How colleges and universities should get involved to end the wage gap.
While colleges and universities are supposed to prepare students to enter the work force, the question remains: Why are American universities failing to teach women how to fight for their rights? Instead of higher-education institutions simply looking to uphold the status quo, they should be offering women the skills they will need to take on male-dominated workplaces. Here’s how colleges and universities should get involved to end the wage gap.
Higher education institutions should offer the legal, economic, political, and business coursework that will allow female students to advocate for themselves in the workforce, legal system, and politics. At the very least, colleges and universities should be offering career development training to teach women the best practices for accessing equal pay. They should be teaching women how to fight when they face unfair hiring procedures, biased workplaces, and unsatisfactory compensation.
Additionally, colleges and universities should take it upon themselves to educate their student bodies about healthcare benefits, and their legal rights to unpaid sick time for personal or family care. Institutions of higher education need to teach women which authorities they should report harassment or assault to, including incidents where employers offer the chance of career advancement in return for sexual favors.
Our American universities need to be teaching women of their worth and empowering them to fight for their full due. Overall, colleges and universities need to step up and become leaders in the fight for wage equality and family-friendly workplaces. By offering female students the education and tools that they will need to fight for their rights, higher education institutions can be the catalyst that helps bring about the gender equality that has eluded America for so long.
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