Corporate ethics referring class, race, and gender issues strongly differ across the Western world. While some companies seem quite friendly towards employees of a different race or gender, a certain amount of jobs come together with discrimination. Every now and then we hear that some friends of our friends have bosses who do not tolerate LGBT or people of color, for example, or which is worse – we work for these bosses ourselves. It is difficult to anticipate how many time and social changes have to pass until we live in a tolerant society, but it is easier to trace where workplace discrimination came from.
Apparently, it all began with social stratification. Division of society into the rich, the poor and the poor of a non-European race caused unequal access to the higher education. Before the Affirmative Action policy was applied to the higher education system, universities accepted students of color rather reluctantly. Consequently, those employers who got used to hire European Americans treat African, Asian and Latin Americans as a black sheep.
Gender discrimination came as a remnant of the earlier society. At the present moment, we are far from the epoch of suffragettes, and most women have the job which corresponds their qualification. Nevertheless, conservative minds who own some business may disagree that female employees are as ambitious and reliable as male. The positive thing is that today women feel less discriminated than they did a decade ago.
We cannot doubt the existence of social stratification and obsolete thinking, but inequality in the workplace is not actually universal. Numerous business women as well as lesbians, gays, and African American employees are satisfied with their jobs. They experience no offense or abuse from their managers and do not think about discrimination in the workplace.