Social Commentary

Social Commentary

Here the social issue would be gender discrimination. Titled “Men or women, who should lead?” this article describes gender discrimination mainly in the workplace. Of men and women, who should be the one to take the lead? Should it be the men with their stereotypical sternness or should it be women with their fabled woman’s touch? I say, let the best person suited for the job win.
In a workplace, in any workplace, life is extremely harsh. Any person, be it a man or women, could break easily under the stress of work life, especially if the workplace is inundated with traps of gender discrimination. This harsh life serves to weed out all those who are not the “fittest and fastest” in a version of Darwin’s natural selection. It leaves those who are the fittest standing at the top and all others below. Although some might comment that this “selection” is impartial as quoted from the aforementioned article, “I had to prove myself not only to be as good as the men to get ahead, you had to be twice as good, if not three times as good”. However, what I believe is that this percentage of women who are twice as good or three times as good are already in the top 10 percent, same as the men who work 3 times less than the women but are the top 10% of their gender. For example, working women are extremely outnumbered by the men; however they are more highly qualified than the average working man.
Those who believe that women are indeed the weaker sex are fairly mistaken. Even Albert Einstein, the famous scientist greatly celebrated today, commented that his wife was “a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am.” Women in the workplace are by no means “softer” in any sense than men. The aforementioned article mentioned about working pregnant mothers. Some companies refuse to give the mothers maternity leave and instead ask the mother to leave the company as they think it too much of a “hassle”. However, they much so much more time finding someone qualified enough and experienced enough to take over the vacancy and experience so much more trouble with the newbie tries to get a hold of things. Oh, the irony. If they can bother to wait to find another person to fit the job, why not just wait for the mother to come back. After all, by hiring another person, the company is losing valuable expertise which in today’s job market, they cannot afford to lose.
There are also presumptions on the part of the employer. As in the aforementioned article, the employer feels that women cannot travel much, will not stay in the job for long, totally ignoring the woman’s feelings and thoughts about this selection process. Although it is true that prospective employees hardly get any say in how they are selected however, they should be allowed a chance for constructive criticism in order to allow their employer to pick the best prospective candidate for the job. Although this is perhaps to some an idealist notion and not realistic at all, it as a goal worth working towards. Just like discrimination, total eradication of gender discrimination is impossible yet it is a goal worth working towards.
In conclusion, I would like to summarize that although there is gender discrimination in the workplace, which is impossible to eradicate, yet the best will always win and triumph over the inferiors, no matter the gender of the person.