BY: Syed Daniyal Ahmed Qadri
In this fast-moving and growing world where equal rights and opportunities are given to all genders, we also find some corporate organizations in some states and countries where there is still a typical and conservative mind-set that people possess related to gender biases.
“Gender parity is not just good for women, it is good for society.” – Angelica Fuentes
These people treat male and female employees in such a typical and different way that it seems to be treating two different creatures. This mind-set is basically created by lack of education and that male-dominance factor that their forefathers have created.
Even some of the renowned organizations, like Faysal Bank from Pakistan have introduced a dress-code policy that is completely gender-biased. As it tells the female employees to wear loose-fitting dress and hijab, don’t wear too much makeup and even they were given a note on wearing some specific type of shoes/sandals. There is no such policy and instruction for male employees regarding this.
Not only organizations in Pakistan, but in some of the other countries like Jordan, Srilanka, South Korea, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Oman, etc. females are dealing with the same issue of gender biases/discrimination in corporate sectors on both micro and macro levels.
Apart from corporate organizations, some of the educational institutions are firing their female staff for a so-called violation of their dress code policy. In August 2011, a local school in Lahore fired a teacher named Aasia Zubair as the administration accused her of being “too attractive” to teach students of secondary education. There are many more examples related to this in many states.
It’s the time to think that what are we doing? Where the rest of the countries are innovating themselves, then there are some countries who are degrading and discriminating against females in corporate organizations due to their so-called cultural values and by not giving them equal opportunities. If we encounter such sort of cases, then as a responsible citizen, it is the responsibility of each and every individual to stand against it and raise the slogan of equal rights and opportunities for every gender.
