Regardless of the countless social breakthroughs made in history, one thing has always remained constant: the fact that inequality including but not limited to gender and racial inequality, has never successfully been abolished. In modern times, a single difference can result in the loss of a major opportunity.
For example, in business corporations, gender is often the prime determiner of whether or not an individual receives the job. More often than not, computer-based corporations have a workforce consisting of mainly males. Furthermore, even when a woman is granted a job within the company, chances are that their annual salary or benefits are mere pieces of what men receive.
You may wonder, “how often does this happen?” The answer: almost everywhere. Game companies that you support, sports organizations that you admire, even government-based occupations are inherently stereotypical. Many of you know the game “League of Legends,” one of the most popular and well-known games released in history. While everything seems innocent from the start, the parent company, Riot Games, was recently criticized for its lack of gender inequality support. An employee known as Lacy recently published a piece on the matter, highlighting a social experiment she conducted to determine how her gender was affecting her status in the company.
“ After an idea she really believed in fell flat during a meeting, she asked a male colleague to present the same idea to the same group of people days later. He was skeptical, but she insisted that he give it a shot. “Lo and behold, the week after that, [he] went in, presented exactly as I did and the whole room was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing.’ [His] face turned beet red and he had tears in his eyes,” said Lacy. “They just didn’t respect women” (Mashable).
The typical student has big dreams coupled with the means to fulfill their dreams. They work hard, study hard, participate within their community, all to get accepted into the most prestigious university possible and have the most financial success down the line. What they see is the good opportunities and the even better salary, yet the struggles of a certain job is most commonly hid from plain sight. From an early age, students work to be different, to have a voice among their group of peers. Their identity is what is most dear and precious to them, whether it be in the form of religion, race, gender, beliefs, etc. They are taught to accept such differences, and generally, the notion is successful. Yet in a workplace, where an individual is solely a subset of a much larger corporation, oftentimes their identity is not respected or upheld. Issues like racial inequality, sexism, and religious intolerance run rampant and without mediation.
It is apparent that one individual themselves is unable to drastically affect the workforce environment, yet the unspoken lessons we learn, specifically the embracing of differences, ought to be remembered and utilized when we transition into adulthood.
Source:
Beck, Kellen. “'League of Legends' Developers Accused of Fostering 'Culture of Sexism'.”
Mashable, Mashable, 7 Aug. 2018, mashable.com/article/riot-games-sexual-harassment/.