Tag: week of 6/21

Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work

In the article Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work the authors Debra Langan, Carrie Sanders, and Tricia Agocs use their voices to bring awareness towards the issues women police officers from Canada often have in the workplace during their pregnancy and maternity leave.  The police force is already a predominantly male profession, so women are, like Kaplan and Donovan stated, an outsider group within the larger organization.  Due to the often time poor work environment, many people stated that the culture and management of the police force is currently inadequate and required so much needed improvement.  This is evident in the study conducted where “one in five [officers] … think about leaving their current police force from once a week to several times a week”.  This apprehension towards working on the police force could, for some women, be due to the mistreatment when pregnant and requiring maternity leave.  Even before addressing the mistreatment of women during pregnancy, the article mentioned how women usually work during their job on the force.  They often push themselves extremely hard, believing that they need to prove themselves more to show that they deserve to be there.  When considering becoming pregnant, one woman stated that it was very important to make sure that you have proved yourself because if you get pregnant too early, then you would be looked down upon by colleagues.  It was a fear for many policewomen that, by announcing their pregnancy, it meant judgment from everyone, and when a woman was on maternity leave, their coworkers often had to take over the mother’s work, which further caused poor feelings.  When returning to work, the policewoman now needs to reprove herself to try and remove herself from the new demoted position because after time off she might not be an adequate police officer anymore. 

citation:

Debra Langan, Carrie B. Sanders & Tricia Agocs (2017) Canadian Police Mothers and the Boys’ Club: Pregnancy, Maternity Leave, and Returning to Work, Women & Criminal Justice, 27:4, 235-249, DOI: 10.1080/08974454.2016.1256254

link: https://www-tandfonline-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/full/10.1080/08974454.2016.1256254

Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity

In Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity, Baker and Lucas claim that people who identify as non-heterosexual and non-cis gender will likely face bullying, discrimination, harassment, hurtful jokes and taunts, and ostracism throughout their careers. Through the use of previously conducted studies and statistics, this article examines the homophobic and transphobic attitudes of employers and coworkers. It was found in a 2007 study of a big United States company that 90% of respondents would not hire someone based off of their sexual orientation or consider them as their first choice (Baker and Lucas, 2017, p.8). Additionally, this article conducts a study that creates a platform for members of the LGBTQ community to share personal accounts of oppression they have endured at work. The authors advocate for widespread education regarding the struggles LGBTQ individuals face within the workplace for more inclusive and respectful workplace settings and provides protection strategies for safety and secuirty.

Kaplan and Donovan Summary

The issues concerning diversity and the lack of inclusion in the workplace have largely gone unnoticed or unaddressed.  Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan bring awareness to this problem in their book The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off;Specifically in chapter three they discuss the ways in which executives might unconsciously create biased and unequal workplaces and how companies should recognize these occurrences.  Kaplan and Donovan provide examples of these accidental prejudices, such as intent and impact, unconscious bias, insider-outsider dynamics, and levels of systems.  These are all things that hinder diversity and inclusion and through recognition of the aforementioned barriers, the workplace can begin to adjust and correct the wrong behavior. 

Kaplan and Donovan show these biases in action through an in-depth example of a day in the life of an executive Kim in a company.  Throughout the day, Kim countlessly shows that while she might have good intentions, she contributes heavily to creating a workplace in which she does not respect people who differ from her ideas of a hard worker: from evidence, an outgoing assertive male.  The sort of behavior that she exhibited was not inclusive and clearly necessary for assistance to create a safe space for all the workers in the company, especially minorities.