Choosing The Perfect Counsel

Gender discrimination is a serious issue, and it can have far-reaching effects on your life. Discrimination can stall your career, prevent you from being hired, or even cost you thousands of dollars in lost opportunities and lost salary. But how can you know if you are suffering from discrimination that is legally protected? To help you identify if a problem really exists and what to do about it, here are five signs to look for.

1. Inappropriate Interview Questions. Employers are allowed to ask your marital or family status, but they cannot make decisions based on the answers. You may sense a problem if you were asked — either prior to being hired or during an internal advancement interview — such things as whether or not you have small children or are thinking of having any. Questions like these tend to unfairly target women and mothers. 

2. High Turnover Rates. How often do people come and go from this company? High turnover in staff is often a sign that something is amiss within the company. While it may not be a discrimination problem, it is something to investigate. This is particularly telling if the high turnover rate tends to be among certain protected groups, especially your own demographic group. 

3. Assignment of Duties. Do you always seem to get an unfair or unsavory assignment? Are you capable of and have expressed a desire for prominent projects or assignments that could expand your job horizons? If you are consistently denied the ability to climb the corporate ladder, there may be a bias in how work is divvied up among employees. Talk with others in your protected group to see if they have experienced the same thing.  

4. Inappropriate Talk. What is the casual conversation and joking among staff or management in your workplace? Does it demean or engage in stereotypes of your gender? What about poking fun at the appearance of pregnant women? Are inappropriate pictures or artwork allowed? Are people of a certain gender belittled on a regular basis? If so, you should start taking note of this behavior, especially if you have asked it to stop. 

5. Salary Gaps. Are you paid less than a person of a different gender for equal work? This is hard to establish, as the "equal work" must fit the legal definition. But it's one of the most common gender discrimination methods. If you can establish that a pay gap exists for more than one person of your gender at this company, you may have found a clear pattern. 

Determining the likelihood that your employer is violating the law in showing any gender discrimination is important — not just for you but for all employees in the future. Learn more about the warning signs by consulting with a gender discrimination attorney in your area today.