by a woman,despite the fact that we begin to see that women are occupying a minority in senior management positions.
Currently, if we access the labor market, we realize that there are still many companies that continue to lean towards employing men as a priority over women, and we see that they also have preference in the processes not only of selection but also in those of promotion; women sometimes receive lower wages than men for doing the same job, on the other hand, the temporary employment rate is still higher among women than men and we see that contracts are not renewed for pregnant women, and it is also very It is notorious that to hire a woman they first ask her to take a pregnancy test. The context is social; Gender discrimination does not occur individually, since representations of both sexes are necessary for this situation to occur:at least one female and one male. In Spain, many of the things that are possible today for women have been necessary achievements to try to achieve gender equality - the incorporation of women into the world of work, the creation of legislation to defend cases of violence against women or even own bank accounts or voting (Alberdi I, 1999).
But in most social issues we do not start from this egalitarian basis - dismissal due to maternity, sexual harassment at work, etc. - there is no gender equality from which to denounce discrimination or inequality; quite the opposite: the basis from which we start is precisely the supremacy of one of the genders. And this is continuously and faithfully reflected in our media. There are even cases in which a young and beautiful woman is asked for sexual favors in exchange for benefiting her with a position or a position in the public or private sectors. Unfortunately, some women have resorted to this tactic to get a job to promote themselves, which makes some men continue to offer this type of discriminatory arrangement.
There is the principle of non-discrimination based on sex, this principle is made legitimate in the Universal Declaration and is found in various United Nations documents. It is also enshrined in the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which says: "equal work must have equal pay." It also protects motherhood referring to the labor rights of working women, and includes the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, when in its articles, it mentions the right to participate in public life without being discriminated against, but of equality before the law (García Oyarzun, 2005).
When reading the press in Mexico we realize that there is an element that continues to be a factor of discrimination in the media: the use of language, especially through the generalization of the masculine since it is taken generically and as a container of people of both sexes, which has led to women appearing as invisible in texts and in news content. All this has occurred despite the fact that in the current Government of the Republic there has been an emphasis on addressing the population in terms of masculinity and femininity (boys and girls, men and women, citizens, etc.)
However, even though advertising has been working in recent years, circulating modern solutions to the needs of today's world, the approach that is usually given is more aesthetic than substantive despite the fact that there is talk of the consequences of the incorporation of the women into the world of work, reality continues to indicate that there is no equitable treatment of men and women within the advertising discourse (Melin-Higgins, 2001). Upon receiving information from different spheres, we realize that values that place women in levels of subordination and dependence continue to be reproduced, the home and care continue to be the main priorities for women and we see that work outside the home continues to seem natural to award it to men.
A false axiom is well known that ensures, for example, that women must be beautiful and men intelligent. In the same way, if we start to watch television we realize that women are used as a marketing object since it is very common to find beautiful models that emphasize the need to use this or that product depending on the question, for example, if it is a car, the advertising is aimed at men, if it is a beauty product, they are aimed at women who want to be as charming as the model who advertises it. Martín Serrano, a Spaniard who carried out a study of stereotypes on television, expressed “the mind of men and the body of women”.
We think that currently women can earn a salary thanks to the education they have received and are no longer only subject to the administration of the home and the care of their children, in any case discrimination continues, even if a man is equal to a woman, it is not they are considered equal for the purposes of assigning them a salary, nor are they considered equal to perform some tasks such as mechanics or electricity for example. Women should have the same opportunities to get a job.
We realize that, unfortunately, there are still companies where they do not want to hire women because at some point they may be mothers and will be entitled to a few months of disability, in addition to the fact that taking care of their children can distract them from the work for which they were hired.
Discrimination not only happens at the workplace level, it also occurs culturally or against people who do not have resources. It is really very hard to be a discriminated person and that nothing can be done. Therefore, we propose that all people are treated equally regardless of sex, race, religion, etc. that the work carried out is paid fairly and that those most affected be supported.
Bibliography
Alberdi I. The new Spanish family. Taurus, Madrid. 1999.
Garcìa Oyarzun, Ainhoa. Nuances about gender discrimination in the media. Posted on the Internet. June 2005.
Melin-Higgins, M. Coping with journalism. Gender in the newsrooms. Paper presented at a seminar on Gender and Communication held at the UAB in May 2001.
