Moving from industrial to technology-based business means workers must adapt to the changing needs of the workplace. Women’s increase in education and recent cracking (but not completely breaking) the glass ceiling is progress for gender equity in the workplace. Transgender workers are now provided recognition and support for their healthcare needs by many workplaces, including the U.S. military. However, people of color still experience discrimination based on their behavior and appearance. Dress codes that seek to standardize employees’ images to customers can be difficult for nonbinary and transgender workers. It’s interesting to note that different corporate dress codes for men and women are legal as long as they do not put an undue burden on one gender. In the 2006 case of Jespersen versus Harrah Operating Company Inc., “the appearance and grooming policies imposed equal burdens on both men and women bartenders because, while women were required to use makeup and men were forbidden to wear makeup, women were allowed to have long hair and men were required to have their hair cut to a length above the collar “ (Findlaw N.d.). Expectations for gender behavior in a job go far beyond grooming standards as workers can endure violence and sexual harassment due to gender normative expectations for appearance and behavior. One remedy to the issues discussed in this chapter would be federal parental leave, the kind enjoyed by workers in other developed nations worldwide. This has been found to strengthen worker stability and effectiveness.

8.8.1 Review of Key Terms

• blue collar: any hourly wage-based working class or manual position.
• boundary ambiguity: “is defined as the family not knowing who is in and who is out of the system” (Boss and Greenberg 1984).
• dual labor market theory: an explanation of how the primary and a secondary sectors of the labor market are upheld and based on discrimination, poverty, and power dynamics
• emotional labor: workers who hide their own emotions in the workplace.
• gender pay gap: pay inequity across genders.
• glass ceiling: an artificial, unseen, and often unacknowledged discriminatory barrier that prevents otherwise qualified people such as women and minorities from rising to positions of leadership and power, particularly within a corporation.
• glass cliff: purposeful promotion of women into positions with high risk for failure.
• glass escalator: quick movement from entry level to power holding, higher paying leadership jobs.
• harassment: unwelcome conduct based on any number of demographic variables.
• human trafficking: “a crime that involves exploiting a person for labor, services, or commercial sex” (DOJ N.d.).
• kin-keeping: effort to build and maintain relationships between family members.
• pink collar: jobs traditionally held by women.
• purple collar: transgender workers, sometimes used to encompass LGBTQ+ workers.
• role conflict: a situation in which contradictory, competing, or incompatible expectations are placed on an individual by two or more roles held at the same time.
• sandwich generation: people who support the needs of their children and parents at the same time.
• second shift: household duties that follow a paid work day, typically completed by women.
• sex work: contact of a sexual nature in exchange for something else, such as money, property, and even means of survival such as food or safety.
• sexual harassment: a specific type of harassment due to a person’s sex.
• slow violence: inequalities in society that occur slowly, such as over generations.
• sticky floor: refers to positions, typically held by women, where advancement to the next level of power is difficult.
• structural violence: pervasive inequalities in the structures of society such as politics, economics, and the legal system.
• white collar: 1. (adjective) Of or relating to individuals who work in offices or other professional settings; 2. (adjective) Of or relating to work done by such individuals.