Discrimination is a
different treatment to people that, allegedly, cannot fit in certain groups, in
this case, getting hired. This is a problem to our society since different
kinds of people can provide better things to companies and, at once, these last
can contribute to those persons to get a better opportunity of development in
life. There are different types of discrimination, but the one that this essay
is going to talk about is employment discrimination. This type of
discrimination refers to a different treatment from an employer to their
employees or the candidates for a vacant post just because of their identity
traits like nationality, ethnic origins and religion, or human aspects such as age,
sex, pregnancy and disability. All these things are discrimination causes. Female
population and needy people are the most discriminated when looking for a job,
but with the different types of employment discrimination, anyone could be an
easy target of it. This idea goes accompanied by stereotypes that categorize
people with misconceptions about how they are or how they are going to behave.
When we mention “Identity
traits” we can talk about the things that characterize you as a person; those
things that define you for the rest of your life and you cannot change. Ethnic
origins are another subject to discrimination because ethnic groups have
another customs, beliefs, habits, symbols, languages etc. that may not be liked
for the employers in a company. If you are an indigenous person, they may think
that you are probably poor, illiterate, not well educated or not enough
prepared for the job. The same thing happens when you are a foreign person
because they do not know you and just try to categorize you according to the
things they know about people from a specific country, but in this case it
depends on the job. In other jobs it could be a great plus that you are a
foreign person because of the contributions you can do for the company.
Nonetheless, here in México, we discriminate not only foreigners, but our own
people.
If you belong to a
not very common religion, you may be subject to discrimination too, because of
the different rules and regulations you have when you are not from a majoritarian
religion like Catholicism. It is a reality that Catholicism is the most
professed faith in México, and the others are minority religions. That is why
the employers hire people that profess the same faith of them, because it is
something that they know and the way they direct their own lives, although it
is just in words and not actions.
Human aspects are
other causes of discrimination and are also things that you cannot change. Sex,
for example, is one of the greatest causes, most of all if you are woman due to
being able to get pregnant. This is a really difficult one because you may
think that the companies have plenty of reasons to not hire a pregnant woman or
within a reproductive age, but the reality is that pregnancy is a human aspect
which belongs just to women and cannot be changed or averted. No one can judge
you for an aspect you inherited by nature and that is a part of your biology.
Not even for the decisions you want to face in life like becoming a mother in
the future.
Things are not
different if they have offspring. If a woman have children to support and the
employer knows it, that could mean bad news for her, since they think that she
is going to miss work every single time her children get sick or any kind of
affairs related to them. The contrasting part is that it may be true because
children need much more attention than older ones, but it is also true that she
is going to be constant in work because of the same reason she might miss work.
In fewer words, she really needs the job. She is going to miss work sometimes,
but she is going to last because of her little ones.
If you are a
beautiful woman, you can get more things than not pretty ones because of their
bodies or beautiful faces. I know that sounds stupid and makes no sense. When
you, as a woman, feel confident of your abilities, it should not matter if you
are pretty or not, because of your educational preparation, skills and values
that can be contributed to a job; regrettably, sex is what sells and they know
it, they prefer to see a beautiful girl nearby, instead of a well prepared
person.
In this point we can
talk about physical appearance. People that are too fat, elderly or have lots
of visible tattoos to be hired. Unfortunately physical appearance does matter
and quite much. Although the discrimination increases depending on the type of
job you are looking for. If you are looking for a job in which you have to deal
with people like in customer service, or in sales, your appearance does have a
great importance. And it is more probable that they got convinced if you are
good or not for the job just by staring at you from head to toe. Old people
have the same problem because they have many diseases due to their age. Their
health is not steady and that could mean a weak point for an applicant when
looking for a job. The employers do not want someone that gets sick frequently,
that represents waste of time for them, and at the same time elderly people is
still in need. Sometimes they live all alone, without their families, and they
are forced to go out and get some money to live in spite of their age.
When one person
suffers a chronic disease, it could represent impairment for the employers to
hire him or her. As we discussed before, they are not searching for people that
has a lot of health problems because those persons spend huge amounts of money
for their own well-being. And with the passing of time, their conditions can be
worsened. You may think that companies are intelligent for not hiring sick
people, but they can be seen as greater companies by giving opportunities
without judging and discriminating.
Something similar occurs when we talk about
sexual preference and the sexual identity.. The sexual
preference refers to the sex you are attracted to and the sexual identity
refers to the sex you are identified with. Your sexual preference could be
women or men, and you, at once, can identify yourself with one of them that may
not agree with your anatomy. For example, you may be a man that likes women but
identifies himself with women, in other words you may be a transgender person
and that is another subject to discrimination when getting a job. The employers
may think you likely have any sexual transmitted disease just because of your
sexual preferences or the life they imagine you follow based on your sexual
identity.
On the other hand, disable
people face a great difficulty when looking for a job, and comes from the fact
that they do need special attachments and spaces in the case of physical
disability that may not fit in the space of the company. When we talk about
mental disability it is a little different because mental disorders can be
controlled by medication, but if one person decides not to take his/her
medication, things can turn violent and unpredictable. Nevertheless, jobs with
disable persons hired exist, although those are not many.
In other cases
experience could be an obstacle in the quest if you do not have very much.
Obviously they are searching for people that are young but quite well
experienced –another thing that has any sense- it is illogical thinking that a
young person could reach the experience that you are demanding in that short
time. They say that it means less waste of time to hire an expert staff than a
young one not well experienced because it is supposed that the expert ones know
how to do the work in less time and do not need very much training. And here
comes the irony: how can I become an expert if you do not give me the
opportunity to learn.
Finally, to conclude
with this essay, we can say that discriminative companies are not doing well
treating people in different ways, since variety of people can provide more rewarding
things to them. Discrimination just segment and split people instead of taking
advantage of the abilities that you did not imagine someone could have.
References
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