Despite gender equality achievements, there are engrained preconceptions against both men and women – with serious repercussions. Stubborn early-grown ideas such as “girls are poor in arithmetic” or “girls are better at cooking” or “boys don’t cry” pave the way for sober statistics on the number of commercial and political women leaders and alarming facts about the rate of sexual abuse. Gender distortion is widely used in today’s society to refer to the preferential treatment of men – especially white, heterosexual men. It is frequently dubbed “sexism” and describes female discrimination on the basis of sex only. Gender differences in professional circumstances are most obvious.
Companies must ensure equal opportunities for men and women are guaranteed by recruitment and promotion procedures. Although many organizations state that unbiased recruitment, performance review, and promotion procedures are in place, these policies are not always thorough or efficiently applied. In order to limit the impact of unconscious sexual interference on recruitment decisions, systematic recruitment is essential. Structured interviews ensure the evaluation of all candidates on the basis of relevant and established working performance criteria. The candidates’ comparative assessments can help to decrease gender inequality in accordance with clear criteria. Analysis of data trends and the identification of gender gaps can show unconscious distortion. The potential areas for intervention can be identified as these gaps. Stereotypes and prejudices might make it difficult to interpret and deduce the observed results objectively. It is more likely that stereotypic bias will arise when the sex mix of the workforce is imbalanced or when some persons are in token positions. Gender stratification can lead to generalizations on the role of gender in determining which persons can occupy particular employment where leadership positions of one sex and the other are held.