GRSJ224/Discrimination of Muslim Women in the Workplace

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Discrimination

Discrimination is the act of treating a person or a group of people differently because of their racial differences, sexual identity, the clothing they wear, the language they speak, and/or the religion they have.As explained by Dr. Fred Pincus(1996), there exists three different groups of discrimination: Individual, Institutional, and Structural. Individual and institutional discrimination explains the actions/policies intended to have differential impact on group such as: the visible minorities, women, Aboriginal peoples, and people with disabilities. On the other hand, structural discrimination "refers to policies that are race or gender neutral in intent but that have negative effects on women, minorities, or both"(Pincus, 1996).

Muslim Women in the Workplace

As with time, rights for women in education and workplace opportunities has increased very dramatically. It wasn't until the late 60's that women were considered the rights to workplace equity with man. Before that women were radicalized and labeled, as only homemakers, child breaders, innocent, and dependent on only men. Eddy et al (2015) explains there has been great efforts made to forward the rights and freedom for women; as they are shown equal rights to men in workplace, and given paid maternity leave. There includes, Quebec's actions towards universal childcare, and paid leave supplements that creates greater, fair and free opportunities for women in the labour market. While these impacts have been made, Muslim women in Canada are still identified as vulnerable and still face discrimination in Canadian labour market. Around hiring positions, judgements are made about the way they dress, the language they speak or the religion they believe in, so where did diversity go, and what happened to Canada as a multicultural nation? Or maybe instead of asking what, we should be asking why, do we judge, racialize or label people a certain way because of their gender, sexualization, religion or race - when the women that works aside from you has the same education you have, works as hard as you do and is committed as you are, where does the confusion come in?

Intersectionality : Muslim Women against Social Class

While there has been great improvement for women as equals to men, and in specifics, equal for income, labour market, and job opportunities, there is are still difficult oppositions, that minority groups such as Muslim women, have to encounter. Reitz et al (2015) expresses that, “existing research and theory has shown that while gender inequality as reflected in the gender gap in labour force participation is often greater among Muslim immigrants, other religious groups also show a significant gender gap”. This portrays a flaw in our countries’ labour market, because no matter who their employees are, they shouldn’t be treated in this manner of disrespect. It is also added that, “[from] using data from the 2001 Canadian census and the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey, we find greater gender inequality in labour force participation among the newly growing religious minorities in Canada relative to mainstream Canadians” (Reitz et al. 2015). Reasons of family, religion and cultural responsibilities are added to this job opportunity gap for Muslim women; such as, “variations in levels of education, marital status and presence of children indicate that these variables could account for some of the lower labour force participation of women in that recently arrived religious minorities"(Reitz et al. 2015).

Summary

Around the world there are laws set in place against discrimination of any kind. In these purposes, Canada has laws against discrimination in workplace setting to create a fair and just place for citizens, including our countries' laws and programs to protect these rights. In particular, Muslim Women are still, to this day, discriminated against the way they look, dress, act or speak. In 2000, Women working with Immigrant Women were notified of discrimination cases of women wearing hijabs in the workplace. As such in 2001, WWIW created a study to identify the comments and allocations of discrimination against these particular women. Offensive comments such as, "told by employer that she should remove “head cap”, told by job search facilitator that her chances are limited at finding a job when she is wearing hijab"(4). These comments are not uncommon in the eyes of immigrant women, as they fight for their rights to citizenship, education and workplace, there needs to exist this discussion of communality, respect and care for all individuals or we lose the purpose of multiculturalism and human rights in this world. With such great advance to immigration to Canada, there still needs advance to scientific journals published in Canada for a greater and deeper understanding of this discrimination in this multicultural nation.

References

(1)Government of Canada Human Rights. (2018). Rights in the Workplace.

 Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-workplace.html

(2)Ng, E., Haq, R., & Tremblay, D. (2015). A review of two decades of employment equity in Canada: Progress and propositions. International Handbook on Diversity Management at Work,

 46-67. doi:10.4337/9780857939319.00008

(3)Pinkus, Fred. (1996). Discrimination Comes in Many Forms: Individual, Institutional, and Structural.American Behavioral Scientist,Vol 40(2), pp. 186 - 194.

 Retreived from https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0002764296040002009

(4)Jeffrey G. Reitz, Mai B. Phan & Rupa Banerjee (2015) Gender equity in Canada's newly growing religious minorities, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38:5, 681-699, DOI:

   10.1080/01419870.2014.901546

(5)Terrie C. Reeves, Arlise P. McKinney, Laila Azam, (2012) "Muslim women’s workplace experiences: implications for strategic diversity initiatives", Equality, Diversity and

 Inclusion: An International Journal, Vol.32 Issue: 1, pp.49-67, https://doi.org/10.1108/02610151311305614

(5) Unknown.(2001). No Hijab is Permitted Here. Retrieved from http://wwwwiw.org

 PDF copy: http://atwork.settlement.org/downloads/atwork/Accommodating_Hijab_Types_Discrimination.pdf