Yuanji Zhao A03 Week6

Yuanji Zhao
ASA A03
Week 6



In the reading of "Opening the Box: An Asian American Scholar's Fight" written by Akiko Takeyama, it is easy to understand how she felt when being placed under a discriminating situation. She described what her went through during her academic road with a fairly realistic tone. It seems like no matter how hard she works, how excellent she is, she still cannot win her co-workers' respect and a friendly academic environment for her. Although Akiko only illustrated the unfair and discriminating situation in academic environment, the virus of discrimination has spreaded a lot further than just in academic field.


For instance, one of the most arguable points when talking about discrimination to female in career is how pregancy impacts their career. "Although it is illegal to discriminate based on pregancy, many women I spoke to for this piece feared that showing up to an interview with a visible belly, or even asking about maternity policies, would affect an employer's hiring decision." , this is a statement given by Charlotte Cowles, a professional journalist towards women discrimination. From her interview, most female applicants show worries to their job opportunities considering of pregancy. Some of them were declined from the job with other reasons after exposing pregancy. Given the fact the anxiety and multiple physical disturbances caused by pregancy can be controlled, some female applicants said they were declined mainly due to the time of maternity leave.
From the perspective of employers, it is not wrong for them to achieve maximum productive capability for their companies, which may go against the pregant applicants. Since employers have the power to decide who they want to have, the discrimination to pregant applicants may always exist even with reasonable covering. Therefore, it is necessary for US government to come up with some subsidy policies for companies to allow them to remain acceptable productive capabilty even with the shortage of maternity leave. To reduce the discrimination towards female job applicants as much as possible, it is not effective for the government to just publish some laws and say the discrimination is not allowed. There have to be some substantial and economic changes towards the hiring company to help reduce the possibility of discrimination.
In the end, I think the fighting towards discrimination is kind like losing wight. When people wants to lose weight, they usually keep excersing and ingesting less calorie at the same time. Missing either one may lead to the failure. For eliminating discrimination, it is not enough to just tell people how harmful it is, but give them benefits when they choose not to discriminate.

Reference

Charlotte Cowles-"7 Women on Getting Hired While Pregnant"- June 1,2018-https://www.thecut.com/2018/06/getting-job-while-pregnant.html